huts in the bay on that side, a row of
ashy-colored gulls sunned themselves, and blinked at us sleepily as we
drifted slowly out of the channel, our breeze cut off by the Mesa that
hemmed us in on the right. I have told you that I did not much pretend
to seamanship, but I was not sorry that I had taken passage on the
Lively Polly, for there is always something novel and fascinating to me
in coasting a region which I have heretofore known only by its hills,
canons, and sea-beaches. The trip is usually made from Bolinas Bay to
San Francisco in five or six hours, when wind and tide favor; and I
could bear being knocked about by Captain Booden for that length of
time, especially as there was one other hand on board--"Lanky" he was
called--but whether a foremast hand or landsman I do not know. He had
been teaching school at Jaybird Canon, and was a little more awkward
with the running rigging of the Lively Polly than I was. Captain Booden
was, therefore, the main reliance of the little twenty-ton schooner,
and if her deck-load of firewood and cargo of butter and eggs ever
reached a market, the skilful and profane skipper should have all the
credit thereof.

The wind died away, and the sea, before ruffled with a wholesale
breeze, grew as calm as a sheet of billowy glass, heaving only in long,
gentle undulations on which the sinking sun bestowed a green and golden
glory, dimmed only by the white fog-bank that came drifting slowly up
from the Farralones, now shut out from view by the lovely haze. Captain
Booden gazed morosely on the western horizon, and swore by a big round
oath that we should not have a capful of wind if that fog-bank did not
lift. But we were fairly out of the bay; the Mesa was lessening in the
distance, and as we drifted slowly southward the red-roofed buildings
on its level rim grew to look like toy-houses, and we heard the dull
moan of the ebb-tide on Duxbury Reef on our starboard bow. The sea grew
dead calm and the wind fell quite away, but still we drifted southward,
passing Rocky Point and peering curiously into Pilot Boat Cove, which
looked so strangely unfamiliar to me from the sea, though I had fished
in its trout-brooks many a day, and had hauled driftwood from the rocky
beach to Johnson's ranch in times gone by. The tide turned after
sundown, and Captain Booden thought we ought to get a bit of wind then;
but it did not come, and the fog crept up and up the glassy sea,
rolling in huge wreaths of mis