gher; behind the protecting spur a
gigantic accumulation of cottony vapour threatened, with every second,
to blow over and submerge our homestead; but the vortex setting past the
Toll House was too strong; and there lay our little platform, in the
arms of the deluge, but still enjoying its unbroken sunshine. About
eleven, however, thin spray came flying over the friendly buttress, and
I began to think the fog had hunted out its Jonah after all. But it was
the last effort. The wind veered while we were at dinner, and began to
blow squally from the mountain summit; and by half-past one, all that
world of sea-fogs was utterly routed and flying here and there into the
south in little rags of cloud. And instead of a lone sea-beach, we found
ourselves once more inhabiting a high mountain-side, with the clear
green country far below us, and the light smoke of Calistoga blowing in
the air.

This was the great Russian campaign for that season. Now and then, in
the early morning, a little white lakelet of fog would be seen far down
in Napa Valley; but the heights were not again assailed, nor was the
surrounding world again shut off from Silverado.

THE TOLL HOUSE

The Toll House, standing alone by the wayside under nodding pines, with
its streamlet and water-tank; its backwoods, toll-bar, and well-trodden
croquet ground; the ostler standing by the stable door, chewing a straw;
a glimpse of the Chinese cook in the back parts; and Mr. Hoddy in the
bar, gravely alert and serviceable, and equally anxious to lend or
borrow books;--dozed all day in the dusty sunshine, more than half
asleep. There were no neighbours, except the Hansons up the hill. The
traffic on the road was infinitesimal; only, at rare intervals, a couple
in a waggon, or a dusty farmer on a spring-board, toiling over "the
grade" to that metropolitan hamlet, Calistoga; and, at the fixed hours,
the passage of the stages.

The nearest building was the schoolhouse, down the road; and the
school-ma'am boarded at the Toll House, walking thence in the morning to
the little brown shanty, where she taught the young ones of the
district, and returning thither pretty weary in the afternoon. She had
chosen this outlying situation, I understood, for her health. Mr. Corwin
was consumptive; so was Rufe; so was Mr. Jennings, the engineer. In
short, the place was a kind of small Davos: consumptive folk consorting
on a hilltop in the most unbroke