ing news of the turbulent world away below there; and perhaps
once in the summer, a salt fog pouring overhead with its tale of the
Pacific.

A STARRY DRIVE

In our rule at Silverado, there was a melancholy interregnum. The queen
and the crown prince with one accord fell sick; and, as I was sick to
begin with, our lone position on Mount Saint Helena was no longer
tenable, and we had to hurry back to Calistoga and a cottage on the
green. By that time we had begun to realise the difficulties of our
position. We had found what an amount of labour it cost to support life
in our red canyon; and it was the dearest desire of our hearts to get a
China-boy to go along with us when we returned. We could have given him
a whole house to himself, self-contained, as they say in the
advertisements; and on the money question we were prepared to go far.
Kong Sam Kee, the Calistoga washerman, was entrusted with the affair;
and from day to day it languished on, with protestations on our part and
mellifluous excuses on the part of Kong Sam Kee.

At length, about half-past eight of our last evening, with the waggon
ready harnessed to convey us up the grade, the washerman, with a
somewhat sneering air, produced the boy. He was a handsome, gentlemanly
lad, attired in rich dark blue, and shod with snowy white; but, alas! he
had heard rumours of Silverado. He knew it for a lone place on the
mountain-side, with no friendly wash-house near by, where he might smoke
a pipe of opium o' nights with other China-boys, and lose his little
earnings at the game of tan; and he first backed out for more money; and
then, when that demand was satisfied, refused to come point blank. He
was wedded to his wash-houses; he had no taste for the rural life; and
we must go to our mountain servantless. It must have been near half an
hour before we reached that conclusion, standing in the midst of
Calistoga high street under the stars, and the China-boy and Kong Sam
Kee singing their pigeon English in the sweetest voices and with the
most musical inflections.

We were not, however, to return alone; we brought with us a painter
guest, who proved to be a most good-natured comrade and a capital hand
at an omelette. I do not know in which capacity he was most valued--as a
cook or a companion; and he did excellently well in both.

The Kong Sam Kee negotiation had delayed us unduly; it must have been
half-past nine before we left Calis