Billy stiffened, a forbidding expression springing into his eyes.
"What have I done now?" their hostess laughed.
"I ain't got around yet to tradin' on my wife's looks," he rumbled gruffly.
"Right you are. The only trouble is that you, both of you, are fifty years behind the times. You're old Ameriean. How you ever got here in the thick of modern conditions is a miracle. You're Rip Van Winkles. Who ever heard, in these degenerate times, of a young man and woman of the city putting their blankets on their backs and starting out in search of land? Why, it's the old Argonaut spirit. You're as like as peas in a pod to those who yoked their oxen and held west to the lands beyond the sunset.
I'll wager your fathers and mothers, or grandfathers and grandmothers, were that very stock."
Saxon's eyes were glistening, and Billy's were friendly once more. Both nodded their heads.
"I'm of the old stock myself," Mrs. Mortimer went on proudly. "My grandmother was one of the survivors of the Donner Party. My grandfather, Jason Whitney, came around the Horn and took part in the raising of the Bear Flag at Sonoma. He was at Monterey when John Marshall discovered gold in Sutter's mill-race. One of the streets in San Francisco is named after him."
"I know it," Billy put in. "Whitney Street. It's near Russian Hill. Saxon's mother walked across the Plains."
"And Billy's grandfather and grandmother were massacred by the Indians," Saxon contributed. "His father was a little baby boy, and lived with the Indians, until captured by the whites. He didn't even know his name and was adopted by a Mr. Roberts."
"Why, you two dear children, we're almost like relatives," Mrs.
Mortimer beamed. "It's a breath of old times, alas! all forgotten in these fly-away days. I am especially interested, because I've catalogued and read everything covering those times. You--" she indicated Billy, "you are historical, or at least your father is.
I remember about him. The whole thing is in Bancroft's History.
It was the Modoc Indians. There were eighteen wagons. Your father was the only survivor, a mere baby at the time, with no knowledge of what happened. He was adopted by the leader of the whites."
"That's right," said Billy. "It was the Modocs. His train must have ben bound for Oregon. It was all wiped out. I wonder if you know anything about Saxon's mother. She used to write poetry in the early days."
"Was any of it printed?"
"Yes," Saxon answered. "In the old San Jose papers."
"And do you know any of it?"
"Yes, there's one beginning:
'Sweet as the wind-lute's airy strains Your gentle muse has learned to sing, And California's boundless plains Prolong the soft notes echoing.'"
"It sounds familiar," Mrs. Mortimer said, pondering.
"And there was another I remember that began:
'I've stolen away from the crowd in the groves, Where the nude statues stand, and the leaves point and shiver,'--
"And it run on like that. I don't understand it all. It was written to my father--"
"A love poem!" Mrs. Mortimer broke in. "I remember it. Wait a minute... Da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da--STANDS--
"'In the spray of a fountain, whose seed-amethysts Tremble lightly a moment on bosom and hands, Then drip in their basin from bosom and wrists.'
"I've never forgotten the drip of the seed-amethysts, though I don't remember your mother's name."
"It was Daisy--" Saxon began.
"No; Dayelle," Mrs. Mortimer corrected with quickening recollection.
"Oh, but nobody called her that."
"But she signed it that way. What is the rest?"
"Daisy Wiley Brown."
Mrs. Mortimer went to the bookshelves and quickly returned with a large, soberly-bound volume.
