rosy-red, and the golden rim of the sun, showing above the horizon,
found me lying helpless and motionless among the clam-shells.

As in a dream, I saw the familiar mainsail of the _Reindeer_ as she
slipped out of San Rafael Creek on a light puff of morning air. This
dream was very much broken. There are intervals I can never recollect on
looking back over it. Three things, however, I distinctly remember: the
first sight of the _Reindeer's_ mainsail; her lying at anchor a few
hundred feet away and a small boat leaving her side; and the cabin stove
roaring red-hot, myself swathed all over with blankets, except on the
chest and shoulders, which Charley was pounding and mauling
unmercifully, and my mouth and throat burning with the coffee which Neil
Partington was pouring down a trifle too hot.

But burn or no burn, I tell you it felt good. By the time we arrived in
Oakland I was as limber and strong as ever,--though Charley and Neil
Partington were afraid I was going to have pneumonia, and Mrs.
Partington, for my first six months of school, kept an anxious eye upon
me to discover the first symptoms of consumption.

Time flies. It seems but yesterday that I was a lad of sixteen on the
fish patrol. Yet I know that I arrived this very morning from China,
with a quick passage to my credit, and master of the barkentine
_Harvester_. And I know that to-morrow morning I shall run over to
Oakland to see Neil Partington and his wife and family, and later on up
to Benicia to see Charley Le Grant and talk over old times. No; I shall
not go to Benicia, now that I think about it. I expect to be a highly
interested party to a wedding, shortly to take place. Her name is Alice
Partington, and, since Charley has promised to be best man, he will have
to come down to Oakland instead.