was a square mile or two of it. We could easily have been lost in it but
for our two everlasting landmarks--Mount Tamalpais across the water to
the north, and in the south Lone Mountain. Lone Mountain was our
Calvary--a green hill that loomed above the graves where slept so many
who were dear to us. The cross upon its summit we had often visited in
our holiday pilgrimages. They were _holydays_, when our childish feet
toiled hopefully up that steep height; for that cross was the beacon
that lighted the world-weary to everlasting rest.

And so we crossed the desert, over our shoetops in sand; climbing one
hill after another, only to slide or glide or ride down the yielding
slope on the farther side. Meanwhile the fog came in like a wet blanket.
It swathed all the landscape in impalpable snow; it chilled us and it
thrilled us, for there was danger of our going quite astray in it; but
by and by we got into the edge of the town, and what a very ragged edge
it was in the dim long ago! Once in the edge of the town, we were
masters of the situation: you couldn't lose us even in the dark. And so
ended the outing of our merry crew,--merry though weary and worn; yet
not so worn and weary but we could raise at parting a glad "Hoorah for
Health, Happiness, and the Hills of Home!"




VIII.

THE MISSION DOLORES


I have read somewhere in the pages of a veracious author how, five or