noisely among the rocks and over its old courses, giving friendly
greetings of recognition to the old water-marks and dashing a playful
wave now and then about the worn roots of the enormous laurel tree whose
branches reached high above and far around.

Beneath the tree's protecting limbs, a little cabin, of roughest
workmanship, found shelter from the wind, or shade from the intense heat
of summer; the house was built almost entirely of logs, excepting the
upper part where boards had been used and through which were cut the
three windows which served to light the single room it contained.

This Christmas Eve, only the dark form of the cabin was to be seen with
the tall adobe chimney built up the outside; the smoke blew, beaten here
and there, about the roof till it finally disappeared, a cloud of
ghosts, among the swaying branches of the laurel tree.

By day in the sunshine, no pleasanter spot could be found than the
little cabin and broad fields of Crescimir the Illyrian, no lovelier
view of the rich Napa Valley could be had than from the hill where
Crescimir's cattle grazed and no happier home could have been found in
all the Californias than his, had he not been so alone, without a friend
and far from his native country.

On the very day which opens this story, one might have stood upon the
bridge and watched the lazy flowing of the river on whose dull green
surface all the spans and bars were shadowed, and on the buttress seen
the sunshine in ever changing, trembling glints of gold. Dead thistles
were on the bank rustling in the breeze and the long tules by the
water-side, some broken, others upright, waved gracefully, moved by both
wind and current. To the left hand on both sides of the arroyo which