Some three-quarters of an hour later the train had set them down
at San Bruno--nothing more than a road-house, the headquarters for
duck-shooters and fishermen from the city. However, Blix and
Condy were the only visitors. Everybody seemed to be especially
nice to them on that wonderful morning. Even the supercilious
ticket-seller at the San Francisco depot had unbent, and wished
them good luck. The conductor of the train had shown himself
affable. The very brakeman had gone out of his way to apprise
them, quite five minutes ahead of time, that "the next stop was
their place." And at San Bruno the proprietor of the road-house
himself hitched up to drive them over to the lake, announcing that
he would call for them at "Richardson's" in time for the evening
train.

"And he only asked me four bits for both trips," whispered Condy
to Blix as they jogged along.

The country was beautiful. It was hardly eight o'clock, and the
morning still retained much of the brisk effervescence of the
early dawn. Great bare, rolling hills of gray-green, thinly
scattered with live-oak, bore back from the road on either hand.
The sky was pale blue. There was a smell of cows in the air, and
twice they heard an unseen lark singing. It was very still. The
old buggy and complacent horse were embalmed in a pungent aroma of
old leather and of stables that was entrancing; and a sweet smell
of grass and sap came to them in occasional long whiffs. There
was exhilaration in the very thought of being alive on that
odorous, still morning. The young blood went spanking in the
veins. Blix's cheeks were ruddy, her little dark-brown eyes