THE DEPARTURE Ambrose Thompson opened his front door and looked out. It was May, the sun had just risen over Pennyroyal, and before him lay Kentucky's carnival of spring. The boy drew a deep breath that seemed to rise and quiver over his face like a breeze coming away at the end of his long, curiously emotional nose. "Glory, what a day!" he whispered; "seems about good enough to eat!" And then he vanished, only to reappear five minutes... more...

They had seen the fog rolling down the coast shortly after the Maggie had rounded Pilar Point at sunset and headed north. Captain Scraggs has been steamboating too many unprofitable years on San Francisco Bay, the Suisun and San Pablo sloughs and dogholes and the Sacramento River to be deceived as to the character of that fog, and he remarked as much to Mr. Gibney. "We'd better turn back to Halfmoon Bay and tie up at the dock," he added.... more...

THE way led along upon what had once been the embankment of a railroad. But no train had run upon it for many years. The forest on either side swelled up the slopes of the embankment and crested across it in a green wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrow as a man's body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway. Occasionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing through the forest-mould, advertised that the rail and the ties still remained.... more...