They were planning at the school for a May Celebration. They would go clear up the bay in a boat to San Pablo, and have a picnic and a dance out of doors, and come home in the moonlight.

So it was a little late, and Bruno stood watching out for her. "Good old fellow!" she said, with a pat. Miss Holmes had a visitor, she saw through the open window. She went round by the kitchen.

Bruno tugged at her skirt.

"What is it, Bruno?"

His eyes had a sorrowful look, she thought. "What is it, what do you want?"

He tugged again at her skirt.

"Well, come on. Though I've stacks of lessons to learn. Look at all those books."

She dropped them on the step, and followed the dog. Up the winding path, and now there was water enough for a musical trickle over the stones.

There was Balder's basin, where he was so fond of disporting himself after the rains filled it up. Oh, what was that lying on the side, that still white thing glistening in the sunshine!

"Bruno?" She stamped her foot and looked upbraidingly at him. Had he been playing roughly with her pet? Oh, what was the meaning of these blood-stained feathers about his neck! She flung herself down beside him. The eyes were dull and partly closed. She stroked the white feathers with tender hands.

"Bruno, I shall never love you again, never! Oh, how could you!"

He took a few steps away. Then he dragged some tumbled gray thing to her feet. Why, that was a fox, with his bushy tail. They had been hunted a good deal and were giving civilization a rather wide berth.

She looked at the dog, who told the story with his eyes as he glanced from one to the other. She reached up and put her arms about his neck.

"Oh, Bruno, I'm sorry I blamed you. I thought perhaps you were a little rough, but you cared so for my beautiful Balder that I might have known you couldn't hurt him! And that wicked, wretched fox! Well, I am glad he has his deserts. But that will not bring back my dear Balder. Oh, have you gone to join the old heroes in Valhalla? For I can't think you were just a common bird. You would have gone back to your kind if you had been. I ought to write a lament for you."

Pablo was coming up the road with a back load of brush. But he dropped it in dismay as she called.

Bruno pawed the fox, then gave it a push, and glanced up at Pablo.

"You see—the fox must have crept up here, and seized my dear Balder by the neck and killed him. And Bruno made him pay for it."

When Pablo was deeply moved or amazed, he went back to his Mexican patois, that Bruno had come to understand very well, and nodded sagaciously.

"The thief! The murderer! Last year, you know, your uncle and I shot two of the bloody thieves over the ridge there, and I've not seen one since. Bruno seized him by the throat, and has torn him well. Look at the brush—why, a lady could put it on her tippet. And the skin—I'll have that. We'll throw him out to feed the hawks. Oh, the poor gull! He was like folks, Missy, you had all trained him so much. Oh, don't cry so, Missy."

Bruno came up and rubbed her shoulder, licked her hand, and gave a low, mournful lament of sympathy.

Laverne rose and took the dead bird in her arms. The visitor had gone, and Miss Holmes stood out by the door, wondering. The procession took their way thither.

"The mean, sneaking brute, that he should have come just when I had gone. The bird was so fond of paddling round there. Strange that he never wanted to go with his kind, but most things want to keep by you, Missy."

They told the sad story over. Laverne laid the gull down tenderly on a bit of matting.

"Pablo, will you wash his neck and have him all clean and white?"

"My dear," Miss Holmes said, and clasped the child in her arms, letting her cry out her sorrow. She and Bruno went down to meet Uncle Jason presently. No grief, hardly a disappointment, had come near her until now. How could he comfort his darling? And he felt with Pablo that the bird had been almost human.

"I wonder," he said in the evening, "if you would like to have him mounted. There's an old Frenchman down in Rincon Street who does this to perfection. The birds look alive."

Laverne considered. "No, I believe I would rather have him buried. I should think how the sly fox crept up and dragged him out before he could turn to defend himself. We will put him in a box and bury him. Oh, Balder, I shall miss you so much."

"I think I could capture one easily."

"To be sure you could. They're stupid things," subjoined Pablo.

"But he wasn't. Uncle Jason, I think some wicked fairy changed him from something else, for he used to look at times as if he had a story in his eyes. No, I don't want another. And I should always be afraid of a fox."

He snuggled her up with his arm close about her. So they sat until the stars came out, twinkling like live spirits in the cloudless blue. It was warm, with all manner of odors in the air, and the hum of the city, lying below them, came up faintly. Oh, how he loved her. And he prayed there might never come any deeper sorrow to touch her tender heart.

Pablo dug a grave the next morning, and they buried Balder the beautiful. All day she dreamed of the Norse gods, and of Hermod, who took the journey to the barred gates of Hell, at Frigga's earnest persuasion, and how every rock, and tree and all living things wept for him, except one old hag, sitting in the mouth of a cavern, who refused because she hated him, and so Balder could not return. She was a little absent, and missed two or three questions, and Miss Bain asked her if her head ached, she made such an effort to keep the tears from her eyes.

So Balder slept under a straight young pine near the little lake they had made for him. Pablo skinned the fox with great zest, and made of it a fine rug, with a strip of black bearskin for a border.

She wondered whether she ought to feel merry enough to go on the May party. But the children insisted. The boat was a fine strong one, and there really was no danger; Uncle Jason was assured of that. Then it was such a glorious day. There was a fog early in the morning, and the fight between the golden arrows of the sun and the gray armor that came up out of the sea. Sometimes it did conquer, and came over the city, but this morning it was pierced here and there, and then torn to tatters, driven out beyond the strait, into the ocean.

Miss Bain took supervision of her scholars, and Miss Holmes had many charges not to let the little girl out of her sight a moment. There were a number of schools, but some of the children preferred the May walk, and the treat afterward. They started off with flags flying, and the young Geary Band had volunteered their services. There were a drum, two fifes, a cornet, and a French horn, and the boys began with the stirring patriotic tunes. But even here the old negro melodies had found their way, many of them pathetic reminders of the cotton fields of the South, that seemed to gain melody from the stretch of bay.

They passed Fort Point and Alcatraz Island, where the government was beginning magnificent defences, its high point looming up grandly. Angel Island, then almost covered with a forest of oak, yet oddly enough containing a fine quarry, where laborers were at work, hewing into the rock, almost under the shadow of the waving trees. Yerba Buena, with its fragrant odors blown about by the wind, smaller islands, big rocks rising out of the sea, the inhabitants being chiefly birds; vessels of nearly every description, and intent mostly upon trade, plied hither and thither. Here was another strait opening into San Pablo Bay, into which emptied creeks and rivers, the Sacramento washing down golden sands; and the San Joaquin. And up there was the wonderful land where the Argonauts were searching for treasure with less toil and anxiety than the elder Jason, though here, too, there were treachery and murder.

Almost by the strait there was a beautiful point of land jutting out in the water, and nearly covered with magnificent trees, that had grown so close together that the branches interlaced and made arches, while underneath were aisles, carpeted with fallen leaves and moss, that made you feel as if you were walking over velvet. You could see San Raphael and San Quentin, and the mountain range with the one high peak, as you looked westward; eastward there was, after the woodland, meadows of richest verdure, with their thousand blooms nodding gayly to each other, and softly gossiping, perhaps about these strange newcomers, who were presently to disturb their long, long possessorship. There the great, grand Sierras, that looked so near in the marvellously clear air.

They found a choice spot, and built a fire—it would not have been a picnic without that. There were boys, of course, though a girl was restricted to a brother or cousin. I fancy some cousins were smuggled in. They ran about; they were even young enough to play "tag," and "blind man in a ring," and "fox and geese," which was the greatest fun of all. Then they spread out their tablecloths on a level space, and though real paper plates and thin wooden ones had not come in yet, they had made some for themselves that answered the purpose. They were merry enough with jests and laughter.

Olive Personette was quite the heroine of the day. Miss Isabel's engagement to Captain Gilbert, who had been appointed to take some charge at Alcatraz, and had come of an old Californian family, beside being educated at West Point, was still a topic of interest, because there had been two other aspirants for her hand who had quarrelled and fought a duel, which was quite an ordinary matter in those days, though frowned upon by the best people. So neither had won her heart. One was lying in the hospital, the other had fled northward. But it had made quite a stir.

Of course, she had asked Victor, importuned him, though he had meant all the time to come. He was a fine, manly fellow now, and the girls did flock about him. He had such a grave, courteous manner, and never descended into rudeness, though he was quick enough at fun, and it does not need an intricate order of wit to amuse before one is twenty.

Olive picked out the most prominent girls for him, and kept him busy enough. But he managed now and then to pass Laverne and say a word to show that she was in his mind.

"I think Isola wanted to come very much," he announced to her once. "She's taking such an interest in the pleasures that girls have, and she has grown stronger. Father is planning some day to take a sail all around the bay, just a little party of us, and we want you and Miss Holmes."

That was such a delight. She did not refuse to talk to other boys, but she liked the girls better. Her rather secluded life had not given her so much interest in hunting and fishing and ball-playing and race-running. Then on Sunday there was always horse-racing up on the track by the old Mission. Church-going people, not really members, but those who considered it the proper thing to pay a decorous attention to religion, went to church in the morning and drove out in the afternoon. Throngs of fine carriages, and handsomely dressed ladies, men on horseback, with enough of the old-style attire to stamp them as Mexican, Spanish, or the more than half Old Californian. Many of the more successful ones began to plume themselves on a sort of aristocracy.

The boys knew the favorite horses, some of their fathers owned a fast trotter. But somehow she did not care much to talk about them, though she had gone out occasionally with Uncle Jason, and it was exciting to witness the trials of speed. But she liked better to jog about on Pelajo and talk in the lovely by-paths they were always finding.

After the repast they swung in hammocks and talked over plans, or rambled about, then the band played for dancing. No gathering would have been perfect without that. Of course, they flirted a little, that was in the young blood, but they came home merry, and had not disputed unduly about their respective admirers.

Victor found time to say that he should come over next Saturday. "We'll have a nice time, all to ourselves," he whispered, and she glanced up with delighted eyes.

All her life thus far had been very quiet, in spite of the fact that she was in such a turbulent place, and with all sorts of people, gathered from the ends of the earth; where seldom a day passed without some tragedy. And it seemed as if the city was coming nearer and nearer, though it went southward, too, and all along the bay, docks and wharves and warehouses were springing up in a night.

Victor came over the following Saturday as he had promised. They sat under the pine tree and wrote verses to Balder's memory. Victor had found a volume of Scandinavian legends and poems, and they were fascinated with it.

"Of course, we can't write anything like that," she said simply, "but you notice these do not rhyme. Do you not think it really grander, tenderer?"

"I heard a voice that cried

'Balder the Beautiful

Is dead, is dead!

And through the misty air,

Passed like the mournful cry

Of sunward sailing cranes.'"