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"It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to Napa Valley or to Monterey to-morrow," said I. "Mamie, go and get your things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you are, take a sheet of paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to Texas. Mamie, you were right, my dear; I was rich all the time, and didn't know it."
He reminded me of a remark I made to him once, when pulling him ashore in the boat, when he was commandante at the Presidio. I learned that the two Vallejos, Guadalupe and Salvador, owned, at an early time, nearly all Napa and Sonoma, having princely estates. But they have not much left.
We camped beside the little hotel, and the next morning were for the first time permitted to enjoy a sample of the proverbially generous California hospitality, when the landlord invited our entire company into his hostelry for breakfast. Our entrance into California was in Nevada County, thence through Placer, Sacramento, Solano and Napa, and into Sonoma.
Now and then, in the early morning, a little white lakelet of fog would be seen far down in Napa Valley; but the heights were not again assailed, nor was the surrounding world again shut off from Silverado.
Three counties, Napa County, Lake County, and Sonoma County, march across its cliffy shoulders. Its naked peak stands nearly four thousand five hundred feet above the sea; its sides are fringed with forest; and the soil, where it is bare, glows warm with cinnabar. Life in its shadow goes rustically forward.
On Friday morning Jerry, awakening, perceived his wife half-hidden in the great, rose-colored window draperies, barefoot, still in her nightgown, and reading a paper. "Jerry," said she, very quietly, "can we go home today? I'm worried. Some of the Napa track has been washed away and they say the water's being pushed back. Can we get the nine o'clock train?" "But, darling, it must be eight now."
However, it is not certain that Halpin Frayser came to his death by exposure. He had been all day in the hills west of the Napa Valley, looking for doves and such small game as was in season.
Two hours end this first voyage of a new life. At the embarcadero of Yerba Buena the party descends. They are met by a procession of all the notables of the mission and Presidio. Hardy riders and ladies, staid matrons and blooming senoritas, have gathered also from Santa Clara, Napa, and Sonoma. The one government brig is crowded with a merry party from Monterey.
In 1915 there was living at the Soldiers' Home in the Napa Valley an octogenarian, last surviving member of the Keystone Club, who had helped to dig Scotty's grave. In the middle grave by the Middle Yuba lies the body of Robert Palmer. The third grave is that of Sherwood.
All this time Napa, our destination, is close at hand, but not likely to be reached for twenty or thirty minutes to come. We turn and turn again, and are lost to sight among the trees, or behind a barn, and are continually greeted by the citizens, who have come overland to give us welcome.
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