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sand and one good qualities, we readily forgive the one fault that holds Bob down to earth and "this here town of Monterey," as he calls it; for there is nothing conventional about Bob, from his free use of English to the panther-like grace with which he swings over the ground. We all like Bob, every one likes Bob; and therein lies his possible, nay his probable,

VAQUERO WAITING IN THE FOG.

ruin. Silver and gold has he none, and, like a true son of Nature, for silver and gold he cares not at all. Ever ready to do a service, he is offended by the offer of money, but has never been known to refuse the social glass.

Until three o'clock Monday afternoon we baked and we brewed, and we tied up blankets with picket-ropes. At least, we baked and tied, and Antonio brought a keg of beer. At sharp three Bob, resplendent in a new red shirt and butternut "overalls," gave the horses their heads and away we clashed with a cheer.

We all sat in the wagon on the blankets, except Nolie, Lizzie, Joseph and Sam, who followed on horseback, with one of the young Sargents as guide. We felt a little shy about driving through "this here town of Monterey," as the women were dressed for the exigences of camp-life, in short skirts and trousers; but we need have had no fear: Monterey has not lain asleep by the sea for more than a century to be awakened to life and curiosity by the advent of a few women in Bloomers. Our road wound over the hills toward the old Carmel Mission church, which now lies in ruins—one of the few and most picturesque relics of early times in California. It is a burning shame and disgrace to the State that it is allow ed to decay and fall in pieces, when a little timely care and a very little expenditure of money would save its noble pro portions, round which cluster so many associations and legends, from utter annihilation. O sleek and prosperous merchants! O portly bankers! you have your fine shops, your elegant residences, your villas and gardens: can you not give us our ruins, our poor little bits of romance and poetry? O farmers! how dared you with sacrilegious hand tear down the great beams laboriously bound together with leathern thongs by the patient hands of Father Serra and his faithful savages, carry them away and convert them into ignoble gate-posts? May the ghosts of the eleven governors whose graves you have bared to the elements haunt your sleeping hours, and Father Junipero Serra's voice whisper maledictions in your ears!

"This is Las Cruces," said Antonio in his soft Spanish accent. "The good fathers of Carmel set up a cross yonder to keep the foul fiend in check: whilst he