Possibly from the relaxation of fatigue and the bath, which had become a vapor one as he alternately rolled and dried himself in the baking grass, his eyes closed dreamily.  He was awakened by the sound of voices.  They were distant; they were vague; they approached no nearer.  He rolled himself to the verge of the first precipitous grassy descent.  There was another bank or plateau below him, and then a confused depth of olive shadows, pierced here and there by the spiked helmets of pines.  There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the click of crockery and the ring of some household utensil.  It appeared to be the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domestic dialogue of an old man and a girl, of which the words were unintelligible.  Their voices indicated the solitude of the mountain, but without sadness; they were mysterious without being awe-inspiring.  They might have uttered the dreariest commonplaces, but, in their vast isolation, they seemed musical and eloquent.  Lance drew his first sigh,—­they had suggested dinner.

Careless as his nature was, he was too cautious to risk detection in broad daylight.  He contented himself for the present with endeavoring to locate that particular part of the depths from which the voices seemed to rise.  It was more difficult, however, to select some other way of penetrating it than by the stage road.  “They’re bound to have a fire or show a light when it’s dark,” he reasoned, and, satisfied with that reflection, lay down again.  Presently he began to amuse himself by tossing some silver coins in the air.  Then his attention was directed to a spur of the Coast Range which had been sharply silhouetted against the cloudless western sky.  Something intensely white, something so small that it was scarcely larger than the silver coin in his hand, was appearing in a slight cleft of the range.

While he looked it gradually filled and obliterated the cleft.  In another moment the whole serrated line of mountain had disappeared.  The dense, dazzling white, encompassing host began to pour over and down every ravine and pass of the coast.  Lance recognized the sea-fog, and knew that scarcely twenty miles away lay the ocean—­and safety!  The drooping sun was now caught and hidden in its soft embraces.  A sudden chill breathed over the mountain.  He shivered, rose, and plunged again for very warmth into the spice-laden thicket.  The heated balsamic air began to affect him like a powerful sedative; his hunger was forgotten in the languor of fatigue:  he slumbered.  When he awoke it was dark.  He groped his way through the thicket.  A few stars were shining directly above him, but beyond and below, everything was lost in the soft, white, fleecy veil of fog.  Whatever light or fire might have betokened human habitation was hidden.  To push on blindly would be madness; he could only wait for morning.  It suited the