It was Christmas Eve. The winter was late, and rain had fallen during the last few weeks only, so that the fields were just assuming the fresh pea-green colour of their new life, and the long, dead grass still standing above the recent growth gave that odd smokey appearance to the hills and mesas, so familiar to all us Californians also in our olive groves. The night, however, was dark and nothing of hills, or mesas, or gray fields, could be seen as the hurrying bands of clouds joined together in one great company, overspreading the whole sky and clothing all in a dreary shroud of blackness. The little arroyo, which was dry in the summertime, had now risen, increased by last week's tribute to be quite a large stream, tearing noisely among the rocks and over its old courses, giving friendly greetings of recognition to the old water-marks and dashing a playful wave now and then about the worn roots of the enormous laurel tree whose branches reached high above and far around. Beneath the tree's protecting limbs, a little cabin, of roughest workmanship, found shelter from the wind, or shade from the intense heat of summer; the house was built almost entirely of logs, excepting the upper part where boards had been used and through which were cut the three windows which served to light the single room it contained. This Christmas Eve, only the dark form of the cabin was to be seen with the tall adobe chimney built up the outside; the smoke blew, beaten here and there, about the roof till it finally disappeared, a cloud of ghosts, among the swaying branches of the laurel tree. By day in the sunshine, no pleasanter spot could be found than the little cabin and broad fields of Crescimir the Illyrian, no lovelier view of the rich Napa Valley could be had than from the hill where Crescimir's cattle grazed and no happier home could have been found in all the Californias than his, had he not been so alone, without a friend and far from his native country.