And at the foot of those cliffs there were no flat stretches of color such as make weary the eye; the water there held all the shimmering, bewitching, iridescence of a peacock's feathers,--the gold and purple, the greens and the blues ever changing,--the strange touch of pink making it all glorious in certain glints of the sunlight; and at the edge of it all, the fringe of foam--a string of pearls shattered on the brown cliffs or sandy beach, and gathered up to be dashed again and again and again--the endless garniture of old Ocean's robe. Never on any other shore had mere waves, running to the sand, the same witchery. Alvara had said that all men came back some day to San Juan. What witchery was it by which its mesa and its valley and its wonderful shore were forever set apart from other shores of California? Some mystery of life brooded there from sea to mountain, suggesting so much which was left for poor humanity to solve; it was only a whispered suggestion, dim and delightful, as the music of the waves heard from the Mission plaza, or as dreamy as the high film of fog, drifting high up and tempering the sun's rays until they fell softly as a benediction on the valley between blue sea and blue summit. [Illustration: "NEVER ON ANY OTHER SHORE"] His own life stretched before him like the brown levels and yellow flatness of San Pedro; and there to the south, miles across the ranges, was the heart of the dreamland he must not enter: another man had that claim under fence. He gave voice to some self-condemnation of a sort reserved for men who go _loco_ over a woman who forgets, and after hours of brooding there alone by the shore, arrived at only one decision--the California of the south ranges was no longer his own. All the width of it was now narrowed to one little valley, where the poppies flamed over forgotten graves and adobe walls, and the doves circled above a ruined chancel. He rode into town, where some kind friends mentioned that Don Rafael Arteaga and his bride were being _feted_ by the leading Spanish families of Los Angeles, and he was invited to a dinner in their honor a week hence. "I go to Mexico--I start to-day," he answered, briefly. Ten minutes before, he had not thought of it. "To Mexico? You cover ground fast these days, Don Keith. On the new road of iron they mean to make, you could not go so much faster than on the horses you ride; you have the good American luck in the pick of them." "Yes, the good American luck!" said Keith Bryton, with a touch of bitterness. "May your saints send you a better!" A man who stood near, and who much desired the invitation Bryton had refused, shrugged his shoulders as the Americano mounted his horse and rode away.