An hour later Wilbur and Moran knew that he was dead. Yet, though they had never left the hammock, they could not have told at just what moment he died. Later, on that same afternoon, Wilbur, from the crow's-nest, saw the lighthouse on Point Loma and the huge rambling bulk of the Coronado Hotel spreading out and along the beach. It was the outpost of civilization. They were getting back to the world again. Within an hour's ride of the hotel were San Diego, railroads, newspapers, and policemen. Just off the hotel, however, Wilbur could discern the gleaming white hull of a United States man-of-war. With the glass he could make her out to be one of the monitors--the “Monterey” in all probability. After advising with Moran, it was decided to put in to land. The report as to the castaways could be made to the “Monterey,” and Charlie's body forwarded to his Tong in San Francisco. In two hours' time the schooner was well up, and Wilbur stood by Moran's side at the wheel, watching and studying the familiar aspect of Coronado Beach. “It's a great winter resort,” he told her. “I was down here with a party two years ago. Nothing has changed. You see that big sort of round wing, Moran, all full of windows? That's the dining-room. And there's the bathhouse and the bowling-alley. See the people on the beach, and the girls in white duck skirts; and look up there by the veranda--let me take the glass--yes, there's a tally-ho coach. Isn't it queer to get back to this sort of thing after Magdalena Bay and the beach-combers?” Moran spun the wheel without reply, and gave an order to Jim to ease off the foresheet. XII. NEW CONDITIONS The winter season at the Hotel del Coronado had been unusually gay that year, and the young lady who wrote the society news in diary form for one of the San Francisco weekly papers had held forth at much length upon the hotel's “unbroken succession of festivities.” She had also noted that “prominent among the newest arrivals” had been Mr. Nat Ridgeway, of San Francisco, who had brought down from the city, aboard his elegant and sumptuously fitted yacht “Petrel,” a jolly party, composed largely of the season's debutantes. To be mentioned in the latter category was Miss Josie Herrick, whose lavender coming-out tea at the beginning of the season was still a subject of comment among the gossips--and all the rest of it.