So he thought, pushing uneasiness from his mind. Turning on his hard bed he could see the dark bulk of the cabin with a glint of starlight on its window. Above, the black boughs of the pine made a network against the sky sown with stars of an extraordinary size and luster. He could hear the river sleepily murmuring to itself. Once, far off, in the higher mountains, the shrill, weird cry of a California lion tore the silence. He rose on his elbow, looking toward the cabin. The sound was a terrifying one, and he was prepared to see the woman come out, frightened, and had the words of reassurance ready to call to her. But there was no movement from the little hut. She was evidently wrapped in the sleep of utter fatigue. In the morning he was down at a basin scooped in the stream bed making a hasty toilet, when Fletcher, sleepy-eyed and yawning, came slipping over the bank. “What are we goin’ to do for breakfast?” he said. “Is that purchase o’ your’n goin’ to git it? She’d oughter do something to show she’s worth the two best horses this side er Hangtown.” Moreau, with his hair and beard bedewed with his ducking, was about to answer when a sound from above attracted them. Lucy was standing on the bank. In the clear morning light she looked white and pinched. Her wretched clothes of yesterday, a calico sack and skirt, were augmented by a clean apron of blue check. Her skirt was short and showed her feet in a pair of rusty shoes that were so large they might have been her husband’s. “Are you comin’ to breakfast?” she said; “it’s ready.” Then she disappeared. The men looked at each other and Moreau shook the drops from his beard and began to try to pat his hair into order. The civilizing influence of woman--even such an unlovely woman as the emigrant’s wife--was beginning its work. Lucy had evidently been busy. The litter that had disfigured the ground in front of the cabin was cleared away. Through the open door and window a current of resinous mountain air passed which counteracted the effect of the fire. Nevertheless she had evidently feared its heat would be oppressive, and had brought two of the boxes to the rude bench outside the doorway, and on these the breakfast was laid. It was of the simplest--fried bacon, coffee and hot biscuits--but the scent of these, hot and appetizing, was sweet in the nostrils of the hungry men. Sitting on the bench, they fell to and were not disappointed. The emigrant’s wife had evidently great skill in the preparation of the simple food of the pioneer. With the scanty means at her hand she had concocted a meal that to the men, used to their own primitive cooking, seemed the most toothsome they had eaten since they left San Francisco. As she retired into the cabin, Fletcher--his mouth full of biscuit--said: “Well, she can cook anyway. I wonder how she gets her biscuits so all-fired light? They ain’t all saleratus, neither.”