There was no enclosure, but the bare, sloping, sandy place was sprinkled with graves, marked by heaps of stones, and in some instances by rude crosses of wood, some of which had been wrenched from their upright position by the fierce sand-storms. There was not a blade of grass, a tree, or a flower. I walked about among these graves, and close beside some of them I saw deep holes and whitnened bones. I was quite ignorant or unthinking, and asked what the holes were. "It is where the coyotes and wolves come in the nights," said Jack. My heart sickened as I thought of these horrors, and I wondered if Ehrenberg held anything in store for me worse than what I had already seen. We turned away from this unhallowed grave-yard and walked to our quarters. I had never known much about "nerves," but I began to see spectres in the night, and those ghastly graves with their coyote-holes were ever before me. The place was but a stone's throw from us, and the uneasy spirits from these desecrated graves began to haunt me. I could not sit alone on the porch at night, for they peered through the lattice, and mocked at me, and beckoned. Some had no heads, some no arms, but they pointed or nodded towards the grewsome burying-ground: "You'll be with us soon, you'll be with us soon." CHAPTER XXII. RETURN TO THE STATES I dream of the east wind's tonic, Of the breakers' stormy roar, And the peace of the inner harbor With the long low Shimmo shore. * * * * I long for the buoy-bell's tolling When the north wind brings from afar The smooth, green, shining billows, To be churned into foam on the bar. Oh! for the sea-gulls' screaming As they swoop so bold and free! Oh! for the fragrant commons, And the glorious open sea!-- For the restful great contentment, For the joy that is never known Till past the jetty and Brant Point Light The Islander comes to his own! --MARY E. STARBUCK. "I must send you out. I see that you cannot stand it here another month," said Jack one day; and so he bundled us onto the boat in the early spring, and took us down the river to meet the ocean steamer. There was no question about it this time, and I well knew it. I left my sister and her son in Ehrenberg, and I never saw my nephew again. A month later, his state of health became so alarming that my sister took him to San Francisco. He survived the long voyage, but died there a few weeks later at the home of my cousin.