Burned Bridges

He could not do that--not yet. And so there was nothing in California

for him, he decided. A man could no longer go West and grow up with the

country--but he could go North.

Thompson was sitting on the border of a road that runs between San

Mateo and the city when he definitely committed himself to doubling on

his tracks, to counteracting the trick of fate which had sent him to a

place where he did not wish to go. He was looking between the trees and

out over an undulating valley floored with emerald fields, studded with

oaks, backed by the bare Hamiltons to the east, and westward by the

redwood-clad ruggedness of the Santa Cruz range. And he was not seeing

this loveliness of landscape at all. He was looking far beyond and his

eyes were full of miles upon miles of untrodden forest, the sanctuary of

silence and furtive living things, of mountains that lifted snowy spires

to heaven high over the glaciers that scarred their sides. And the

smells that for a moment rose strongly in his nostrils were not the

smells of palm and gum and poppy-dotted fields, but odors of pine and

spruce and the smell of birchwood burning in campfires. He came out of

that queer projection of mind into great distance with a slight shake of

his head and a feeling of wonder. It had been very vivid. And it dawned

upon him that for a minute he had grown sentimentally lonely for that

grim, unconquered region where he had first learned the pangs of

loneliness, where he had suffered in body and spirit until he had

learned a lesson he would never forget while he lived.

The road itself, abutting upon stately homes and modest bungalows behind

a leafy screen of Australian gums, ran straight as an arrow down the

peninsula toward the city and the bay, a broad, smoothly asphalted

highway upon that road where the feet of the Franciscan priests had

traced the Camino Real. And down this highway both north and south

there passed many motor cars swiftly and silently or with less speed and

more noise, according to their quality and each driver's mood.

Thompson rested, watching them from the grassy level beneath a tree. He

rather regretted now the impulse which had made him ship his bag and

blanket roll from the last town, and undertake this solitary hike. He

had merely humored a whim to walk through orchards and green fields in a

leisurely fashion, to be a careless trudger for a day. True, he was

saving carfare, but he observed dryly that he was expending many

dollars' worth of energy--to say nothing of shoe leather. The pleasure

of walking, paradoxically, was best achieved by sitting still in the

shade. A midday sun was softening the asphalt with its fierce blaze. He

looked idly at passing machines and wondered what the occupants thereof

would say if he halted one and demanded a ride. He smiled.