On the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay a line of bluffs terminates in a promontory, at whose base, formed by the crumbling debris of the cliff above, there is a narrow stretch of beach, salt meadow, and scrub oak.

The abrupt wall of rock behind it seems to isolate it as completely from the mainland as the sea before it separates it from the opposite shore.

In spite of its contiguity to San Francisco,--opposite also, but hidden by the sharp re-entering curve of coast,--the locality was wild, uncultivated, and unfrequented.

A solitary fisherman's cabin half hidden in the rocks was the only trace of habitation.

White drifts of sea-gulls and pelican across the face of the cliff, gray clouds of sandpipers rising from the beach, the dripping flight of ducks over the salt meadows, and the occasional splash of a seal from the rocks, were the only signs of life that could be seen from the decks of passing ships.
And yet the fisherman's cabin was occupied by Zephas Bunker and his young wife, and he had succeeded in wresting from the hard soil pasturage for a cow and goats, while his lateen-sailed fishing-boat occasionally rode quietly in the sheltered cove below.
Three years ago Zephas Bunker, an ex-whaler, had found himself stranded on a San Francisco wharf and had "hired out" to a small Petaluma farmer.
At the end of a year he had acquired little taste for the farmer's business, but considerable for the farmer's youthful daughter, who, equally weary of small agriculture, had consented to elope with him in order to escape it.