He lived beside a river that emptied into a great ocean. The narrowstrip of land that lay between him and the estuary was covered at hightide by a shining film of water, at low tide with the cast-up offeringsof sea and shore. Logs yet green, and saplings washed away from inlandbanks, battered fragments of wrecks and orange crates of bamboo, brokeninto tiny rafts yet odorous with their lost freight, lay in longsuccessive curves,—the fringes and overlappings of the sea. At highnoon the shadow of a seagull's wing, or a sudden flurry and gray squallof sandpipers, themselves but shadows, was all that broke themonotonous glare of the level sands.
He had lived there alone for a twelvemonth. Although but a few milesfrom a thriving settlement, during that time his retirement had neverbeen intruded upon, his seclusion remained unbroken. In any othercommunity he might have been the subject of rumor or criticism, but theminers at Camp Rogue and the traders at Trinidad Head, themselvesindividual and eccentric, were profoundly indifferent to all otherforms of eccentricity or heterodoxy that did not come in contact withtheir own. And certainly there was no form of eccentricity lessaggressive than that of a hermit, had they chosen to give him thatappellation. But they did not even do that, probably from lack ofinterest or perception. To the various traders who supplied his smallwants he was known as "Kernel," "Judge," and "Boss." To the generalpublic "The Man on the Beach" was considered a sufficientlydistinguishing title. His name, his occupation, rank, or antecedents,nobody cared to inquire. Whether this arose from a fear of reciprocalinquiry and interest, or from the profound indifference before referredto, I cannot say.
He did not look like a hermit. A man yet young, erect, well-dressed,clean-shaven, with a low voice, and a smile half melancholy, halfcynical, was scarcely the conventional idea of a solitary. Hisdwelling, a rude improvement on a fisherman's cabin, had all the severeexterior simplicity of frontier architecture, but within it wascomfortable and wholesome. Three rooms—a kitchen, a living room, anda bedroom—were all it co