told me how to get there," Bob pointed out.

"All you have to do is to turn to the right at the white church and
follow your nose," replied the man curtly.

"How far is it?"

"About four mile."

"Thank you," said Bob, and started out.

The man let him get to the door.

"Say, you!" he called.

Bob stopped.

"You might be in better business than to turn a poor man out of his
house and home."

Bob did not wait to hear the rest. As he untied his saddle horse, a man
brushed by him with what was evidently intentional rudeness, for he
actually jostled Bob's shoulder. The man jerked loose the tie rein of
his own mount, leaped to the saddle, and clattered away. Bob noticed
that he turned to the right at the white church.

The four-mile ride, Bob discovered, was almost straight up. At the end
of it he found himself well elevated above the valley, and once more in
the sugar-pine belt. The road wound among shades of great trees. Piles
of shakes, gleaming and fragrant, awaited the wagon. Rude signs, daubed
on the riven shingles, instructed the wayfarer that this or that dim
track through the forest led to So-and-so's shake camp.

It was by now after four of the afternoon. Bob met nobody on the road,
but he saw in the dust fresh tracks which he shrewdly surmised to be
those of the man who had jostled him. Samuels had his warning. The
mountaineer would be ready. Bob had no intention of delivering a frontal
attack.

He rode circumspectly, therefore, until he discerned an opening in the
forest. Here he dismounted. The opening, of course, might be only that
of a natural meadow, but in fact proved to be the homestead claim of
which Bob was in search.

The improvements consisted of a small log cabin with a stone and mud
chimney; a log stable slightly larger in size; a rickety fence made
partly of riven pickets, partly of split rails, but long since weathered
and rotted; and what had been a tiny orchard of a score of apple trees.
At some remote period this orchard had evidently been cultivated, but
now the weeds and grasses grew rank and matted around neglected trees.
The whole place was down at the heels. Tin cans and rusty baling wire
strewed the back yard; an ill-cared-for wagon stood squarely in front;
broken panes of glass in the windows had been replaced respectively by
an old straw hat and the dirty remains of overalls. The supports of the
little verandah roof sagged crazily. Over it clambered a vine. Close
about d