ith mud; the fourth was of
slabs, nicely split from logs which had drifted into the Bend; the fifth
was of hide stretched over a frame strictly gothic from foundation to
ridgepole; while the sixth, burrowed into the hillside, displayed only
the barrel which formed its chimney.

A more aristocratic community did not exist on the Pacific Coast. Visit
the Pikes when you would, you could never see any one working. Of
churches, school-houses, stores and other plebeian institutions, there
were none; and no Pike demeaned himself by entering trade, or soiled his
hands by agriculture.

Yet unto this peaceful, contented neighborhood there found his way a
visitor who had been everywhere in the world without once being made
welcome. He came to the house built of slabs, and threatened the wife of
Sam Trotwine, owner of the house; and Sam, after sunning himself
uneasily for a day or two, mounted a pony, and rode off for a doctor to
drive the intruder away.

When he returned he found all the men in the camp seated on a log in
front of his own door, and then he knew he must prepare for the
worst--only one of the great influences of the world could force every
Pike from his own door at exactly the same time. There they sat,
yellow-faced, bearded, long-backed and bent, each looking like the
other, find all like Sam; and, as he dismounted, they all looked at him.

"How is she?" said Sam, tying his horse and the doctor's, while the
latter went in.

"Well," said the oldest man, with deliberation, "the wimmin's all thar
ef that's any sign."

Each man on the log inclined his head slightly but positively to the
left, thus manifesting belief that Sam had been correctly and
sufficiently answered. Sam himself seemed to regard his information in
about the same manner.

Suddenly the raw hide which formed the door of Sam's house was pushed
aside, and a woman came out and called Sam, and he disappeared from his
log.

As he entered his hut, all the women lifted sorrowful faces and retired;
no one even lingered, for the Pike has not the common human interest in
other people's business; he lacks that, as well as certain similar
virtues of civilization.

Sam dropped by the bedside, and was human; his heart was in the right
place; and though heavily intrenched by years of laziness and whisky and
tobacco, it _could_ be brought to the front, and it came now.

The dying woman cast her eyes appealingly at the surgeon, and that
worthy stepped out