Where they came from no one knew. Among the farmers near the Bend there was ample ability to conduct researches beset by far more difficulties than was that of the origin of the Pikes; but a charge of buckshot which a good-natured Yankee received one evening, soon after putting questions to a venerable Pike, exerted a depressing influence upon the spirit of investigation. They were not bloodthirsty, these Pikes, but they had good reason to suspect all inquirers of being at least deputy sheriffs, if not worse; and a Pike\'s hatred of officers of the law is equaled in intensity only by his hatred for manual labor.

But while there was doubt as to the fatherland of the little colony of Pikes at Jagger\'s Bend, their every neighbor would willingly make affidavit as to the cause of their locating and remaining at the Bend. When humanitarians and optimists argued that it was because the water was good and convenient, that the Bend itself caught enough drift-wood for fuel, and that the dirt would yield a little gold when manipulated by placer and pan, all farmers and stockowners would freely admit the validity of these reasons; but the admission was made with a countenance whose indignation and sorrow indicated that the greater causes were yet unnamed. With eyes speaking emotions which words could not express, they would point to sections of wheatfields minus the grain-bearing heads—to hides and hoofs of cattle unslaughtered by themselves—to mothers of promising calves, whose tender bleatings answered not the maternal call—to the places which had once known fine horses, but had been untenanted since certain Pikes had gone across, the mountains for game. They would accuse no man wrongfully, but in a country where all farmers had wheat and cattle and horses, and where prowling Indians and Mexicans were not, how could these disappearances occur?

But to people owning no property in the neighborhood—to tourists and artists—the Pike settlement at the Bend was as interesting and ugly as a skye-terrier. The architecture of the village was of original style, and no duplicate existed. Of the half-dozen residences, one was composed exclusively of sod; another of bark; yet another of poles, roofed with a wagon-cover, and plastered on the outside with 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 outside the door. Then the yellow-faced woman said:

"Sam, doctor says I ain\'t got much time left."

"Mary," said Sam, "I wish ter God I could die fur yer. The children—"

"It\'s them I want to talk about, Sam," replied his wife. \'An\' I wish they could die with me, rather\'n hev \'em liv ez I\'ve hed to. Not that you ain\'t been a kind husband to me, for you hev. Whenever I wanted meat yev got it, somehow; an\' when yev been ugly drunk, yev kep\' away from the house. But I\'m dyin\', Sam, and it\'s cos you\'ve killed me."

"Good God, Mary!" cried the astonished Sam, jumping up; "yure crazy—here, doctor!"

"Doctor can\'t do no good, Sam; keep still, and listen, ef yer love me like yer once said yer did; for I hevn\'t got much breath left," gasped the woman.

"Mary," said the aggrieved Sam, "I swow to God I dunno what yer drivin\' at."

"It\'s jest this, Sam," replied the woman: "Yer tuk me, tellin\' me ye\'d love me an\' honor me an\' pertect me. You mean to say, now, yev done it? I\'m a-dyin\', Sam—I hain\'t got no favors to ask of nobody, an\' I\'m tellin\' the truth, not knowin\' what word\'ll be my last."

"Then tell a feller where the killin\' came in, Mary, for heaven\'s sake," said the unhappy Sam.

"It\'s come in all along, Sam," said the woman; "there is women in the States, so I\'ve heerd, that marries fur a home, an\' bread an\' butter, but you promised more\'n that, Sam. An\' I\'ve waited. An\' it ain\'t come. An\' there\'s somethin\' in me that\'s all starved and cut to pieces. An\' it\'s your fault, Sam. I tuk yer fur better or fur wuss, an\' I\'ve never grumbled."

"I know yer hain\'t, Mary," whispered the conscience-stricken Pike. "An\' I know what yer mean. Ef God\'ll only let yer be fur a few years, I\'ll see ef the thing can\'t be helped. Don\'t cuss me, Mary—I\'ve never knowed how I\'ve been a-goin\'. I wish there was somethin\' I could do \'............