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.