"Whar yer bound fur, Sam?" asked the patriarch.

Sam blushed as near as a Pike could, but answered with only a little
hesitation:

"Goin' to take 'em to school to Maxfield--goin' to do it ev'ry day."

The incumbent of the log were too nearly paralyzed to remonstrate, but
after a few moments of silence the patriarch remarked, in tones of
feeling, yet decision:

"He's hed a tough time of it, but he's no bizness to ruin the
settlement. I'm an old man myself, an' I need peace of mind, so I'm
goin' to pack up my traps and mosey. When the folks at Maxfield knows
what he's doin', they'll make him a constable or a justice, an' I'm too
much of a man to live nigh any sich."

And next day the patriarch wheeled his family and property to parts
unknown.

A few days later Jim Merrick, a brisk farmer a few miles from the Bend,
stood in front of his own house, and shaded his eyes in solemn wonder.
It couldn't be--he'd never heard of such a thing before yet it
was--there was no doubt of it--there was a Pike riding right toward him,
in open daylight. He could swear that Pike had often visited him--that
is, his wheatfield and corral--after dark, but a daylight visit from a
Pike was as unusual as a social call of a Samaritan upon a Jew. And when
Sam--for it was he--approached Merrick and made his business known, the
farmer was more astonished and confused than he had ever been in his
life before. Sam wanted to know for how much money Merrick would plow