Year: 1873

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 Pixies but a
charge of buckshot which good-na-
tured Yankee received one evening,
soon after putting questions to vener-
able Pike, exerted a great depressing
influence upon the spirit of inyestiga-
tion. They were not blood-thirsty, these
Pixies; but they had good reason to
suspect all inquirers of being at least
deputy sheriffs, if not worse, and a
Pixies hatred of officers of the law is
equaled in intensity only by his hatred
of manual labor.


But while there was doubt as to the
fatherland of the little colony of Pixies
at Jagger's Bend, their every nelghbor
would willingly make affidavit as to the
cause of their locating and their remain
ing 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, and that the dirt would yield a
little gold when manipulated by placer
and pan, all farmers and stock owners
would freely admit the validity of these
reasons but the admission was made
with acountenance 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 wheat
fields minus their grain-bearing heads /;
tohides and hoofs of cattle unslaughtered
by themselves to mothers of promising
calves, whose tender bleatings answered
which had once known fine horses, but
had been untenanted since certain Pixies
had gone across the mountains for game.
They would accuse no man wrongfully
but in country where all farmers had
wheat and cattle and horses, and where
prowline Indians and Mexicans were
not, how could these disappearances
occur?


But to people owning no property in
the neigh borhood- tourists and artists
the Pike settlement at the Bend was
as interesting and ugly as Skye ter
rier. The architecture of the village
wss 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,
rooted with a wagon-cover, and plaster
ed 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 frame,
strictly Gothic from foundation to ridge.
pole while the sixth, burrowed into
the hillside, displayed only the barrel
which formed its chimney.


A more aristocratic community die
not exist on the Pacific coast. Visit
the Pixies when you would, you could
never see any one working. OF churches
plebeian institutions, there were none
and no Pike bemeaned himself by enter
ing a trade or soiling his hands by
agriculture.


Yet unto this peaceful, contenteG
neighborhood there found his way
visitor who had been everywhere in tn,
world without once being made vel
come. He came to the house built o
slabs, and threatened the wife of San
Trotwine, owner of the house !; ant
Sam, after summing himself uneasily fo
day or two, mounted pony and rod
off for doctor to drive the intrude
away.


When he returned he found all tn
men in the camp seated on log in fror
of his own door, and, then he kne7
he must prepare for the worst-only on
of the great influences of the worl
could force every Pike from his ow
door at exactly the same time. Ther
they sat, yellow-faced, bearded, long
backed and bent, each looking like til
other, and all like Sam, and, as he dis
mounted, they looked at him.


s.How is she ?" said Sam, tying h
horse and the doctors, while the latte
went in.


"Wen,' said the oldest man, wit


deliberation, +" the wimmin's all thar,


that's any sign"


Each man on the log inclined b