"Boys," said he, "we'll sprinkle out into a line a couple of miles long, and march up the mountain till we reach the snow. When I think it's time, I'll fire three times, an' then each feller'll face an' tramp to the right, keepin' a keerful lookout for a woman's tracks p'intin'

t'ward camp. Ther can't be no mistakin' 'em, for them sennyritas hez the littlest kind o' feet. When any feller finds her tracks, he'll fire, an'

then we'll rally on him. I wish them other fellers, instid of goin' off half-cocked, hed tracked Codago, the low-lived skunk. To think of him runnin' away from wife, an' young one, too! Forward, git!"

"They _hain't_ got no souls--that's what made him do it, Charley," said Lynn Taps, as the men deployed.

Steadily the miners ascended the rugged slope; rocks, trees, fallen trunks and treacherous holes impeded their progress, but did not stop them.

A steady wind cut them to the bone, and grew more keen and fierce as they neared the snow.

Suddenly Chagres Charley fired, and the boys faced to the right--a moment later another shot rallied the party; those nearest it found Nappy Boney in a high state of excitement, and leaning over a foot-print.

"_Mon Dieu_!" he cried; "they have not the _esprit_, those Mexicans; but her footprints might have been made by the adorable feet of one of my countrywomen, it is so small."

"Yes," said Mississip; "an' one of them fellers that started ahead hez found it fust, fur here's a man's track a-goin' up."

Rapidly the excited miners followed the tracks through the snow, and found them gradually leading to the regular trail across the mountain, which trail few men ventured upon at that season. Suddenly the men in advance stopped.

"Here 'tis, I reckon!" cried Mississip, springing across a small cleft in the rocks, and running toward a dark object lying on the sheltered side of a small cliff. "Good God!" he continued, as he stooped down; "it's Codago! An' he's froze stiff."

"Serve him right, cuss him," growled Lynn Taps. "I almost wish he _had_ a soul, so he could catch it good an' hot, now he's gone!"

"He's got his pack with him," shouted Mississip, "and a huggin' it ez tight ez ef he could take it to--to wherever he's gone to.".

"No man with a soul could hev ben cool enough to pack up his traps after seein' that poor woman's face," argued Lynn Taps.

Mississip tore off a piece of his trowsers, struck fire with flint and steel, poured on whisky, and blew it into a flame.

Rapidly the miners straggled up the trail, and halted opposite Mississip.

"Well, I'll be durned!" shouted the latter; "he ain't got no shirt on, an' there's an ugly cut in his arm. It beats anything I ever seed!"

One by one the miners leaped the cleft, and crowded about Mississip and stared.

It was certainly Codago, and there was certainly his pack, made up in his poncho, in the usual Greaser manner, and held tightly in his arms.

But while they stared, there was a sudden movement of the pack itself.

Lynn Taps gave a mighty tug at it, extricated it from the dead man's grasp, and rapidly undid it.

Suddenly, by the glare of a fresh light, the boys saw the face of a rather dirty, large-eyed, brown-skinned Mexican baby; and the baby, probably by way of recognition, raised high a voice such as the boys never heard before on that side of the Rocky Mountains.

"Here's what that cut in his arm means," shouted a miner who had struck a light on the trail; "there's a finger-mark, done in blood on the snow, by the side of the trail, an' a-pintin' right to that ledge; an' here's his shirt a-flappin' on a stick stuck in a snow-bank lookin' t'ward camp."

"There ain't no doubt 'bout what the woman said to him, or what made him yell an' git, boys," said Chagres Charley, solemnly, as he took a blanket from his shoulders and spread it on the ground.

Mississip took off his hat, and lifting the poor Mexican from the snow, laid him in the blanket. Lynn Taps hid the baby, rewrapped, under his own blanket, and hurried down the mountain, while four men picked up Codago and followed.

Lynn Taps scratched on the rawhide door; the doctor opened it.

Lynn Tapps unrolled the bundle, and its occupant again raised its voice.

The woman, who was lying motionless and with closed eyes, sprang to her feet in an instant, and as Lynn Taps laid his burden on the blankets, the woman, her every dull feature softened and lighted with motherly tenderness, threw her arms about the astonished Yankee, and then fell sobbing at his feet.

"You've brought her the only medicine that'll do her any good," said the doctor, giving the baby a gentle dig under the ribs as he picked up his saddle-bags.

Lynn Taps made a hasty escape, and reached the saloon, which had been hurriedly opened as the crowd was heard approaching.

The bearers of the body deposited it gently on the floor, and the crowd filed in quietly.

Lynn Taps walked up to the bar, and rapped upon it.

"Walk up, boys," said he; "fill high; hats off. Here's Codago. Maybe he _didn't_ have a soul, but if he _didn't_, souls ain't needed in this world. Buttoms up, every man."

The toast was drunk quietly and reverently, and when it was suggested that the Greasers themselves should have participated, they were all summoned, and the same toast was drank again.

The next day, as the body of Codago was being carried to a newly dug grave, on the high ground overlooking the creek, and the Mexicans stood about, as if dumb staring and incessant smoking were the only proprieties to be observed on such occasions, Lynn Taps thoughtfully offered his arm to the weeping widow, and so sorrowful was she throughout the performance of the sad rites, that Lynn Taps was heard to remark that, however it might be with the men, there could be no doubt about Mexican women's possessing souls. As a few weeks later the widow became Mrs. Lynn Taps, there can be no doubt that her second husband's final convictions were genuine.

THE LAST PIKE AT JAGGER'S BEND

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.