The four-mile ride, Bob discovered, was almost straight up. At the end
of it he found himself well elevated above the valley, and once more in
the sugar-pine belt. The road wound among shades of great trees. Piles
of shakes, gleaming and fragrant, awaited the wagon. Rude signs, daubed
on the riven shingles, instructed the wayfarer that this or that dim
track through the forest led to So-and-so's shake camp.
It was by now after four of the afternoon. Bob met nobody on the road,
but he saw in the dust fresh tracks which he shrewdly surmised to be
those of the man who had jostled him. Samuels had his warning. The
mountaineer would be ready. Bob had no intention of delivering a frontal
attack.
He rode circumspectly, therefore, until he discerned an opening in the
forest. Here he dismounted. The opening, of course, might be only that
of a natural meadow, but in fact proved to be the homestead claim of
which Bob was in search.
The improvements consisted of a small log cabin with a stone and mud
chimney; a log stable slightly larger in size; a rickety fence made
partly of riven pickets, partly of split rails, but long since weathered
and rotted; and what had been a tiny orchard of a score of apple trees.
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