"There is something in this glorious climate of Californy, say what you will," mused the Judge, as he lit his pipe and sat down on a stump in the street.
Limber Tim and the cinnamon-haired man had settled down into that collapse which always follows a protracted spree or a heavy carouse, and they too sat on their respective stumps out in the open air, while the saloon was left all to the little brown mice upstairs.
Men were lounging all up and down the street on old knotty logs that no ax could reduce to firewood, or leaning against the cabins on the warm sides that were still warm with the sunshine gone away, or loafing up and down with their pipes in their mouths, and their ragged coats thrown over one shoulder, like the bravos of Italy. Certainly there was something in the glorious climate of California.
There had been no news from the Widow all this time.
A keen-eyed man just now lifted his eyes in the direction of the cabin. In fact, it was a custom--an instinct, to lift the face in that direction many times a day. If any of these men ever prayed in that camp, and the truth could be told, you would find that that man first turned the face and kneeled looking in that direction. Her house was a sort of second Mecca.
The camp, however, after being a long time patient and silent, had got a little cross. Yet it had not lost a bit of its blunt and honest manhood. It had simply made up its mind that the Widow and Sandy were both of age, and able to take care of themselves. If they were willing to get the toothache, or something of the kind, and then retreat into their cabin, and pull the latch-string inside after them, they could do so, and the camp would not interfere.
The man who had been looking up the hill now turned to his partner, drew his pipe from his mouth, wrinkled up his brows, and then slowly reached out his arm and with his pipe-stem pointed inquiringly up the hill.
A man and a woman were coming slowly and cautiously down the way from the Widow's cabin. They were coming straight for the great center of the Forks, the Howling Wilderness.
The woman had something in her arms. She walked as carefully as if she had been bearing a waiter of wine. Could this be the Widow? It could hardly be Bunker Hill, thought the Forks, as it rose up from its seat on the stumps, and lifted its face up the trail, for she is almost as tall and comely and steps as nimbly as any woman in camp.