Benito, mounting the slope, looked down at a welter of tents, shacks, deck houses and galleys of wrecked ships. He had expected their occupants to be asleep, for they were nighthawks who reversed man's usual order in the prosecution of nocturnal and ill-favored trades. He was astonished to note a general activity. At the portholes of dwellings retrieved from the wreck of the sea, unkempt bearded faces stared; smoke leaped from a dozen rickety, unstable chimneys, and in the open several groups of men and women plied frying pans and coffee pots over driftwood fires. Benito observed them with a covert interest. A black-browed man with a shaggy beard and something leonine about him, seemed the master of the chief of this godless band. He moved among them, giving orders, and with two companions finally ascended to the top. Benito, concealing himself behind a scrub oak, watched them, animatedly conversing, as they descended and picked their way inland toward the Square. So swift their movements and so low their tones he could not make out the tenor of their discourse. He caught the words, "like tow," but that was all. Musingly, he went on. Up the broad and muddy path to Market street, thence west again to Third, he made his way. Now south to Mission and once more west, a favored route for caballeros. Benito had never traveled it before afoot. But his horse had succumbed to the rigors of that frantic ride in pursuit of Alice and McTurpin several months ago. Mounts were a luxury now. He skirted the edge of a lagoon that stretched from Sixth to Eighth streets and on the ascent beyond observed a tiny box-like habitation, brightly painted, ringed with flowers and crowned with an imposing flagpole from which floated the Star-Spangled Banner. It was a note of gay melody struck athwart the discordant monotony of soiled tent houses, tumble-down huts and oblong, flat-roofed buildings stretching their disorderly array along the road. Coming closer he saw the name, "Pipesville," printed on the door, and knew that this must be the "summer home," as it was called, of San Francisco's beloved minstrel, Stephen Massett, otherwise "Jeems Pipes of Pipesville," singer, player, essayist and creator of those wondrous one-man concerts dear to all the countryside. "Jeems" himself appeared in the doorway to wave a greeting and Benito went on oddly cheered by the encounter. In front of the Mansion House, adjoining Mission Dolores, stood Bob Ridley, talking with his partner. "You look warm, son," he remarked paternally to Windham, "let me mix you up a milk punch and you'll feel more like yourself. Where's your boss and whither are ye bound?" "Died," Benito answered. "Going to my--to the ranch."