Our exiles up to this time had been so busy with their preparations for winter that they had given but little attention to their neighbors below. They had noticed on frosty mornings columns of white smoke rising straight into the air from half a dozen cabins in the valley, most of which had been hidden from view by the thick foliage during the summer months. Now that the November winds had stripped the trees of their leaves, two cabins appeared in the direction of Sheep Cliff, standing side by side among the bare oaks on a knoll which sloped gently to the road. The two seemed to be precisely alike, with rude verandas in front, and at no great distance back of these, in an open clearing, surrounded with orchards and stacks, was a long house with a heavy stone chimney at each end. Scattered to the right of the plateau were several cabins, and close on the road a square brown building which looked to be a store. Just below this point of rocks where the three solders looked down on the valley stood the largest house in the settlement, old and rambling in construction, with lurching chimneys and roofs extending to left and rear. The woodpile was at the opposite side of the road, and comfortable log barns stood on the hillside above. All these details were to be seen with the naked eye, but the powerful telescope of the station revealed much more, even showing the faces and forms of the people who lived in the cabins. As the three exiles were lounging together one afternoon at this very point of rocks, studying their neighbors through the telescope as if they had been the inhabitants of another planet, Philip broke the silence with quite an original speech--one only he could make. "See here, fellows," he said with that new familiarity they had begun to show toward each other, "as we are likely to take considerable interest in these people down below, it will be mighty inconvenient when we talk about them to say, 'The man in the big house across the road from the log barn did this,' or 'The man in the farthest twin cabin did that,' or 'The old chap in the long house flanked by orchards and stacks did something else'; so I say, let's give them family names." The others laughingly admitted that the idea was not a bad one, and Bromley suggested at random the names Smith, Jones, and Brown. "As good as any others," said Philip. "Very well," said Bromley, "then we will call this first neighbor 'Smith.'" "No, you don't," cried Philip, with much spirit. "I've taken a prejudice against that old fellow, because he sits on the woodpile and smokes his pipe every afternoon while his wife does the milking. Smith is too respectable a name for him." "I didn't know," said Coleman, laughing, "that there was any particular virtue in the name of Smith."