This was a large log cabin, roughly covered with clapboards, with a wide plank platform in front and a hitching-rail in the road.

Several horses were standing there, and a group of lazy, shirt-sleeved loungers.
"I'll be doggoned if it ain't Milt Dale!" exclaimed one.
"Howdy, Milt, old buckskin! Right down glad to see you," greeted another.
"Hello, Dale! You air shore good for sore eyes," drawled still another.
After a long period of absence Dale always experienced a singular warmth of feeling when he met these acquaintances.

It faded quickly when he got back to the intimacy of his woodland, and that was because the people of Pine, with few exceptions--though they liked him and greatly admired his outdoor wisdom--regarded him as a sort of nonentity.

Because he loved the wild and preferred it to village and range life, they had classed him as not one of them.

Some believed him lazy; others believed him shiftless; others thought him an Indian in mind and habits; and there were many who called him slow-witted.