And then, as summer lays its heats—­blessed by the fruit man, the irrigator, the farmer alike—­over the great interior valleys, the people divide into two classes.  One class, by far the larger, migrates to the Coast.  There the trade winds blowing softly from the Pacific temper the semi-tropic sun; the Coast Ranges bar back the furnace-like heat of the interior; and the result is a summer climate even nearer perfection—­though not so much advertised—­than is that of winter.  Here the populace stays in the big winter hotels at reduced rates, or rents itself cottages, or lives in one or the other of the unique tent cities.  It is gregarious and noisy, and healthy and hearty, and full of phonographs and a desire to live in bathing suits.  Another, and smaller contingent, turns to the Sierras.

We have here nothing to do with those who attend the resorts such as Tahoe or Klamath; nor yet with that much smaller contingent of hardy and adventurous spirits who, with pack-mule and saddle, lose themselves in the wonderful labyrinth of granite and snow, of canon and peak, of forest and stream that makes up the High Sierras.  But rather let us confine ourselves to the great middle class, the class that has not the wealth nor the desire for resort hotels, nor the skill nor the equipment to explore a wilderness.  These people hitch up the farm team, or the grocer’s cart, or the family horse, pile in their bedding and their simple cooking utensils, whistle to the dog, and climb up out of the scorching inferno to the coolness of the pines.

They have few but definite needs.  They must have company, water, and the proximity of a store where they can buy things to eat.  If there is fishing, so much the better.  At any rate there is plenty of material for bonfires.  And since other stores are practically unknown above the six-thousand-foot winter limit of habitability, it follows that each lumber-mill is a magnet that attracts its own community of these visitors to the out of doors.

As early as the beginning of July the first outfit drifted in.  Below the mill a half-mile there happened to be a small, round lake with meadows at the upper and lower ends.  By the middle of the month two hundred people were camped there.  Each constructed his abiding place according to his needs and ideas, and promptly erected a sign naming it.  The names were facetiously intended.  The community was out for a good time, and it had it.  Phonographs, concertinas, and even a tiny transportable organ appeared.  The men dressed in loose rough clothes; the women wore sun-bonnets; the girls inclined to bandana handkerchiefs, rough-rider skirts and leggings, cowboy hats caught up at the sides, fringed gauntlet gloves.  They were a good-natured, kindly lot, and Bob liked nothing better than to stroll down to the Lake in the twilight.  There he found the arrangements differing widely.  The smaller ranchmen lived roughly, sleeping under the stars, perhaps, cooking over an open fire, eating