CHAPTER XLIX.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
Now that our friends were left entirely alone, it became a questionwhether they should continue journeying by day or night.
"It seems to me that we are approaching a more civilized part of thecountry," said Howard. "I think there will be little risk in continuingour journey."
Tim industriously used his paddle, and shortly afterward, Elwood pointedto an open space some distance inland.
"Yonder are people, and they look as if they were gathered around acamp-fire at their dinner."
Tim jerked his head around, gave a puff of his pipe and said:
"Rid gintlemen ag'in, and I'll shy the canoe under the bank, and craapalong till we gets beyonst thim."
"No, they are not Indians--they are white men," quickly added Elwood.
A careful scrutiny by all ended in a confirmation of Elwood's suspicion.
"That is good," said Howard, with a pleased expression, "it shows thatwe are getting beyond the wild country into a neighborhood where whitemen abound, and where we can feel some degree of safety."
"I suppose they are miners or hunters who are taking their midday mealin the open air," added Elwood, who was still gazing at them.
"Shall we heave too, pitch over the anchor, and s'lute them?" asked Tim.
"No; go ahead, we have no time to spare."
The cheering signs continued. An hour later they descried several whitemen seated in canoes and fishing near shore. They exchanged thecourtesies of the day with them and passed on, growing more eager asthey neared the goal.
It would have been no difficult feat of the imagination for one standingon shore to fancy that the cause was a pocket edition of a Hudson Riversteamboat, so powerfully did Tim O'Rooney puff at his pipe, the whiffsspeeding away over his shoulder in exact time with the dipping of thepaddle, as though the two united cause and effect. The fellow was in thebest of spirits. Suddenly he paused and commenced sucking desperately athis pipe-stem, but all in vain; no smoke was emitted.
"What is the matter?" asked Elwood.
"Steam is out, and the paddle won't go."
"Let me relieve you."
The boy used it with good effect, while Tim shoved his blunt finger intothe pipe-bowl, shut one eye and squinted into it, rattled it on hishand, puffed at it again, turned his pockets wrong side out, then putthem to rights, and repeated the operation, just as we open the door ahalf-dozen times to make sure our friend isn't behind it, then gave oneof his great sighs and looked toward Howard.
"I put the last switch of tobaccy I had in the world into that pipe,just arter throwing myself outside of that quince of fish."
"Quience?" laughed the boy, "you mean _quintal_."
"Yis, and what's to come of Tim O'Rooney, if he doesn't git some moreright spaddily. His intellect toppled all the mornin', and can't standanother such strain, or it'll be nipped in the bud afore it has reachedthe topmost round at the bar of fame."
"Why, Tim, you are growing poetical," called Elwood over his shoulder,not a little amused at his bewildering metaphors.
"We shall doubtless come across some friends before long who will beglad to supply you."
"Elwood!" called Tim.
"What is it!" he asked, pausing in his paddling.
"If you saas a rid gintleman do yez jist rist till I takes aim andshoots him."
"Why so blood-thirsty?"
"Not blood-thirsty, but tobaccy thirsty. The haythen deal in thearticle, and if we saas one he must yield."
Elwood promised obedience, but they saw nothing of the coveted peoplewhom they had been so anxious to avoid hitherto, but a half-hour laterHoward said:
"Heigh-ho! Yonder is just the man you want to see!"
A single person dressed in the garb of a miner was standing on the shoreleisurely surveying them as they came along. There could be no doubtthat he was supplied with the noxious weed, for he was smoking a pipewith all the cool, deliberate enjoyment of a veteran at the business.
"Shall I head toward shore!" asked Elwood.
"Sartin, sartin. Oh that we had Mr. Shasta here that he might hurry toland wid the ould canoe!"
A few minutes sufficed to place the prow of the boat against the shore,and Tim O'Rooney sprung out. The miner, if such he was, stood with hishands in his pockets, looking sleepily at the stranger.
"How do yez do, William?" reaching out and shaking the hand which wasrather reluctantly given him.
"Who you calling William?" demanded the miner gruffly.
"I beg yez pardon, but it was a slip of the tongue, Thomas."
"Who you calling Thomas?"
"Is your family well, my dear sir?"
"Whose family you talking about?"
"Did yez lave the wife and childer well?"
"Whose wife and childer you talking about?"
"Yez got over the cowld yez had the other day?"
"'Pears to me you know a blamed sight more about me than I do,stranger."
"My dear sir, I have the greatest affection for yez. The moment I seenyez a qua'ar faaling come over me, and I filt I must come ashore andshake you by the hand. I faals much better."
"You don't say?"
"That I does. Would yez have the kindness to give me a wee bit oftobaccy?"
The sleepy-looking stranger gazed drowsily at him a moment and then madeanswer:
"I'm just smoking the last bit I've got. I was going to ax you for some,being you had such a great affection for me."
CHAPTER L.
RESCUED.
The miner having made his reply, turned on his heel, still smoking hispipe, and coolly walked away, while Tim O'Rooney gazed after him inamazement. The boys were amused spectators of the scene, and Elwood nowcalled out.
"Come, Tim, don't wait! We shall meet somebody else before long; and asyou have just had a good smoking spell, you can certainly wait a while."
"Yes," added Howard, "no good can come of waiting; so jump in and let'sbe off."
The Irishman obeyed like a child which hardly understood what wasrequired of it, and taking his seat said never a word.
"Let me alternate with you for a while," said Howard to his cousin, "youhave worked quite a while with the paddle."
"I am not tired, but if you are eager to try your skill I won't object."
The boys changed places, and while Howard gave his exclusive attentionto the management of the canoe, Elwood devoid himself to consoling TimO'Rooney in the most serio-comic manner.
"Bear up a little longer, my good fellow. There's plenty of tobacco inthe country, and there must be some that is waiting expressly for you."
"Where bees the same?"
"Of course we are to find that out; and I haven't the least doubt butthe way will appear."
"Elwood," sighed Tim, "'spose by towken of the severe suffering thatmeself is undergoing I should lose me intellect----"
"I don't think there's any danger."
"And why not?" demanded the Irishman, in assumed fierceness.
"For the good reason that you haven't any to lose."
Tim bowed his head in graceful acknowledgment.
"But suppose I does run mad for all that?"
"I can easily dispose of you?"
"Afther what shtyle?"
"A madman is always a dangerous person in the community, and the momentI see any signs of your malady all I have to do is to shoot you throughthe head."
"Do yez obsarve any signs at presint?"
"You needn't ask the question, for the moment it breaks out the reportof the gun and the crash of the bullet will give you a hint of thetrouble."
Tim laughed.
"Yez are a bright child, as me mother used to obsarve whin I'd wash meface in her buttermilk and smiled through the windy at her. If yecontinues to grow in your intellect yez may come to be a man that Iwon't be ashamed to addriss and take by the hand when I maats yez in thestraats."
"I hope I shall," laughed Elwood, "the prize that you hold out is enoughto make any bo
y work as he never did before. I hope you will not wish towithdraw your offer."
"Niver a faar--niver a faar, as Bridget Mughalligan said, when I askedher if she'd be kind enough to remimber me for a few days."
"Tim," added Elwood, after a moment's silence, "we are out of thewoods."
"What do yez maan by that?"
"We can see signs of the presence of white men all around us, and wehave nothing further to fear from Indians."
At this point Howard called the attention of his companion to a largecanoe which was coming around a curve in the river. It contained nearlya dozen men, and was the largest boat of the kind which they had everseen, and savored also of a civilized rather than a savage architect.
"They are white men," said Howard.
"Do yez obsarve any pipes sticking out of their mouths?"
"One or two are smoking."
"Then boord them if they won't surrender."
"They have headed toward us," remarked Elwood, "and must wish to saysomething."
A few moments later the two boats came side by side, and before any oneelse could speak Tim made his request known for tobacco. This wasfurnished him, and as he relit his pipe he announced that he had noobjection to their proceeding with their business.
There were nine men in the larger boat, and all were armed with pistols,rifles and knives. In truth they resembled a war party more thananything else bound upon some desperate expedition.
The boys noticed as they came along, and while Tim O'Rooney wasspeaking, that several of the men looked very keenly at them, as thoughthey entertained some strong suspicion. Finally one of the men asked:
"Are you youngsters named Lawrence and Brandon?"
"Yes, sir."
Here the questioner produced a paper from his pocket, and seemed to readhis questions from that.
"And is that man Timothy O'Rooney?"
"Timothy O'Rooney, Esquire, from Tipperary, at your sarvice," called outthe Irishman from the stern of the canoe, where he was elegantlyreclining, and without removing the pipe from his mouth.
"Were you on the steamer ---- ---- that was burned off the coast ofCalifornia?" pursued the interlocutor.
"Yes, sir."
"Then you are just the party we are looking for."
"Where do you come from?"
"We are from San Francisco, sent out by Messrs. Lawrence and Brandon insearch of their children, whom they learned a few days ago from Mr.Yard, one of the survivors, were left on the coast, having wanderedinland at the time the others were taken off by the Relief."
This was to the point.
"It is fortunate for all parties that we met you," added the man with asmile, "for we receive a very liberal reward to bring you back, nomatter whether we met you within a dozen miles of San Francisco, or wereobliged to spend the summer hunting for you among the mountains, only tosucceed after giving the largest kind of a ransom."
"Prosaad," said Tim O'Rooney, with a magnificent wave of his hand,without rising from his reclining position. "We're glad to maat yez, asme uncle obsarved, whin Micky O'Shaunhanaley's pig walked into hisshanty and stood still till he was salted down and stowed away in thebarrel, by raisin of which Micky niver found his pig agin."
The next day the party reached the outlet of the Salinas River, MontereyBay, where they succeeded in securing transit to San Francisco, and thetwo boys were once more clasped in the loving arms of their anxiousparents.
Howard and Elwood remained in San Francisco until autumn, when they cameEast again and entered college, and having passed through with honorthey returned to the Golden City, and are now partners in a flourishingbusiness. Tim O'Rooney is in their service, and they both hold him ingreat regard. He is as good-natured as when "Adrift in the Wilds" withthe boys, and his greatest grief is that he has never been able to meetMr. Shasta, the most "illigent savage gintleman that iver paddled hisown canoe."
THE END.
* * * * *
THE BOYS' HOME SERIES.
Uniform with this Volume.
This series affords wholesome reading for boys and girls, and all thevolumes are extremely interesting.--_Cincinnati Commercial Gazette._
Joe's Luck; or, A Boy's Adventures in California. By HoratioAlger, Jr.
Julian Mortimer or, A Brave Boy's Struggles for Home and Fortune. ByHarry Castlemon.
Adrift In The Wilds; or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys. ByEdward S. Ellis.
Frank Fowler, The Cash Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr.
Guy Harris, The Runaway. By Harry Castlemon.
Ben Burton, The Slate-Picker. By Harry Prentice.
Tom Temple's Career. By Horatio Alger, Jr.
Tom, The Ready; or, Up from the Lowest. By Randolph Hill.
The Castaways; Or, On The Florida Reefs. By James Otis.
Captain Kidd's Gold, The True Story of an Adventurous Sailor Boy. ByJames Franklin Fitts.
Tom Thatcher's Fortune. By Horatio Alger, Jr.
Lost In The Canon. The Story of Sam Willett's Adventures on the GreatColorado of the West. By Alfred R. Calhoun.
A Young Hero; or, Fighting to Win. By Edward S. Ellis.
The Errand Boy; or, How Phil Brent Won Success. By HoratioAlger, Jr.
The Island Treasure; or, Harry Darrel's Fortunes. By Frank H.Converse.
A Runaway Brig; or, An Accidental Cruise. By James Otis.
A Jaunt Through Java. The Story of a Journey to the Sacred Mountain byTwo American Boys. By Edward S. Ellis.
The King of Apeland. The Wonderful Adventures of a Young Animal-Trainer.By Harry Prentice.
Tom, The Boot-Black; or, The Road to Success. By HoratioAlger, Jr.
Roy Gilbert's Search. A Tale of the Great Lakes. By William PendletonChipman.
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