“We must leave Terror to watch him then, for it wouldn’t do for him to lie alone and asleep.”
“Of course not.”
The Newfoundland, which had risen to his feet, was told to remain on guard, and the boys started off on a ramble that was to be a most eventful one to them.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Ramble
After the restraint the boys had undergone, cramped in the canoe, and not daring to wander out of sight of their camp-fire when upon shore, there was a delicious relief in rambling through the woods. The clear, pure air that was dry and cool in the shadow of the forest, the undulating, charming scenery, the novel look that rested upon all they saw—these possessed a charm to our young friends which they hardly could have resisted, even if they had the will to do so; but when we say that after starting forth scarcely a thought of their imprudence entered their heads, it was but natural that they should find themselves led much further away than was either wise or consistent with the resolves with which they left their friends, Tim and Terror.
They took no notice of the direction they were following, nor of the distance they had gone, until near the middle of the afternoon Howard abruptly paused and asked, with a look of alarm:
“Elwood, what have we done?”
“Why? What is the matter?”
“We must be a mile off from Tim, and it will be dark before we can get back.”
“O! I think not. You know we have walked very slowly, and we can hurry when we take it into our heads to return.”
“But do you know the way?”
“Certainly. Don’t you?”
“What course must we follow?”
Elwood pointed to the northwest, which, while it was not far from their general course, was by no means the proper one by which to rejoin their companion.
“How strange!” said Howard. “It seems to me that yonder is the point from which we started.”
And he pointed nearly due west, just as wrong as he could possibly be.
“You are wrong,” said Elwood positively. “I am sure of the right way.”
“We won’t dispute over it,” replied his companion, with some sadness, “for it is very doubtful if either of us is right.”
“All we have to do then, is to hunt for the river and follow that up until we find Tim sound asleep.”
“Yea; but how is the river to be found? To you it lies in one place, and to me in another.”
“But I can prove that you are wrong, and,” laughed Elwood, “that I am, too, although I was never right.”
“How so?”
“The sun sets in the west, and notice where it is.”
Howard now opened his eyes in amazement. He would have been sure that it was going down in the other part of the sky; but the proof before his eyes was irrefragable.
“It must be,” he replied. “We have been ’turned round.’ Just as when we left the wharf at New York. I was below when the steamer came out, and so long as New York was in sight I was sure it lay in the wrong place.”
“But, how bad even that makes it! We cannot reach the river before dark, and we shall not know whether we am a mile above or below where Tim is sleeping.”
“If we go straight for the river, I think it likely that we shall come much nearer him than that.”
“It may be, but how are we to tell?”
“Why, if we don’t find him by night, we can fire oft our guns and call to him.”
“And bring a party of the savages down upon us.”
“That may be if there are any in the neighborhood, but we shall have to run the risk.”
By this time the boys were fully impressed with their want of discretion and with the urgent necessity of making all haste back to the river.
“Let us keep our thoughts about us,” said Howard, “for we have been without them long enough. Now, the Salinas River runs very nearly north and south, doesn’t it?”
“This portion of it does.”
“Then we must go as nearly east as we can, and let’s be off.”
Turning their backs upon the sun, they began retracing their steps; but they had journeyed scarce half an hour when they found themselves near a range of hills, which they were sure they had not passed through, and did not remember to have seen.
“What does this mean?” asked Howard, still more alarmed. “We never have been near these.”
“Are they not the hills we noticed just us we were about starting?”
“They cannot be;—these are larger, have not half as much wood upon them. I tell you, Elwood, there is one thing sure.”
“I know what you mean.”
“What is it?”
“We are lost!”
“You are right. We may find Tim again, but we are going to have trouble to do it.”
“Listen! He may call to us.”
They stopped walking find held their breath, but not a sound broke the solemn stillness, save a faint, hollow roar—whether the deep murmur that is always heard in a great forest, or the sound of the distant Pacific Ocean they could not tell.
“No; he is asleep yet,” said Elwood. “If he would only wake up he would shout to us.”
“Thus you see, if we shoot our guns, the chances are that he will not hear it, while it may be the means of bringing to us the very ones we are so anxious to keep away.”
So they concluded not to fire their rifles for the present.
“But these hills,” continued Howard, “they don’t extend in any great direction either north or south. The question now is, shall we pass around the northern or southern end?”
“What difference will it make?”
“All the difference in the world. If Tim is to the south of us, and we pass around that way, I think we shall find him without much hunting, while if we take the wrong course it will be night before we can get anywhere near him.”
“I see,” replied Elwood. “We shall have to guess at it. But, hold!” he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes. “You go one way and I will another!”
Howard shook his head.
“There is too much risk.”
“Not at all. The distance is short, and we can whistle to each other every few minutes. Then, you know, as we shall be looking for each other, we cannot lose ourselves in these still woods. The minute I get sight of the river I can tell whether we are above or below Tim.”
Howard would not consent at first, but his cousin set forth the advantages of the plan so eloquently that he finally agreed. Arranging their signals and manner of proceeding, the boys, therefore, separated.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Back to Camp
The hill which the boys proposed to pass around was about a quarter of a mile in length and but slightly less in breadth—much greater than either of them suspected when they set out. It rose like a peak to the height of several hundred feet, as if it were an offshoot from the main ridge of hills, left to flourish by itself.
Howard walked slowly along, after glancing back at his cousin until the intervening wood concealed him from view, when he gave a short, sharp whistle, which was immediately answered. Then, appreciating the necessity of haste, he quickened his footsteps.
As he advanced the hills assumed proportions of which he had not dreamed, and that raised in his mind strong doubts as to the wisdom of separating from his companion. He would not have done it had not the latter urged him so. Misgivings now arose in the mind of the boy. He looked upon his duty as that of restraining and tempering Elwood’s impulsiveness. He had done so several times to his manifest advantage; but on this day, as Howard looked back, it really appeared as if he had bidden good-by to his senses. Their separation from Tim was almost criminal in its foolishness, and yet he had scarcely raised an objection; and now, was not the last proceeding still more imprudent? As it stood, the three members of the little party who should never have been out of each other’s sight, were now a good distance from each other, and that, too, when in a hostile country.
From t
hese rather sad reflections Howard was roused by the faint, echoing whistle of Elwood.
“He is all right,” thought he, feeling much relieved, as he placed his fingers to his mouth and returned the whistle. “We are both now passing around the hill, so that we cannot get further apart, and can keep within call all the time.”
Admonished by the lateness of the hour, Howard almost ran. He grew somewhat impatient at the unexpected extent of the hill; but finally he passed beyond the southern point, and as he stood and listened, he heard the murmur of the river—proof that it was close at hand.
“Now,” thought he, “if Elwood will only hurry, we have a good chance of finding Tim before he gives us up for lost.”
The boy could not see that anything at all was gained by their course in passing around the ridge. Neither of them, were in sight of the river, and would have to advance still further before they could form any idea of their whereabouts. He was resolved to do this in company with his cousin, so that precisely the same thing would have been accomplished had they remained together.
Howard having hurried a great deal, thought it likely that he was some distance in advance of his cousin. He stood some minutes listening for his signals, and then began walking toward the northern end of the hill that he might meet him as he came around. He observed as he advanced that they increased in rocky ruggedness, and could see that it was quite a feat to pass through them.
Going some distance he paused again, and listened intently, but nothing beside the deep murmur of the woods reached his ear.
“What can it mean?” he finally asked himself, as a vague alarm crept over him. “We must be much closer together than we were before, and I haven’t heard him whistle for the last half-hour.”
He began to doubt whether it was best to proceed further or not. It might serve only to mislead in case Elwood was searching for him. Still hearing nothing to indicate the location of his friend, he made the signal himself—a long, screeching whistle, that rang out in the solemn stillness with a penetrating clearness that sent the chills over him from head to foot.
“He must hear that if he is within a mile,” was his reflection, as he leaned his head forward and listened for the first approach of the answering sound.
Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed away, but nothing was heard, and the poor boy looked around in sore alarm.
“Can it be that Elwood is jesting?” he asked himself. “He would not do so if he knew what I am suffering.”
Howard was now in great distress. He could not decide what to do. If he advanced he could feel no assurance of meeting his friend, while a retreat was equally hopeless.
Where was Elwood? Had he wandered off among the hills, tempted by the wild scenery, and had he lost his way? Was he searching for his cousin? Or had he been found by Indians?
The last inquiry had been rising in Howard’s mind for a half-hour, but he had resolutely forced it down again, until he could keep it away no longer. He could find no other reason to account for the silence, and failure to answer his call. The whistle which he had given must have spread miles in every direction—so far that Elwood could not have got beyond its range had the course of both been precisely opposite. No; it must—
But, hark! A faint, tremulous whistle comes to his ear. It is far away and sounds among the hills behind, as though it had labored up from some cave or chasm miles distant. Howard held his breath, and as he anticipated, it came again so faintly and distantly that had he been walking he could not have heard it.
On both occasions it sounded behind him among the hills, though its tremulous faintness made it appear as though it came from far up in the air, or down deep in some of the gorges of the hills—so uncertain was the exact point of its starting.
Poor Howard was now in a dilemma. Whether to attempt to follow up the signal or to go on to the river and search out Tim O’Rooney and the Newfoundland was a question which was difficult to decide. But his eagerness to find his cousin led him on into the hills, until he had penetrated quite a distance. He then paused and listened for the signal, but none was ever to come to his ears again.
Howard repeated the whistle over and over, and finally fired his gun; but both were equally fruitless. He waited where he was until dark, when with a sad heart he withdrew and resumed his tramp toward the river. Gloomy indeed were his meditations, as he reflected on the occurrences of the day, and there was scarcely anything he would not do, if by any means he could recall his part since he landed upon the main shore.
In the course of half an hour he reached the river, and looked intently out into the semi-darkness to see whether he could recognize anything familiar; but so far as he was able to see, all was strange, from which he concluded that he had struck at a point lower down than where Tim had been left.
He therefore began making his way south, that is, toward the source of the river, after halting and listening for some sound that might tell something either of Tim or Elwood. Suddenly a threatening growl startled him, and then came the welcome bark of Terror, and the next moment the dog was frolicking around him and showing his delight in the most extravagant manner.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Waiting and Watching
“Worrah! worrah! but this is a fine scare you’ve been givin’ Tim O’Rooney, so me uncle said whin they towld him his wife was coming over to Ameriky to see him. Here I’ve been awake fur the last two hours, jist, looking and expacting you to come back, and thinking the red colored gintleman had carried you away entirely—”
Howard impatiently interrupted him.
“Have you seen or heard anything of Elwood?”
“No-o-o!” replied Tim, his answer rising and falling in a circumflex through a half-dozen notes of the scale.
“Then he is lost!”
“What?” fairly shrieked the Irishman.
“He is lost in the woods.”
Howard had little heart to go over the experiences of the afternoon. He simply told his friend that he and Elwood had separated on their return, and he had been unable to find him again.
“What did you separate for?” asked the listener.
“Because I was a fool; but O, Tim, there is no use of regretting what has been done. If Elwood is lost, I shall never leave this place.”
After a while Howard became more composed, and they conversed rationally upon the best plan for them to follow. Tim O’Rooney was strenuous in his belief that Elwood had wandered off among the hills, and finding it growing dark, had sought some secure shelter for the night. He was sure that he would give vigorous signs of his whereabouts as soon as day dawned.
There was something in the daring nature of the boy that made it probable that Tim was right. Tempted out of his path by some singular or unexpected sight, he had wandered away until he found it too dark to return, and so had made the best of the matter and camped in some tree, or beneath the ledge of some projecting rock.
Such was the theory of Tim O’Rooney, and so ingeniously did he enforce it that Howard could not avoid its plausibility. None knew better than he the impulsive nature of the boy, and such an act upon his part would be in perfect keeping with similar exploits.
There was but one thing that raised a doubt in the mind of Howard—and slight as was this, it was enough to give him sore uneasiness, and at times almost to destroy hope. At the time the boys separated, Elwood had shown a great anxiety to reach Tim, and proposed his plan in the belief that it would bring them together the more quickly.
This made it seem improbable to Howard that he would have allowed anything to divert him from his course unless his personal safety caused him to do so; but Tim said that if such were the case they would have heard his gun.
“Do you s’pose he’s the boy to lit a wild animal or any of them red gintlemen step up to him without his tachin’ thim manners? But he’s the youngster that wouldn’t do the same. You’d hear that gun of his cracking away as long as there was any lift for him to crack.”
“It may be as you
think, Tim, but I believe it is worse. Suppose he is in the hands of some of these wandering bands of Indians.”
“S’pose he isn’t.”
“We have done that; but let us face the worst. If he has been taken away by them, what shall we do?”
“Hunt him up.”
“That is true, but how that is to be done is the difficulty. If we only had Shasta with us.”
“Arrah, now, if ye’d had him ye’d’ve niver gone thramping off in the woods and having me alone here with the dog. The red gintleman knowed what was best for us, and do ye mind, he kept his eye upon yez all the time.”
Howard had thought the same thing a score of times since noon, and there was no need of his being told how the Pah Utah would have acted had he remained with them.
“I thinks Mr. Shasta isn’t a great many miles off. P’rhaps,” added Tim, significantly, “he’s kapin’ watch upon us and will come to our help in our throuble.”
But the contingency, to Howard at least, was too remote for him to build any hopes upon it. It seemed more probable that the Indian’s friendship had led him much further out of the way than they had suspected, and that he was now many a long mile off, speeding toward home.
“He may find out that the youngster is wid ’em,” added Tim, “whin he will hasten to his relaaf.”
“That seems the most likely.”
“There’s but one thing agin it.”
“And what is that?”
But the Irishman was silent. The boy repeated his question.
“It’s bad—let it be.”
But Howard insisted.
“Wal, you know, they may—wal—put him out the way.”
“O Tim!” groaned Howard, “that cannot be, that cannot be!”
“I hopes not, but there’s no telling what these sarpints may take into their heads to do. They’re a bad set of craytures, always barring Mr. Shasta, and I’d’ve thought a good daal more of the same if he’d only staid a few days longer wid us.”
“He thought we had enough sense to take care of ourselves, after he had seen us through the most dangerous part of our journey, otherwise he would have remained with us to the end. But, as I said a minute ago, it does no good for us to lament what cannot be helped. As soon as it is light we must go up among the hills with Terror and make a hunt for Elwood.”
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 92
