The Edward S. Ellis Megapack

by Edward S. Ellis

  Finally Shasta seemed to hesitate—not the hesitation of doubt and uncertainty, but as if he had neared if not reached his destination, and had slackened his pace that he might not pass the exact point.

  He was not long in finding the proper spot, and Elwood could see that he was stooping down and busy at something. While he was closely scrutinizing him, he suddenly became aware that they stood beside the river, and the Pah Utah was engaged with his canoe. It occupied him but a moment, when he turned around, lifted the boy over and laid him down upon the blanket which was spread over the bottom of the boat, the remainder was folded carefully around his body, and then the Indian stood back, as if to command his young friend to go to sleep without any delay or questioning.

  The boy had lain but a short time when he found the blanket so intolerably warm that he threw a portion from him. It was instantly and rather roughly replaced—evidence that Shasta meant that his wishes should be obeyed. At any rate the boy thought so, and dared not repeat the act.

  The great warmth of the blanket caused Elwood to break out into a copious perspiration from head to foot, and caused him almost to gasp for breath; but when he seemed only to meditate on relieving himself of the superabundant clothing, the dusky watcher leaned forward to see whether he dared violate his implied commands. It looked very much as though the Pah Utah was acting as a physician to his youthful friend.

  CHAPTER XLVII

  Still Waiting

  Tim O’Rooney and Howard Lawrence, after making their way out of the range of hills to the river-side, where their canoe lay, waited until dark, in accordance with their agreement, before venturing out upon the river. They were quite uneasy, and to prevent their trail revealing them they dropped a few hundred yards down the shore, where they awaited the coming of darkness.

  “Worrah! worrah!” said Tim with an immense sigh, “this is a bad day when we came to leave the youngster with the rid gintleman. A fine youngster was the same—bowld and presumin’. It’s a qua’ar failin’, Masther Howard, that comes to me.”

  “Yes, I am sad enough, too.”

  “Ah! but it is not exactly that be the towken of another faaling intirely.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Whin it’s yourself that is lost and awandtherin’ off by yourself all alone, and nobody with yees, then I thinks it’s yees that I loves more nor him that stays with me. But now, whin it’s Elwood—God bless him!—that’s gone, he’s dearer to me than all the rest of the world, not exceptin’ yourself. But,” and Tim scratched his head in great perplexity, “it’s the same that puzzles me sorely. Could yees be afther accounting for it?”

  “Elwood and I both know that you think a great deal of us, and no doubt it is because your affection is so equally divided.”

  “That’s it. Yees have made it all plain. I likes each of yees more than the other, and both of yees a great deal the most, whither be the towken of takin’ yees apart or together, or takin’ both of yees separate, and also wid each other.”

  Tim nodded his head again and again, as if to signify that it was clear to his mind. Perhaps it was; but if so, one may doubt whether it was as clearly expressed.

  “There’s another thing that troubles me,” added the Irishman, with one of those great inhalations of breath which seem to fill the entire being.

  “What is that?”

  “Me pipe has gone out, and I hasn’t the maans convanient to relight it.”

  “That is a small infliction which you can well afford to bear. I am only anxious for the night, that we may speed on our way home to get assistance for poor Elwood.”

  “Yis, if it’s bist.”

  And just in that exclamation Tim O’Rooney echoed the sentiments of his companion. Ever since leaving the range of hills, with the resolve to hurry away in search of help, the question had been constantly rising in his mind: “Is it best to do so?”

  He tried to put it out of hearing, with the determination that he had already decided; but, as if it were the pleadings of conscience, it would not be stifled, and it came again and again, until when Tim spoke it seemed almost as loud as his.

  “I can’t make up my mind about that,” said he. “When we left the hills I had not a moment’s doubt but that he was in the hands of the Indians, where there was great danger of our getting ourselves; but then we are not sure of it, and suppose we go away and leave him wandering through the woods until he is captured or is obliged to give himself up to keep from starving. I imagine him following along the shore of the river looking for us—”

  “There! there! do yez shtop! No more for me; I’ve plenty,” and the Irishman drew his sleeve across his eyes, as if he were wiping an undue accumulation of moisture, while Howard Brandon was scarcely less affected at the touching picture which he had drawn, and which he felt might be realized from his own remissness.

  “I am sure I cannot tell which is for the best,” he added in great perplexity. “If a prisoner, he may be able to get away.”

  “Yis, yees are right; some dark night he can give the owld haythen the slip, and make thracks for the river.”

  “And who knows but he has been able to elude them, and is only waiting until dark to hunt us up?”

  “Yez are right agin; I was about to obsarve the same myself.”

  There was one view of the case, which if it did occasionally force itself upon the attention of Howard, he resolutely refused to utter a reference to it. It was that Elwood had been killed accidentally, or by the savages. That was too terrible a contingency to take definite shape until there was no escaping it, and as all of us know better we won’t refer to it again.

  “Then he may be in the power of these wandering Indians that took such an interest in the antelope we left lying down among the rocks.”

  “Yis; yez are correct sure.”

  “How is it, Tim, that you agree with every supposition I make, no matter bow different they are from each other?”

  “Wal, you saas me mind is a little foggy, be the towken that I hasn’t had the pipe atween me lips since yesterday. When I’m deprived of that pleasure I finds meself unable to reason clearly.”

  “That is the first time I have heard that smoke makes a thing clearer.”

  “Ah! that’s the trouble,” added Tim, with a desponding shake of his head. “If this bad state of things continyees fur a few days longer, yees’ll have to laad me around wid a string, or else taach Terror to do the same, as yez have saan a poor blind man and his dog do.”

  “You draw rather a woeful picture of yourself. But I suppose you can hold out for a few hours longer, and when it becomes dark, we can make a fire, light your pipe and get far away from it before any of the Indians could reach the spot.”

  “I think yez are right, but me intellect is working so faably this afternoon, that I faars to tax it too hard lest it topples over and gits upsit intirely. Yis, yez are right.”

  “Somehow or other I think Shasta is in this neighborhood—”

  “So does meself,” interrupted Tim, in his anxiety to give assent.

  “If he is, he will not forget the kindness of Elwood.”

  “Never!”

  “And whether we wait here or not he will attend to his safety all the same.”

  “That he will—you may depend on it.”

  “Then shall we wait here or hurry down the river for help?”

  “Both, or aither as yez plaise.”

  “But, Tim, we must do one or the other.”

  “Let us slaap and draam over it.”

  This struck Howard as a good suggestion, as they both needed slumber sorely, and adjusting themselves in the canoe, with the Newfoundland as ever maintaining guard, they were quickly wrapped in deep slumber.

  When they awoke it was broad day, and the whining of the dog told them at once that he had detected something suspicious.

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  The Meeting

  Tim O’Rooney and Howard Lawrence, awaking at the same moment, observed the alar
ming action of the dog. Raising their heads they looked carefully around but could detect nothing unusual. They were so securely drawn under the overhanging shrubbery and undergrowth that they were pretty certain no one else was aware of their presence; but the gaze of the dog being turned toward the river they judged that something must be nearing them from that direction.

  Nor were they mistaken. A slight ripple was heard, and the next moment a canoe glided to view. In the center, controlling its movements, sat Shasta, the Pah Utah, and directly behind was Elwood Brandon.

  Howard could scarcely believe his eyes. He stared again and again, while Tim rubbed his organs of vision, winked and blinked, as though vainly seeking to recover from the bewilderment of a sudden awaking from sleep. Finally he muttered to himself:

  “Heaven save me! me intellect has toppled over intirely by raison of the want of me pipe.”

  “Elwood! Elwood!” called Howard, leaning forward and pulling the bushes apart.

  But secure as they deemed their concealment, the eagle eyes of the Pah Utah had penetrated it, while they were yet several rods apart, and abruptly turning the prow of his canoe to one side, he brought it to rest directly opposite and within two feet of the other boat.

  Elwood heard his name and saw his friends the next instant. Reaching forward, he grasped the hands of his cousin and the tears trickled down their smiling faces, while Tim continued rubbing his eyes.

  “Am I draaming? as me uncle said when they towld him his grandfather had died and willed him two pounds and a half, or does I raaly see before me the youngster that the rid gintlemin had burned up? Let me faal the baal of yer hand.”

  The two closed hands, and the joy of both was unbounded. Shasta, at this point, showed a delicacy of feeling that did his heart credit. Joining the canoes together in the old-fashioned manner, he motioned Elwood to enter that of his friends, while he gave his exclusive attention to that of propelling the two.

  Of course, now that the three were reunited, they overran each other with questions, exclamations and the interchange of experiences since they had separated. It did not require much time for the voluble tongue of Elwood to rattle on his brief stay with the Indians and the remarkable manner in which Shasta had secured his escape. Howard had but little to tell, and that was soon given, and they were left to speculate and conjecture on the future.

  Tim’s joy drowned his craving for his tobacco, and as he joined in the glowing conversation of the boys he made no reference to it.

  “I think for the prisent,” he remarked, “we won’t take any hunts upon shore, especially if aich of us has to go alone. The red gintlemen, for some raisin at all, or more likely without any raisin, have taken a great anxiety to make our acquaintance. As fur meself, I prefers to live upon fish to having these same fellows faading upon me.”

  “Yes,” replied Elwood, “I have learned something during the last few days. It is all well enough to be reckless and careless about danger when we are at home and there is no danger, but it is another thing when we are in these parts.”

  “As the Frenchman remarked, ‘tiger hunting is very fine so long as we hunt the tiger, but when he takes it into his head to hunt us the mischief is to pay.”

  “If Shasta will have the onspakable kindness to tow us along in this shtyle for a few waaks, I think we will cast anchor at the wharf in San Francisco without any loss to passingers and freight.”

  “He has seen what ninnies we were,” said Elwood, “and no doubt will accompany us some distance further when he certainly ought to let us try it alone again.”

  “Ah! but he’s a smart young gintleman, as the acquaintances of Tim O’Rooney used to say when they made the slightest reference to him. Couldn’t we persuade him to go on to San Francisco wid us? I think your father would be plaised to take him in as a partner in their business wid them.”

  “But he would hardly fancy the change,” laughed Howard.

  “He might now. When we should state the sarvices he has rindered to us, it’s meself that doesn’t think they’d require him to put in a very large pile of capital.”

  “I am sure if he should prove as keen and sharp in business matters as he does in the way of the woods, he would make one of the most successful merchants in the country.”

  “It’s a pity that he doesn’t understand the illegant use of the tongue, that we might confaar wid him. We could lay the proposition forninst him, and he could gives us the tarms to carry wid us.”

  However philanthropic this might be as regarded the Pah Utah, our friends deemed it hardly feasible to make the attempt to reach his views through the medium of signs.

  As for Shasta, he did not once look backward to observe what his passengers were doing. He was propelling his boat through the water with his usual celerity, his head occasionally turning slightly as he glanced first at one shore and then the other, as though looking for some sign or landmark.

  The day that succeeded the storm was beautiful and clear, everything in nature wearing a fresh and rosy look, as if refreshed by the needed shower. The current of the Salinas was as clear and crystal-like as though it had not received the muddy contents of a thousand brooks, rivulets and torrents gorged with the debris and leaves of its own valley.

  “I am troubled by one sore anxiety.”

  “What can that be?”

  “It is for Mr. Shasta. He seems quite forgetful this morning.”

  “In what respect?” asked Elwood, who did not see the drift of the Irishman’s remarks.

  “He hasn’t had his breakfast, and he must be faaling a wee bit hungry, and be the same token, he must be the victim of great distress, that he hasn’t indulged in the use of his pipe.”

  As Tim O’Rooney had made similar remarks on more than one previous occasion, it may be that the Pah Utah gathered an inkling of his meaning, for the words were scarce uttered when the canoes were headed toward shore, and a landing speedily made.

  A piscatorial meal was provided after the manner already fully given, and when finished the soothing pipe of Tim O’Rooney was produced and enjoyed to its full extent.

  But Shasta showed no disposition to wait, or to indulge in the solace of the weed. Motioning to his friends to enter the boat, he towed them to the center of the river, where he loosed the fastenings, and without a word or sign he headed his canoe up stream and sped away.

  “He is going home,” said Howard.

  “He must imagine that we are owld enough to walk alone,” remarked Tim as he took the paddle.

  “But why not bid us good-by?” asked Elwood.

  “As he has already done so,” replied Howard, “he doubtless does not believe in adding a postscript.”

  CHAPTER XLIX

  Homeward Bound

  Now that our friends were left entirely alone, it became a question whether they should continue journeying by day or night.

  “It seems to me that we are approaching a more civilized part of the country,” said Howard. “I think there will be little risk in continuing our journey.”

  Tim industriously used his paddle, and shortly afterward, Elwood pointed to an open space some distance inland.

  “Yonder are people, and they look as if they were gathered around a camp-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 craap along 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 that we are getting beyond the wild country into a neighborhood where white men abound, and where we can feel some degree of safety.”

  “I suppose they are miners or hunters who are taking their midday meal in 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 white men seated in canoes and fishing near shore. They exchanged the courtesies of the day with them and passed on, growing more eager as they neared the goal.

  It would have been no difficult feat of the imagination for one standing on shore to fancy that the cause was a pocket edition of a Hudson River steamboat, so powerfully did Tim O’Rooney puff at his pipe, the whiffs speeding away over his shoulder in exact time with the dipping of the paddle, as though the two united cause and effect. The fellow was in the best of spirits. Suddenly he paused and commenced sucking desperately at his 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 into the pipe-bowl, shut one eye and squinted into it, rattled it on his hand, puffed at it again, turned his pockets wrong side out, then put them to rights, and repeated the operation, just as we open the door a half-dozen times to make sure our friend isn’t behind it, then gave one of 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 more right spaddily. His intellect toppled all the mornin’, and can’t stand another such strain, or it’ll be nipped in the bud afore it has reached the 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 be glad to supply you.”

  “Elwood!” called Tim.