Adrift in the Wilds Or The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys Part 39

"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 acc.u.mulation 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 a.s.sent.

"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 alarming 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.singers 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."