Over the Rocky Mountains - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best books under 200 pages .txt) 📗

and tossing the bag violently into the stream, where it sank and vanished for ever. Little did any of the party imagine, at that time, that they had actually cast away some hundred pounds worth of pure gold, yet such was actually the case!

As it left Larry's hand, the bag touched the nose of his horse, which shied, slipped over the bank, fell into the river, and was swept away. Instantly they all clapped their shoulders to the big stone, and pushed with such good-will that it slipped and went crashing into the stream, while the party went off at full speed after the horse. The poor animal was found at last stranded amid a mass of driftwood, with its saddle and baggage gone, but beyond this and the fright, no harm was done.

"Misfortin's niver come single. 'Tis always the way. Howsiver, niver say die; better luck nixt time; ye'll make yer fortin' yit, av ye only parsevair an' kape up yer heart, ould boy." Thus soliloquising, the unfortunate man remounted his wet and bare-backed steed, and rode away.

Time and tide are usually understood to wait for no man; we therefore decline to wait either for time or tide, but, sweeping onward in advance of both, convey our readers at once to the sea coast near Vancouver's Island, where our adventurers arrived after an unusual share of toil and trouble, and found a small craft about to sail for California--took passage in her, and, in due time, arrived at San Francisco. The gold-fever had just set in there. The whole town was in an uproar of confusion. Excitable men had given up their ordinary work, or shut their shops, and gone off to the diggings. Ships were lying idle in the bay, having been deserted by their crews, who had gone to the same point of attraction, and new arrivals were constantly swelling the tide of gold-seekers. Here Will Osten found his father's agent--a staid old gentleman of Spanish extraction, who, being infirm as well as old, was fever-proof. Being somewhat taciturn, however, and rendered irritable by the upheavings of social life which were going on around him, he only vouchsafed the information that the estate which belonged to the late Mr Osten was near the goldfields; that it was not a rich one by any means, and that his advice to Will was to go and see it for himself. Accepting the advice, our hero expended the greater part of his remaining cash in purchasing provisions, etcetera, for the journey to the Sacramento River. By steamer they accomplished the first part of it, and on horseback progressed north-eastward until they drew near to the mighty mountain range named the Sierra Nevada.

On the way they had more than enough of company, for men of every clime and of all ages, between sixteen and fifty, were travelling on every description of horse and mule in the same direction. From most of these, however, they parted on reaching the entrance to the narrow valley in which the estate was said to lie.

"Is it far up the valley?" asked Will Osten of the landlord of the last ranche, or inn (a small hovel) in which they had passed the night.

"Not far," replied the innkeeper, a shrewd intelligent Yankee, with a touch of the nasal tone for which the race is noted; "guess it's about three leagues off."

"A wild gloomy sort o' place, no doubt?" asked Larry.

"Rayther. It'll stand tamin' a bit. There's nobody lives in the whole valley 'xcept a band o' miners who have been prospectin' all over it an' locatin' themselves in the house without leave."

"Locatin', is it?" exclaimed Larry, "faix, it's vacatin' it they'll be, widout so much as `by yer lave,' this night."

"Have they found much gold, do you know?" asked Will Osten.

"Believe not," replied the innkeeper. "It's not a likely place--though there _may_ be some, for gold has been found below this, as you would see, I s'pose, when you passed the diggers on Cocktail Creek."

Bidding the host good-bye, our hero and his friends rode off to take possession of the estate. They were well armed, for, in these days, might, not right, was the law of the land.

It was evening before they reached the head of the valley where stood the house or wooden cottage which had been the abode of Will's eccentric old relative. The scenery was savage and forbidding in the extreme. Lofty mountains rose on every side, and only a small portion of the land in the neighbourhood of the dwelling had been brought under cultivation. The house itself was a low long-shaped building, and stood on the banks of a stream which gushed and tumbled furiously along its rocky bed, as if in hot haste to escape from the dark mountain gorges which gave it birth. A hut near by was the residence of an old native who had been the owner's only servant, and a few cattle grazing in the meadow behind the house were tended by him with as much solicitude as though his late master had been still alive. The only cheering point in the scene was a gleam of ruddy light which shot from a window of the house and lost itself in the deepening gloom of evening.

"A most lugubrious spot," said Will, surveying it sadly as he rode forward.

"Faix, I'd recommend ye to sell it to the miners for whativer it'll fetch," said Larry, in a disappointed tone.

"They're a jovial set of squatters, whatever else they may be," said Big Ben, as an uproarious chorus issued from the house. "Hallo! Bunco, what d'ye hear, lad?"

Bunco's visage displayed at that moment a compound expression of surprise and deep attention. Again the chorus swelled out and came down on the breeze, inducing Bunco to mutter a few words to Big Ben in his native tongue.

"What is it?" inquired Will, eagerly, on beholding the huge frame of the trapper quivering with suppressed laughter.

"Nothin', nothin'," said Ben, dismounting, "only the redskin's ears are sharp, and he has heard surprisin' sounds. Go with him on foot. I'll hold the horses."

"Come 'long, foller me quick as you can," said Bunco, in a whisper--"no take gum?--no use for dem."

Filled with surprise and curiosity, Will and Larry followed their comrade, who went straight towards the window from which the light streamed. A voice was heard singing within, but it was not loud, and the air could not be distinguished until the chorus burst forth from, a number of powerful lungs:--

"Hearts of oak are our ships, Jolly tars are our men--"

At the first note, Larry sprang past his companions, and peeped into the room. The sight that met his gaze was indeed well calculated to strike him dumb, for there, in a circle on the floor, with the remains of a roast of beef in the centre--red-shirted, long-booted, uncombed, and deeply bronzed--sat six old comrades, whom they had not seen for such a length of time that they had almost forgotten their existence--namely, Captain Dall, long David Cupples, old Peter, Captain Blathers, Muggins, and Buckawanga! They were seated, in every variety of attitude, round a packing-box, which did duty for a table, and each held in his hand a tin mug, from which he drained a long draught at the end of the chorus. The last shout of the chorus was given with such vigour that Larry O'Hale was unable to restrain himself. He flung open the door, leaped into the room with a cheer and a yell that caused every man to spring up and seize the nearest weapon, and Captain Dall, in a burst of fiery indignation, was in the act of bringing a huge mass of firewood down on the Irishman's skull when Will Osten sprang in and arrested his arm. At the same moment Muggins recognised his old messmate, and, rushing at him, seized him with a hug worthy of a black bear!

To describe the scene of surprise, confusion, and delight that followed were impossible. The questions put that were never answered; the answers given to questions never put; the exclamations; the cross purposes; the inextricable conglomeration of past, present, and future history--public, personal, and local; uttered, ejaculated and gasped, in short, or incomplete, or disjointed sentences--all this baffles description. After a few minutes, however, they quieted down, and, while the new arrivals attacked the roast of beef, their former messmates talked incessantly, and all at once!

"You're the laird of a splendid estate of rocks and scrub," said Captain Dall to Will.

"Not to mention the river," replied Will, smiling.

"Without fish in it, ha!" groaned Cupples.

"But lots o' goold," suggested Larry, with a wink; "give us a drop o' yer grog, lads, it's dry work meetin' so many friends all at wanst."

"Nothin' but water here!" said Muggins.

"What! wos ye singin' like that on cowld wather?"

"We wos!" returned Muggins.

"An' what's more," said Old Peter, "we've got used to it, an' don't feel the want of grog at all. `What's in a name,' as Jonathan Edwards says in his play of `Have it yer own way,' or somethin' like that. Why, if you call it grog an' make believe, it goes down like--like--"

"Wather," suggested Larry; "well, well, let's have a drop, whativer it is."

"But how comes it to pass," inquired Will, "that we should all meet here just as people are made to do in a novel, or at the end of the last scene in a play?"

"Nothing more natural," said Captain Blathers. "You know, when we were cast adrift by the scoundrels that took my ship, Captain Dall, Mr Cupples, and I, made the coast, and got to San Francisco, where we remained, working at what we could, to scrape together a little money before leaving for England, as we had no heart for the goldfields. Some months after that we were surprised to see Old Peter and Muggins wandering about the town like beggars. They had come in a small craft from South America, and were very glad to join us. We were soon persuaded by them to go to the goldfields, and were about to start when we heard of this estate that had been left to a Mr Osten by his brother. I made inquiries, found it was your father it was left to, and, having heard from Muggins of your father's death, I wrote a letter to let you know we were here, and to ask advice--which letter, by the way, is about half seas over to England by this time, if all's well. Then we agreed to come here, and prospect for gold all over the estate-- the which we have done, but without much luck as yet, I'm sorry to say."

"But you have not yet accounted for the appearance of Buckawanga?" said Will.

"Oh, as to that, Muggins recognised him one day in the street. We found he had come over from them rascally Cannibal Islands, in the service of a missionary--"

"What!" exclaimed Will, dropping his knife and fork.

"The missionary, you know," said Captain Dall; "Mr Westwood, who--"

"Is he--is his _family_--in San Francisco?" asked Will, recovering himself and pretending to be busy with his supper.

"Ay, he is on his way to England--waiting for a ship, I believe; but Buckawanga prefers the goldfields, and so, has come with