Adrift in the Wilds Or The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys Part 15

"No; that is Tim O'Rooney, a good friend of ours."

"Your humble sarvint!" saluted the Irishman, removing his hat, making a profound bow and sc.r.a.ping a large foot upon the ground.

"Well, there! We're glad to see you. What's all your names?"

They were given several times, and then carefully spelled at the request of the large-whiskered man, who desired that no mistake might be made.

"You may call me Ned Trimble, and that ugly-looking fellow 'tending to the fire is George Wakeman, and that horrid-looking chap scrubbing off his dirty face, is Alfred Wilkins. Neither of them know much, and I brought them along to black my boots and dress my hair."

It looked as though Ned was a sort of a wag, for his companions smiled as if they were used to that thing. He continued:

"We're a party of hunters that have been in Californy for the last five years, and I rather guess I've prospected through every part of it."

"You must be rich by this time."

"Rich!" laughed Ned Trimble. "Well there, we're everything but rich.

Somehow or other we hain't had the luck. We sold a claim up in the diggings for five hundred dollars, and the next week the party sold it for fifteen thousand. That's the way it has always gone with us; but we are going to be rich yet--ain't we, boys."

"Yes, if we only live long enough," replied Wakeman.

"I told you that chap hadn't much sense," remarked Ned, addressing his three visitors. "He doesn't know enough to answer a question as he oughter. I've been trying to teach him something, but I shall have to give it up as a bad job. Been to breakfast?"

"No--not yet."

"Thought you hadn't. Cook, put up another slice, douse it in b.u.t.ter, salt and pepper, and serve it up as you used to do when I employed you at the Astor. Gentlemen, how do you like it, rare or well done?"

All made answer that they were not particular, and Ned replied thereunto as follows:

"Sensible fellows! If you don't care what you get, you won't have to care much for what you don't get. What will you select as a dessert?

Plum, rice, bread, or cherry pudding? Apple, mince, cranberry, plum, peach, or lemon pie? Cup-custard, tapioca, watermelon, citron, or sherry, maderia, or port. Order which ever you choose, gentlemen, it don't make any difference to us. We can give you one just as well as the other."

"I suppose you can," laughed Howard; "so we'll not take the trouble to order any."

"All right; as you please, gentlemen. We haven't any turkey or oysters left so you will have to put up with a little antelope that we shot yesterday afternoon. Fine condition for this time of year, and the best kind of flesh to starve to death on."

"We haven't had a taste of it yet; but we devoured a goodly piece of a mountain sheep."

"Just so. I was going to speak of a mountain sheep, if my servants hadn't interrupted me so often with inquiries as to how they should make the wine sauce. Ah! I see our meal is ready; we will therefore repair to the banquet hall."

The six took their seats upon the leaves, and ate the meal in the usual primitive manner, verifying the adage, "hunger is the best sauce."

Ned Trimble enlivened the meal in his usual loquacious manner; and after a great many words and circ.u.mlocution, the fact was discovered that he and his friends had spent the last five years in California, not having visited a civilized post within two years.

Disgusted with their ill success in the Sacramento Valley, they had pulled up stakes and started off to hunt new fields for themselves. They were very cheerful and hopeful, and according to their accounts had encountered every imaginable danger of the California wilds.

Elwood inquired whether they had met any grizzly bears.

"Grizzly bears!" repeated Ned, stopping just as he was about to insert a huge piece of meat in his mouth. "Grizzly bears? Well, there! _We've lived among 'em!_"

"Is it possible?"

"Yes; I tracked a big grizzly in the Sierra Nevada for two days and then I stopped."

"What made you stop?"

_"I concluded the bear tracks were getting a little too fresh!"_

CHAPTER XVIII.

A WANT SUPPLIED.

One thing attracted the notice and pleased our friends, and gave them a hope of being able to supply a want they had felt every moment since landing upon the California coast. Each of the miners had two rifles, and were abundantly supplied with ammunition and mining tools. The wonder was how they could carry so heavy a load for such a distance. It could not be understood until Ned Trimble stated that they had two good, tough mules pasturing in a secluded place about a half-mile distant.

"That 'ere Injin blanket you're carryin' is rather pretty!" remarked Ned as he rubbed his greasy fingers through his hair.

"Yes, we got it of an Indian girl, and take great pride in it."

"You did, eh? What did you give her for it?"

"A gold watch."

"Ah! Well, if the watch was a first-rate one maybe she got her pay; but what did she want with a watch? That's just the way with all women.

They'll give ten times the value for some little gewgaw to wear about 'em. I was engaged to a fine-looking girl in North Carolina, but I seen she was getting so extravagant that I couldn't understand it, so I left before it was too late."

"A very wise plan."

"Yes, she was very extravagant."

"In what respect?" asked Elwood, who was quite amused at their newly-found friend.

"Well, you see, she would persist in wearing shoes on Sunday instead of going barefoot like the rest of the young ladies. I warned her two or three times, but I catched her at church one day with them on, and so I went over to the house that night and told her I couldn't trust her any longer, and we exchanged presents and parted."

"Exchanged presents?" laughed Wakeman. "What sort of presents were they?"

"I wish no trifling insinuations, sir," replied Ned, with a grandiloquent air. "She returned to me a tooth brush that I had presented her some months before, and I gave back to her a tin b.u.t.ton that she had bought of a traveling peddler, and that I had been wearing on Sundays for my breastpin. 'Tis not the intrinsic worth you know, but the a.s.sociations connected with such things that makes 'em dear. But it is a painful subject, gentlemen, and let us, therefore, dismiss it."

Howard and Lawrence thought it best to introduce the matter upon which they had been so long meditating.

"I notice that each of you have two guns apiece. Did you leave San Francisco with that supply?"

"No; we've got 'em of the redskins we've run agin on the way."

"Would you be willing to sell us a couple? You observe we have but one between us, and it makes it rather dangerous, as none of us are very skillful in the use of the rifle."

"You needn't take the trouble to tell us that," replied Ned, with a quizzical look. "I'd like to accommodate you, but we had begun to think that we needed three or four guns apiece; for, you see, we intend to stay in these parts some time, and we are sure to have trouble with the redskins."