Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 Part 2

"Very well, then, we will call that settled. And mind, the sooner you start, the sooner you may expect to find yourself better and stronger."

Mr. Chester, who had followed the doctor to the door, saw the inquiring look on Tom's face, and asked him, with a smile, how he would like to go to Colorado.

"What! to dig for silver?" cried Tom.

"No; to seek for what is more valuable than silver--health," said his father. "Dr. W---- says that I must go to the Rocky Mountains, and we shall start in a few days."

It was dark when the train rolled into Denver, and Tom, even if he had not been tired and sleepy, could have seen nothing of the town as they drove to the hotel. But in the morning, when he woke up and looked out of the windows of his room, which was on the western side of the house, he cried aloud with surprise and delight. All along the horizon rose a great range of mountains, with two lofty peaks towering over the others, one at the north and the other at the south. They seemed so near that Tom thought he could walk to them; but when he had dressed himself and gone down to the office, he asked the clerk how long it would take, and the man looked at him, and said, "I wouldn't advise you to try, you little _tender-foot_."

"My feet are _not_ tender," replied Tom, sharply.

The people in the room all laughed, and a miner in a blue flannel shirt patted Tom on the back, and said, "That's right, my boy. You remind me of a kid of my own up at Fairplay. The fellow's only chaffing you. When any one's been just a little while in the country, they always call him a 'tender-foot.' You mustn't mind that."

Then he went on to explain to Tom that the foot-hills which looked so near were at least fifteen or twenty miles away. Then he told him about the mining towns, or "camps," as they are called, and how the men who look for mines, called "prospectors," search through the mountains, seeking signs of silver ore; and that when they find them, they put stakes in the ground to mark the "claims" which the law allows, or the right to dig in a s.p.a.ce 1500 feet one way and 300 the other. Then he described how they dig down in hopes of finding what they call "pay gravel," or ore which contains enough silver to make it worth sending to the works. He mentioned some men whom he knew who had sold "prospect holes," as he called them (or shafts partly sunk, and not yet proved to be good mines), for large sums. Tom was immensely interested in these narrations, and was eagerly listening when his father came in to find him.

"Guess you'd better let me have that boy of yourn to make a miner of, Colonel," said this new friend to Mr. Chester. "He's got plenty of _sand_."

Mr. Chester knew that people in the West give t.i.tles to almost every one, but it was some time before either he or Tom found out that it was a great compliment to say that any one had "sand," which means, in the rough but very expressive language of the mountains, that one possesses bravery and great strength and force of character.

After seeing all the sights of Denver, Tom and his father took the train one morning for a little town called Golden, near the foot-hills. Here they were transferred to a railroad only three feet wide, and found an open or "observation" car, from which they could see very well. The train entered what is called a canon, or gorge, down which poured the waters of Clear Creek (which, by-the-way, were not clear at all, but very muddy). It wound up this canon, the walls of which seemed to come together away over the heads of the pa.s.sengers. No boy who is fortunate enough to make a journey to Colorado should fail to see this remarkable place. The little engine tugged at the train, and dragged it up the steep canon, and by the side of the winding stream, until it came to a valley surrounded by high hills, where is the town of Idaho Springs.

Here Tom and his father left the train, and walked to a neat-looking hotel, where they took up their quarters. Mr. Chester already felt the benefit of the change of climate, and he wanted to spend much time in excursions to different points. He and Tom went up by the railroad to Georgetown, and drove to Central City, and at both places they saw a great many mines. They went down in buckets, lowered by great ropes, six and seven hundred feet into the shafts, and then sometimes came out by tunnels cut from the sides of the hills. They saw mills in which gold ore was crushed by stamps, or great iron bars falling heavily on it, and works where silver ore was put into hot furnaces--in fact, they saw so many things that Tom became rather bewildered. All the time, however, he found himself thinking about what the miner had told him in Denver, and longing to try his own hand at prospecting. When he told his father, one day, that he would like to go up on the hill-sides or in some of the canons and look for a mine, the latter at first laughed, and then grew rather serious, and began to talk about the danger of being led away by this desire to be suddenly rich without labor.

"You hear, my boy," he said, "about the one, two, or three men who succeed, but not a word about the hundreds, and even thousands, who make failure after failure, and pa.s.s their lives in the misery of 'hope deferred.'"

Tom listened respectfully to his father, but could not make up his mind that it would not be a fine thing to find a silver mine. He began to take walks by himself, and look out for the signs about which various miners had told him. At times he would think that he had found something, and he would bring little pieces of rock to show to a friend whose acquaintance he had made in the little town. This was an old miner named Sam, a rough but very kind-hearted man, who did not laugh at all, but told him pleasantly that he had not yet found any mine.

One day, while walking in a canon near the hotel, and chipping with a hammer at the broken rock, he saw two poorly dressed men carrying bundles, as if on a journey, who stopped and asked what he was doing.

They told him that there was no use in searching in that place, but that they had an excellent prospect hole, already showing "pay gravel," which they had been compelled to abandon on account of pressing engagements elsewhere, and which, although it was worth many thousands, they would sell him for ten dollars. Poor little Tom had just that sum, which his father had given him on his birthday, and to which he had proposed to add his savings, for the purpose of buying some fishing-tackle. Perhaps his slight "craze" about a mine made him less cautious than usual. At all events, he accepted the men's offer, and promised to meet them that afternoon near a tree which they pointed out.

He was there on the minute, with his ten dollars in his pocket. The men took him up the hill, and showed him a rather deep hole, into which a rough ladder led. Down this they went, and Tom saw some ore of just the kind that his friend Sam had told him he ought to find. Then the men set two stakes in the ground, on which they rudely marked "T. C.," took his money, and walked hastily away. Tom went down to the hotel full of his purchase. His father had gone to Georgetown, but Sam was there, and to him Tom eagerly narrated what he thought his good fortune. Sam heard him without remark, and then put on his hat, and taking pick and shovel, asked Tom to show him the mine. Arriving there, he shovelled up some of the ore which Tom had seen, and disclosed quite a different rock below.

On this lay a piece of board, which he handed to Tom, who read thereon,

"u ar sold bad u yung tender-fut this aint no mine."

For a moment he did not understand; then came a shock of disappointment, and then a sense of indignation, not so much against the men who had deceived him as at himself for his delusion and stupidity.

Sam looked kindly at him. "Pretty rough on you, Tom, wasn't it?" he said. "Why, my boy, this is an old claim of mine, which I gave up long ago as no good. They've just gone and salted it--I mean, put some good ore in to deceive you. So they walked off with your ten dollars, the miserable scamps! Tell me what they looked like."

Tom described them.

"Ho! ho!" said Sam. "I saw those same fellows taking the train for Denver. I'm going down there to-morrow, and the Chief of Police is a friend of mine. Perhaps we'll run across them some day."

As they walked home, he tried to cheer Tom up by telling him stories of clever men who had been served in similar ways; but Tom was sober, not on account of his loss, but because it had come to his mind how foolish he had been from the first. He felt easier when he had told his father the whole story.

The latter laughed heartily, and said, "Well, Tom, my boy, considering how badly you had the mining fever, I do not think that ten dollars was a large price to pay for a cure."

Some time after Tom had returned to his home he received a letter from Colorado, which proved to be from his friend Sam, reading partly as follows:

"... I am glad to tell you that we catched them two claim-jumpers [men who steal claims]. They'd spent all your stamps, sure enough, and you won't never see them no more; but it's a comfort that they got two years at Canon City [where the penitentiary is]. Better luck next time. Come out again next summer, and I'll help you find an A1 mine...."

But Tom says that if he ever has any money at all, it will be earned in some good old-fashioned way; that he is not a "tender-foot," and that he does not want any more interest in prospect holes.

WOLF-CHILDREN.

BY JAMES GREENWOOD.

Some years ago a soldier stationed at Bondee, in India, while pa.s.sing near a small stream, saw three wolf cubs and a boy drinking. He managed to seize the boy, who seemed about ten years old, but who was so wild and fierce that he tore the trooper's clothes, and bit him severely in several places. The soldier at first tied him up in the military gun shed, and fed him with raw meat; he was afterward allowed to wander freely about the Bondee bazar. A lad named Tanoo, servant of a Cashmere merchant then at Bondee, took compa.s.sion on the poor boy, and prepared a bed for him under the mango-tree where he himself lodged; here he kept him fastened to a tent-pin.

Up to this time he would eat nothing but raw flesh, but Tanoo gradually taught him to eat b.a.l.l.s of rice and pulse. In about six weeks after he had been tied up, and after much rubbing of his joints with oil, he was made to stand and walk upright, whereas. .h.i.therto he had gone on all fours.

One night, while the boy was lying under the mango-tree, Tanoo saw two wolves creep stealthily toward him, and after smelling him, they touched him, when he got up. Instead, however, of being frightened, the boy put his hand upon their heads, and they began to play with him, capering about while he pelted them with gra.s.s and straw. Tanoo tried to drive them off, but could not. At last, however, they left, but the following night three wolves came, and a few nights after four, which returned several times.

The wolf-boy, however, could not be entirely reconciled to civilized life. In being removed from place to place he never lost an opportunity of endeavoring to escape into the jungle. At last Tanoo was sent away on a short journey, and when he returned, his savage charge had disappeared, and was never again heard of.

The story of another wolf-child is even more wonderful than the above.

In March, 1843, a cultivator who lived at Chupra, about twenty miles from Sultanpoor, went to cut his crop of wheat and pulse, taking with him his wife, and a son about three years old. As the father was reaping, a wolf suddenly rushed upon the boy, caught him up, and made off with him toward the ravines. People ran to the aid of the parents, but soon lost sight of the wolf and his prey.

About six years afterward, as two sipahees were watching for hogs on the border of the jungle, they saw three wolf cubs and a boy come out from the jungle and go down to the stream to drink; all four then ran to a den in the ravine. The sipahees followed, but the cubs had already entered, and the boy was half way in, when one of the men caught him by the leg and drew him back. He was very savage, bit at the men, and seizing the barrel of one of their guns in his teeth, shook it fiercely.

The sipahees, however, secured him, brought him home, and kept him for twenty days, during which he would eat nothing but raw flesh, and was fed accordingly on hares and birds. His captors soon found it difficult to provide him with sufficient food, and took him to the bazar in the village of Koeleepoor, to be supported by the charitable till he might be recognized and claimed by his parents.

He is unable to speak or to articulate any sound with distinctness. In drinking, he dips his face in the water, but does not lap like a wolf.

He still prefers raw flesh; and when a bullock dies, and the skin is removed, he attacks and eats the body in company of the village dogs.

[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 37, July 13.]

THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.

CHAPTER IV.

Commodore Preble sailed from the United States for the Mediterranean in the frigate _Const.i.tution_ late in the spring of 1803. The ships of the squadron did not sail together. Bainbridge, with the frigate _Philadelphia_, first entered the Strait of Gibraltar, and found a Moorish corsair cruising for American prizes. He captured her and took her to Gibraltar. When Preble arrived he proceeded to Tangiers with the squadron, when the Emperor of Morocco declared that he had never authorized any depredations on American commerce. The affair was amicably settled. Soon afterward the _Philadelphia_ chased a corsair into the harbor of Tripoli, and in so doing struck upon a sunken rock.

She was fast bound. The Tripolitans captured her, made Bainbridge and his officers prisoners of war, and consigned the crew to slavery.

With Preble was Stephen Decatur, a gallant young Lieutenant, son of a veteran naval commander. He was in charge of the brig _Enterprise_, with which, late in December, he captured a Tripolitan ketch laden with girls which the ruler of Tripoli was sending as a present to the Sultan. The maidens were landed at Syracuse, and the ketch (which was renamed _Intrepid_) was used by Decatur in an attempt to recapture or destroy the _Philadelphia_. With seventy daring young men he sailed into the harbor of Tripoli on a bright moon-lit night (February, 1804), the _Intrepid_ a.s.suming the character of a vessel in distress. Most of her officers and men were concealed.