Through a California forest of monster trees our five boys were riding, and they sang as they rode, their voices blending beautifully and making the old woods echo with sweet music.
To them it seemed that all the perils of the trip were past and San Francisco was in view, although in truth, it was more than two hundred miles away by the route they would be compelled to follow.
It was a perfect day, with the sun shining from a cloudless sky, as it always seems to shine in California. It was warm, but not too hot for comfort, and the road through the forest was fairly good, winding to the right and then to the left beneath the shadows of the great trees.
"If this road wasn"t so crooked, we wouldn"t have to travel so far,"
groaned Browning, his manner being so dismal that the others broke into a shout of laughter.
"You shouldn"t kick about this road," smiled Frank. "I"ve seen a road much more crooked than this."
"It must have been pretty crooked."
"It was so crooked that when you started to ride on it you"d meet yourself coming back."
"Yow!" whooped Rattleton. "That"s the worst I ever heard! A man should be put behind bars for perpetrating anything like that."
"I don"t think I"d like to be put behind bars," confessed Merry.
"Huah!" grunted Bruce. "There are others. Why, I know fellows who want to be in front of bars all the time."
"You mean they drink incessantly?"
"No, I mean they drink whiskey."
"Yah! yah! yah!" shouted Toots, his shrill laugh awaking the echoes.
"Nebber heard Mistah Brownin" say nuffin" funny as dat befo"! Dat teks de cake!"
"I wouldn"t mind taking a small cake," said the big fellow. "This California air makes me hungry."
"Land ob wartermillions! yo"s alwus hungry, Mistah Brownin", sar. Yo"s been eatin" all de way "crost de country."
"That"s right," was Browning"s confession. "And there was one strip of country where they didn"t seem to have anything to eat but corn beef and cabbage. I actually ate so much corn beef and cabbage that I was ashamed to look a cow in the face."
"Well, we"ll soon be in San Francisco, the greatest city in all this Western land," put in Frank. "There we can get almost any kind of feed we like. Why, I know a restaurant where we"ll be able to get "genuine Boston baked beans.""
"You know a place?" questioned Diamond. "You know? Look here, Frank Merriwell, what is there you don"t know about? Have you been everywhere and seen everything?"
"Not by a long distance, but I have been in San Francisco."
"Well, it seems to me that we never mention a place that you don"t know all about. You were perfectly familiar with Carson City."
"Yes, I had been there before, and it is a place I shall not soon forget, for it was there I last saw my old chum of Fardale, Bart Hodge."
"You have spoken of him often of late."
"Yes; I have been thinking of him very much. It is natural, as I am near where I saw him last. Dear old fellow! How we fought in the old days when we first met! And, after that, what firm friends we became!
Hodge had his failings, but he was white at heart. He would lay down his life for a friend. His parents were wealthy, and they had indulged him in everything he desired, till he was completely spoiled and they could do nothing with him. Fardale was noted as a place where just such fellows were taken and broken into the traces, and so his father sent him there. Hodge didn"t do a thing at first--oh, no! not a thing!
He raised merry thunder, and he hated me with a virulent hatred. He tried to injure me in every way he could devise, but when I pulled him out of several bad sc.r.a.pes, incidentally saving his life, he began to see that he was in the wrong. He had a fierce battle to overcome his natural inclination to do dirty things, but overcome it he did, and he became fairly popular in time, although no one knew him and understood him like myself. Between us there was a perfect understanding, and I could control him when he would not listen to reason from any other person."
"I believe you were stuck on Hodge!" said Diamond, somewhat piqued.
"No more than I am on any of my true friends," answered Frank.
"It seems you put yourself to lots of trouble with him."
"I did; but I fancied there was the making of a fine man in him, and I felt that it was a shame to see a chap go to the dogs. Several times he came near being fired from Fardale, for they could do nothing with him. If he had been fired, his father would have forced him to hustle for himself. With a boy of Hodge"s nature that must have meant ruin, as he would have fallen in with fast companions, would have required money, and would have obtained it by some means or other. If his companions had been crooked, Hodge, although his nature would have rebelled against anything dishonest, would have become crooked also.
He told me that, and he said I was his good angel."
"Hang it, Merry!" spluttered Rattleton; "you"ve been a good angel for lots of us. It seems that every fellow who sticks by you gets on better than he ever did before."
"I"m a mascot," laughed Frank. "Follow me and you"ll wear diamonds--or something else."
"There"s no doubt about it," grunted Browning. "We"ll be arrested if we don"t. Can"t go naked in this country."
"Yah!" cried Toots. "Don" yo" try so hard to say somefin" funny, Mistah Brownin", fo" dat is where yo" meks a mistook, sar. Yo" falls do"n on yo"se"f, an" yo" don" get funny at all."
"Thanks, my colored counsellor," murmured the big fellow. "You have a shocking habit of giving advice when it isn"t asked. I wouldn"t do it so much if I were you."
"Choke off, Toots," advised Frank.
"All right, sar--all right," muttered the colored boy; "but I knows what I knows--yes, sar. It done do some of de crowd good if dey took mah advice, sar."
The boys admired the trees and the weather, and they were supremely happy. All were hearty and healthy, with muscles as hard as iron and eyes clear as the eagle"s.
Browning, although still stout and st.u.r.dy, had worked himself down to a hard, healthy condition, and was really a stunningly handsome fellow. There was about him a suggestion of great strength, and almost any man might have hesitated about facing him in anger.
As Merriwell was one who constantly kept himself in perfect condition, it cannot be said that he was looking better than when the party left New York, although he, like the others, was tanned by exposure to all sorts of weather.
As the party came around a bend of the road, they saw another young bicyclist, who was standing beside his wheel, somewhat uneasily regarding their approach.
"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed Diamond. "Here"s a fellow traveler."
Frank took off his cap and waved it about his head, but the stranger did not answer the salute.
"Some way he doesn"t seem at all pleased to see us," said Rattleton.
"It may be the way with Californians," said Diamond.
"Anyhow we"ll stop and ask him a few questions," Merriwell said. "At least, he can"t refuse to answer us, if we are civil."
So, as the boys came up, they slackened their speed and prepared to dismount. To their surprise the stranger made preparations to mount, as if he contemplated riding away if they stopped.
"He"s going to run away," grunted Bruce, in disgust.
"Hold on," urged Merriwell, addressing the stranger. "We want to talk with you."
Then the boys sprang off their wheels.
To their surprise, the stranger suddenly held out his hand, almost shouting: