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 Buckaw.a.n.ga! They were seated, in every variety of att.i.tude, 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 ma.s.s 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, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 pa.s.s," 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 Buckaw.a.n.ga?" 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 Buckaw.a.n.ga prefers the goldfields, and so, has come with us, as you see."
"Are the Westwoods well--_all_ of them?"
"So far as we know, they are. But in regard to the gold hereabouts--"
"Ay, that"s the thing," said Larry, who had glanced at our hero with twinkling eyes when reference was made to the Westwoods; "nothin" like goold to warm the heart of a poor man an" gladden the eyes of a rich wan. It"s that same as"ll interest the doctor most."
"Well," resumed the captain, "as I was about to say--"
"Didn"t I hear you say something about going to San Francisco for fresh supplies and more tools a few minutes ago?" asked Will, abruptly.
"You did; we are short of provender and hard up for tools. I meant to start to-morrow, but now that you"ve come I"ll delay--"
"We"ll not delay an hour," cried Will, with unusual energy. "It will never do to waste time here when people are making fortunes all round us. The rest of the party can remain to prospect--but you and I, captain, will start for San Francisco _to-morrow_!"
"Ho, ho!" said Larry to himself that night, as he smoked his pipe after retiring to rest; "it"s neck or nothin" is it--never ventur" never win, is the word? Well, well, "tis the way o" the world. My blessin" go wid ye, doctor." With this benediction on his lips he turned round, shook the ashes out of his pipe and went to sleep.
CHAPTER SIX.
IN WHICH WILL MAKES A RETROGRADE MOVEMENT, AND THINGS COME TO A PRETTY Pa.s.s--A SUDDEN AND DECISIVE STEP.
Next morning, true to his word, Will Osten started off to retrace his steps to San Francisco, much to the regret as well as surprise of all his friends, except Larry O"Hale and Bunco, both of whom, being aware of his motive, chuckled mightily in their sleeves but wisely said nothing.
Will was accompanied by Captain Dall and Mr Cupples, the former of whom gave him an account of his adventures since the period of their separation in the South Seas. As most of these adventures, however, were not particularly striking, and as they do not bear upon our tale, we will not inflict them on the reader, but merely refer to that part of the captain"s career which was mixed up with our hero"s new possessions in the Grizzly Bear Gulch, as his valley was named.
"You see, doctor," said Captain Dall, as they cantered easily over the soft turf of a wide plain, which, a little beyond the entrance to the gulch, spread out for a considerable distance along the base of the Sierra Nevada, "you see, when we discovered that this valley, or gulch, as they call it here, was yours--or your father"s, which I suppose means the same thing--Captain Blathers, Mr Cupples, Muggins, Old Peter, and I held a council of war, and came to the conclusion that we would go up an" have a look at it, hopin" to find gold, but first of all we went to the regular diggin"s on the Sacramento River to learn how to wash out the dirt an" make enough to keep us goin". When we had done this an"
lined our pockets with enough of gold-dust to set us up, we started for Grizzly Bear Gulch, where we found n.o.body but Old Timothy, the native that had been your uncle"s servant."
"Timothy," said Will, "was that his name?"
"No, but he could not tell us his name, for the good reason that he does not understand a word of English, so we christened him Timothy, and he answers to it. The old man cut up rusty at first, and seemed disposed to drive us away, but by howling the name of Osten into his ears and giving him a little gold, we converted him into a friend, and got him to allow us to squat in the empty house. Then we went off prospecting, and found gold, sure enough, in the stream in front of the door, but there was not much in the places we tried--little more than enough to pay."
"Then you don"t think much of the property, I suppose," said Will, "for it is evident that in regard to agriculture it is not worth a straw?"
"I"m not so sure of that," returned the captain. "What do _you_ think, Mr Cupples?"
The mate, whose melancholy tones and expressions had increased with his sh.o.r.e-going experiences, said that he did not know; that he was no judge of such matters, but that gold _might_ be found in quant.i.ty, and, if so, the place would be worth something!