Adrift in the Wilds; Or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys, Ellis [100 books to read txt] 📗

this in company with his cousin, so that precisely the same thing would have been accomplished had they remained together.

Howard having hurried a great deal, thought it likely that he was some distance in advance of his cousin. He stood some minutes listening for his signals, and then began walking toward the northern end of the hill that he might meet him as he came around. He observed as he advanced that they increased in rocky ruggedness, and could see that it was quite a feat to pass through them.

Going some distance he paused again, and listened intently, but nothing beside the deep murmur of the woods reached his ear.

"What can it mean?" he finally asked himself, as a vague alarm crept over him. "We must be much closer together than we were before, and I haven't heard him whistle for the last half-hour."

He began to doubt whether it was best to proceed further or not. It might serve only to mislead in case Elwood was searching for him. Still hearing nothing to indicate the location of his friend, he made the signal himself—a long, screeching whistle, that rang out in the solemn stillness with a penetrating clearness that sent the chills over him from head to foot.

"He must hear that if he is within a mile," was his reflection, as he leaned his head forward and listened for the first approach of the answering sound.

Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed away, but nothing was heard, and the poor boy looked around in sore alarm.

"Can it be that Elwood is jesting?" he asked himself. "He would not do so if he knew what I am suffering."

Howard was now in great distress. He could not decide what to do. If he advanced he could feel no assurance of meeting his friend, while a retreat was equally hopeless.

Where was Elwood? Had he wandered off among the hills, tempted by the wild scenery, and had he lost his way? Was he searching for his cousin? Or had he been found by Indians?

The last inquiry had been rising in Howard's mind for a half-hour, but he had resolutely forced it down again, until he could keep it away no longer. He could find no other reason to account for the silence, and failure to answer his call. The whistle which he had given must have spread miles in every direction—so far that Elwood could not have got beyond its range had the course of both been precisely opposite. No; it must——

But, hark! A faint, tremulous whistle comes to his ear. It is far away and sounds among the hills behind, as though it had labored up from some cave or chasm miles distant. Howard held his breath, and as he anticipated, it came again so faintly and distantly that had he been walking he could not have heard it.

On both occasions it sounded behind him among the hills, though its tremulous faintness made it appear as though it came from far up in the air, or down deep in some of the gorges of the hills—so uncertain was the exact point of its starting.

Poor Howard was now in a dilemma. Whether to attempt to follow up the signal or to go on to the river and search out Tim O'Rooney and the Newfoundland was a question which was difficult to decide. But his eagerness to find his cousin led him on into the hills, until he had penetrated quite a distance. He then paused and listened for the signal, but none was ever to come to his ears again.

Howard repeated the whistle over and over, and finally fired his gun; but both were equally fruitless. He waited where he was until dark, when with a sad heart he withdrew and resumed his tramp toward the river. Gloomy indeed were his meditations, as he reflected on the occurrences of the day, and there was scarcely anything he would not do, if by any means he could recall his part since he landed upon the main shore.

In the course of half an hour he reached the river, and looked intently out into the semi-darkness to see whether he could recognize anything familiar; but so far as he was able to see, all was strange, from which he concluded that he had struck at a point lower down than where Tim had been left.

He therefore began making his way south, that is, toward the source of the river, after halting and listening for some sound that might tell something either of Tim or Elwood. Suddenly a threatening growl startled him, and then came the welcome bark of Terror, and the next moment the dog was frolicking around him and showing his delight in the most extravagant manner.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. WAITING AND WATCHING.

"Worrah! worrah! but this is a fine scare you've been givin' Tim O'Rooney, so me uncle said whin they towld him his wife was coming over to Ameriky to see him. Here I've been awake fur the last two hours, jist, looking and expacting you to come back, and thinking the red colored gintleman had carried you away entirely——"

Howard impatiently interrupted him.

"Have you seen or heard anything of Elwood?"

"No-o-o!" replied Tim, his answer rising and falling in a circumflex through a half-dozen notes of the scale.

"Then he is lost!"

"What?" fairly shrieked the Irishman.

"He is lost in the woods."

Howard had little heart to go over the experiences of the afternoon. He simply told his friend that he and Elwood had separated on their return, and he had been unable to find him again.

"What did you separate for?" asked the listener.

"Because I was a fool; but O, Tim, there is no use of regretting what has been done. If Elwood is lost, I shall never leave this place."

After a while Howard became more composed, and they conversed rationally upon the best plan for them to follow. Tim O'Rooney was strenuous in his belief that Elwood had wandered off among the hills, and finding it growing dark, had sought some secure shelter for the night. He was sure that he would give vigorous signs of his whereabouts as soon as day dawned.

There was something in the daring nature of the boy that made it probable that Tim was right. Tempted out of his path by some singular or unexpected sight, he had wandered away until he found it too dark to return, and so had made the best of the matter and camped in some tree, or beneath the ledge of some projecting rock.

Such was the theory of Tim O'Rooney, and so ingeniously did he enforce it that Howard could not avoid its plausibility. None knew better than he the impulsive nature of the boy, and such an act upon his part would be in perfect keeping with similar exploits.

There was but one thing that raised a doubt in the mind of Howard—and slight as was this, it was enough to give him sore uneasiness, and at times almost to destroy hope. At the time the boys separated, Elwood had shown a great anxiety to reach Tim, and proposed his plan in the belief that it would bring them together the more quickly.

This made it seem improbable to Howard that he would have allowed anything to divert him from his course unless his personal safety caused him to do so; but Tim said that if such were the case they would have heard his gun.

"Do you s'pose he's the boy to lit a wild animal or any of them red gintlemen step up to him without his tachin' thim manners? But he's the youngster that wouldn't do the same. You'd hear that gun of his cracking away as long as there was any lift for him to crack."

"It may be as you think, Tim, but I believe it is worse. Suppose he is in the hands of some of these wandering bands of Indians."

"S'pose he isn't."

"We have done that; but let us face the worst. If he has been taken away by them, what shall we do?"

"Hunt him up."

"That is true, but how that is to be done is the difficulty. If we only had Shasta with us."

"Arrah, now, if ye'd had him ye'd've niver gone thramping off in the woods and having me alone here with the dog. The red gintleman knowed what was best for us, and do ye mind, he kept his eye upon yez all the time."

Howard had thought the same thing a score of times since noon, and there was no need of his being told how the Pah Utah would have acted had he remained with them.

"I thinks Mr. Shasta isn't a great many miles off. P'rhaps," added Tim, significantly, "he's kapin' watch upon us and will come to our help in our throuble."

But the contingency, to Howard at least, was too remote for him to build any hopes upon it. It seemed more probable that the Indian's friendship had led him much further out of the way than they had suspected, and that he was now many a long mile off, speeding toward home.

"He may find out that the youngster is wid 'em," added Tim, "whin he will hasten to his relaaf."

"That seems the most likely."

"There's but one thing agin it."

"And what is that?"

But the Irishman was silent. The boy repeated his question.

"It's bad—let it be."

But Howard insisted.

"Wal, you know, they may—wal—put him out the way."

"O Tim!" groaned Howard, "that cannot be, that cannot be!"

"I hopes not, but there's no telling what these sarpints may take into their heads to do. They're a bad set of craytures, always barring Mr. Shasta, and I'd've thought a good daal more of the same if he'd only staid a few days longer wid us."

"He thought we had enough sense to take care of ourselves, after he had seen us through the most dangerous part of our journey, otherwise he would have remained with us to the end. But, as I said a minute ago, it does no good for us to lament what cannot be helped. As soon as it is light we must go up among the hills with Terror and make a hunt for Elwood."

"Yees spake the truth. The dog may be smarter than we is, and I'm thinkin' it wouldn't have to be very smart to be in that same fix, and we'll sarch till we finds out something about him."

"It is fortunate for poor Elwood that the night is so mild and pleasant."

"Fort'nit for ourselves, be the same towken; for without our fire we'd be rather cool when we slept, and the cold would keep us awake all night."

"But we have the blanket with us, and that would protect us at any time, no matter how cold it might be."

"Yis," assented Tim, with a great sigh. "If I only had me pipe under way I'd faal somewhat more comfortable, barring the worriment I faals at the absence of the youngster. May God watch over him through the darkniss!"

"Amen!" was this reverent response of Howard.

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE SEARCH.

All through the night Tim O'Rooney and Howard Lawrence sat in close consultation. Hunger and sleep were alike unthought of. Elwood Brandon was lost, and that was all of which they could think or speak. How they longed for the morning, and how impatient they were to be on the hunt! It seemed to Howard as if he could go leaping and flying down the chasms and gorges among the hills, and never tire until he had hunted out and brought back his cousin. Where could he be? If nestling in the branches of a tree, or hid away among the rocks, was he asleep? Or if awake, of what was he thinking? Did he believe that Howard was searching for him? Or did he imagine him also lost? It would not be reasonable to suppose that he had any suspicion of his finding Tim O'Rooney.

If in the hands of California Indians——But it would be vain to trace out all the thoughts and speculations that ran through the head of the boy. Some of them were of the wildest and most grotesque character, and would assume a ludicrous phase to one whose mind was not in such a whirl of excitement and distress.

In the gloom of the wood the darkness was so intense that neither Tim nor Howard could distinguish each other, though only a few feet apart. The Newfoundland lay close to his master, seemingly sound asleep, but more heedful than the two of the approach of danger.

Occasionally through the night the call of some wild animal was heard—sometimes distant and sometimes so near that they started to their feet and were about to enter their canoe and shove out into the stream; but when it came no more they were reassured. Then