CHAPTER XIII.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
The voyage southward proceeded without special incident. "Glaciers"were gradually left behind, but "gulfs" and bays, channels and narrowpassages were still a part of the programme. The day following thereading of the "Decade" was Sunday. Mr. Selborne at the request of manyof the passengers, preached in the cabin, the Percivals organizing achoir which led the singing with their clear young voices.
On Monday the _Queen_ reached Nanaimo, a city and coaling-station forships, on the east shore of Vancouver's Island. Tom and Fred hired ateam and drove half a dozen miles inland to a trout-brook of which theyhad heard. Tom could not walk about much, but he enjoyed the rideimmensely, and when they reached the brook he limped along the bank toa shady spot, from which he shouted various comments, disparaging andotherwise, on his companion's methods of angling and rather limitedsuccess. They returned tired but happy, with a dozen silvery littlefish as trophies. In the late afternoon Randolph and Pet headed a partyto explore the city, which they found a hot and dusty one, but, in itsupper portions, abounding in wonderfully bright flowers.
At one garden they stopped and bought a great ball of nasturtiums. Itwas nearly twilight, and as the travelers leaned against the fence,idly watching the owner of the garden as he gathered the nosegay, theysaw whole flocks of evening primroses opening their wings like yellowbutterflies, one by one.
This gardener, it seemed, was a blacksmith, employed by day in a coalmine which ran out half a mile under the sea. His business, he said,was to keep the mules shod.
The shaft of this great mine came up in the outskirts of the town,and the Percivals, earlier in the day, had seen the huge buckets comerushing up from the bowels of the earth, six hundred and forty feetbelow, laden with coal and streaming with water.
The evening was memorable for a row in the harbor to an Indianburying-ground, where strange and hideously carved figures kept watchover the neglected graves.
Until a late hour, after their return from this boating excursion, theparty remained on deck, talking over the events of the day.
"Do you know," asked Tom, "how this place started?"
"Well?" said Mr. Percival, who was always pleased to have his boythorough in looking up the history of a place.
"An Englishman named Richard Dunsmuir, was riding horseback along atrail back on the mountain. The horse stumbled, and when Dunsmuir cameto look at the log or stone, it was coal. He started a big mine, withtwo partners who put in about five thousand dollars apiece. A fewyears later one of them sold out to Dunsmuir for two hundred and fiftythousand, and afterward the second one sold for seven hundred and fiftythousand."
"Whew!" whistled Randolph. "I say, Tom, let's give up Latin and gointo the coal-mining business."
"All right," says Tom cheerfully. "You buy a horse and gallop throughthe woods till you both tumble down. Then I'll pick you up, point outthe coal--if it doesn't turn out to be a stump--and we'll go halves. OrI'll sell out now for ten dollars and fifteen cents!"
Just as the steamer cast off her fasts and started her paddles,Selborne announced that the bright sky had, as usual, cajoled them intokeeping late hours, for it was now nearly eleven, and in four hours itwould be daylight again. Whereupon the deck party broke up.
Next morning they found themselves at Victoria, where they stopped longenough to complete their purchases of miniature totem poles and otherIndian curiosities, which were displayed for sale upon the wharf.
All through that bright day the _Queen_ ploughed her way southwardthrough a blue, sunlit sea. It was Puget Sound, said Tom, thecartographer of the occasion. They touched at Port Townsend and atSeattle. At the latter port the ship left half her passengers, asthe Excursion was too large to be quartered at one hotel. The rest,including the individuals in whom we are specially interested, kept onto Tacoma. Here they said good-by to the _Queen_--now as homelike asthe "Kamloops"--and took up their abode in a large hotel which theyfound to be delightfully situated on high ground, with a broad, coolveranda overlooking the Sound.
Immediately after supper Tom rushed out to have his kodak refilled.He had already taken nearly a hundred pictures, and reveled inanticipation of showing them, especially the instantaneous andsurreptitious views of his unconscious relatives and friends, togetherwith many captive bears, to an admiring circle during the coming winter.
The following day was spent in riding about the city, the plankedstreets and sidewalks of which struck them as very odd, and in visitingthe Indian reservation at Puyallup, a few miles distant. The countrywas very dry, and forest fires were smouldering all along the road.
At Seattle, the next stopping-place, the historian ("I'm a regular'Pooh Bah' on this trip," exclaimed Tom) was called on for statisticsconcerning the city.
"Be accurate, my son," added Fred; "but above all, be brief."
"Population rising forty thousand," rattled off Tom, who had his lessonwell this time; "twice destroyed by fire, the last time in 1889. Nownearly rebuilt again. Situated between a big body of fresh water calledLake Washington, and Puget Sound. Always fighting, good-naturedlyenough, with its rival Tacoma."
Oh! the dust, the dust. It lay in the streets four inches deep. Itfilled the air at every step, and powdered the pretty traveling dressesof the girls.
But it was a wonderful city, with its push and rush and fever ofbuilding and money-getting. To-day a vacant lot, to-morrow aneight-story bank building; to-day a peaceful bit of upland pasture,to-morrow a huge hotel, crowded with guests from all parts of the world.
"Nobody can stop to walk, or even ride in carriages," observed Bess."It fairly takes away my breath here. You get into a cable car andwhirl off at ten miles an hour, up hill and down dale. Do they eversleep, do you suppose?"
The Percivals had a really enjoyable excursion to Lake Washington,where they sailed and steamed to their hearts' content. A cable cartook them to and from the lake, and beside the road they could see lotsof land offered for sale at high foot-rates, with tall forest-treesstill standing in them; others, partly built upon, and occupied by finedwelling-houses, with the back yard full of charred stumps.
The busiest streets of the city, like those of Tacoma, were "paved"with four-inch planks. Electric cars, as well as those run by cable,dashed to and fro with startling speed. The air was so filled withsmoke from forest fires that ships in the harbor could hardly bedistinguished from the shore. A day's ride through a wonderfullyfertile country brought them to Portland, Oregon, where Randolph'sfirst move was to hunt up Bert Martin.
Bert and Susie were overjoyed to see their old friends. They lived in apretty cottage not far from the railroad station, and Randolph had tobring Kittie, Pet, Tom, Fred and Bess to take tea with them.
When supper was finished, and the young people had talked over the dearold Latin School days, and the gay summer at the Isles of Shoals, Bertgot a step-ladder and gathered handfuls of red roses from the trellisover the front door, where they grew in true Oregonian abundance.
Tom and Susie got on marvelously well together, and the former showeda singular eagerness to have Bert correspond with him, after he shouldhave arrived home in the East.
From Portland the managers had provided their travelers with a littletwo-day side trip to the Dalles.
They rode in the cars all one afternoon along the southern shore ofthe Columbia, stopping to scramble up a steep hillside to the foot ofthe beautiful Multnomah Falls, and arriving at Dalles just after dark.Randolph and Fred were the only ones who cared to explore the town,which they conscientiously did, traveling miles, they averred, over theplank sidewalks, and hopelessly losing their way on several occasions;but turning up in good season at last at the depot.
The train was side-tracked here, and tooting and puffing engines,shifting freight cars, kept sleep from the eyes of most of the party.At daybreak they rose and made their way sleepily down to the river,where a steamer was waiting for them. Back they went, down the river toPortland. A thick fog hid the "mountainous and prec
ipitous cliffs" and"bold headlands" which the guide-book promised them.
Wearily they boarded the cars standing ready at the Portland depot, andtook possession of their comfortable compartments and drawing-rooms fortheir Eastward journey.
The next morning found them at Tacoma, and then on the NorthernPacific, striking across the new State of Washington. The CascadeMountains--a long and insurmountable barrier between East and West--hadto be crossed, and up went the train, curving, groaning and winding, asthe Canadian Pacific had through the Rockies.
"Longest tunnel in America except the Hoosac!" screamed Tom above thedin of the cars, as they plunged into the "Stampede." "Nearly two milesfrom end to end, and half a mile above the level of the sea."
And now came the most wearisome part of the homeward journey. The sunrose in a cloudless sky, and disclosed only hot, treeless, rollingprairie as far as the eye could reach. In the cars the mercury stood atninety-six degrees, and linen dusters were once more brought to light.
In the evening they reached Spokane Falls, and set forward theirwatches one hour. It gave the travelers a queer sensation to arrive ata station at nine o'clock, stop half an hour, and start on at half-pastten.
The following day they recrossed the Rocky Mountains and descendedthe eastern slope, through a pleasant farming country, to the city ofHelena. Here there was a stop of several hours, and the boys had a goodswim in the great tank which was fed by hot springs.
When they were on board the train and in motion once more, Tom wascalled on for the "probabilities."
"To-morrow morning," he announced, "we shall be in Cinnabar, sevenmiles from the Mammoth Hot Springs. There we shall divide up intoparties, and 'do' the Yellowstone Park in four-horse mountain-wagons,taking about five days for the job. It's going to be one of the biggestthings on the whole trip, too."
But we must leave Yellowstone Park, surnamed "The Wonderland ofAmerica," for another chapter.
Gulf and Glacier; or, The Percivals in Alaska Page 13