Adrift in the Wilds; Or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

  CHAPTER XLVII.

  STILL WAITING.

  Tim O'Rooney and Howard Lawrence, after making their way out of therange of hills to the river-side, where their canoe lay, waited untildark, in accordance with their agreement, before venturing out upon theriver. They were quite uneasy, and to prevent their trail revealing themthey dropped a few hundred yards down the shore, where they awaited thecoming of darkness.

  "Worrah! worrah!" said Tim with an immense sigh, "this is a bad day whenwe came to leave the youngster with the rid gintleman. A fine youngsterwas the same--bowld and presumin'. It's a qua'ar failin', MastherHoward, that comes to me."

  "Yes, I am sad enough, too."

  "Ah! but it is not exactly that be the towken of another faalingintirely."

  "What is it then?"

  "Whin it's yourself that is lost and awandtherin' off by yourself allalone, and nobody with yees, then I thinks it's yees that I loves morenor him that stays with me. But now, whin it's Elwood--God blesshim!--that's gone, he's dearer to me than all the rest of the world, notexceptin' yourself. But," and Tim scratched his head in greatperplexity, "it's the same that puzzles me sorely. Could yees be aftheraccounting for it?"

  "Elwood and I both know that you think a great deal of us, and no doubtit is because your affection is so equally divided."

  "That's it. Yees have made it all plain. I likes each of yees more thanthe other, and both of yees a great deal the most, whither be the towkenof takin' yees apart or together, or takin' both of yees separate, andalso wid each other."

  Tim nodded his head again and again, as if to signify that it was clearto his mind. Perhaps it was; but if so, one may doubt whether it was asclearly expressed.

  "There's another thing that troubles me," added the Irishman, with oneof those great inhalations of breath which seem to fill the entirebeing.

  "What is that?"

  "Me pipe has gone out, and I hasn't the maans convanient to relight it."

  "That is a small infliction which you can well afford to bear. I am onlyanxious for the night, that we may speed on our way home to getassistance for poor Elwood."

  "Yis, if it's bist."

  And just in that exclamation Tim O'Rooney echoed the sentiments of hiscompanion. Ever since leaving the range of hills, with the resolve tohurry away in search of help, the question had been constantly rising inhis mind: "Is it best to do so?"

  He tried to put it out of hearing, with the determination that he hadalready decided; but, as if it were the pleadings of conscience, itwould not be stifled, and it came again and again, until when Tim spokeit seemed almost as loud as his.

  "I can't make up my mind about that," said he. "When we left the hills Ihad not a moment's doubt but that he was in the hands of the Indians,where there was great danger of our getting ourselves; but then we arenot sure of it, and suppose we go away and leave him wandering throughthe woods until he is captured or is obliged to give himself up to keepfrom starving. I imagine him following along the shore of the riverlooking for us----"

  "There! there! do yez shtop! No more for me; I've plenty," and theIrishman drew his sleeve across his eyes, as if he were wiping an undueaccumulation of moisture, while Howard Brandon was scarcely lessaffected at the touching picture which he had drawn, and which he feltmight be realized from his own remissness.

  "I am sure I cannot tell which is for the best," he added in greatperplexity. "If a prisoner, he may be able to get away."

  "Yis, yees are right; some dark night he can give the owld haythen theslip, and make thracks for the river."

  "And who knows but he has been able to elude them, and is only waitinguntil dark to hunt us up?"

  "Yez are right agin; I was about to obsarve the same myself."

  There was one view of the case, which if it did occasionally forceitself upon the attention of Howard, he resolutely refused to utter areference to it. It was that Elwood had been killed accidentally, or bythe savages. That was too terrible a contingency to take definite shapeuntil there was no escaping it, and as all of us know better we won'trefer to it again.

  "Then he may be in the power of these wandering Indians that took suchan interest in the antelope we left lying down among the rocks."

  "Yis; yez are correct sure."

  "How is it, Tim, that you agree with every supposition I make, no matterbow different they are from each other?"

  "Wal, you saas me mind is a little foggy, be the towken that I hasn'thad the pipe atween me lips since yesterday. When I'm deprived of thatpleasure I finds meself unable to reason clearly."

  "That is the first time I have heard that smoke makes a thing clearer."

  "Ah! that's the trouble," added Tim, with a desponding shake of hishead. "If this bad state of things continyees fur a few days longer,yees'll have to laad me around wid a string, or else taach Terror to dothe same, as yez have saan a poor blind man and his dog do."

  "You draw rather a woeful picture of yourself. But I suppose you canhold out for a few hours longer, and when it becomes dark, we can make afire, light your pipe and get far away from it before any of the Indianscould reach the spot."

  "I think yez are right, but me intellect is working so faably thisafternoon, that I faars to tax it too hard lest it topples over and gitsupsit intirely. Yis, yez are right."

  "Somehow or other I think Shasta is in this neighborhood----"

  "So does meself," interrupted Tim, in his anxiety to give assent.

  "If he is, he will not forget the kindness of Elwood."

  "Never!"

  "And whether we wait here or not he will attend to his safety all thesame."

  "That he will--you may depend on it."

  "Then shall we wait here or hurry down the river for help?"

  "Both, or aither as yez plaise."

  "But, Tim, we must do one or the other."

  "Let us slaap and draam over it."

  This struck Howard as a good suggestion, as they both needed slumbersorely, and adjusting themselves in the canoe, with the Newfoundland asever maintaining guard, they were quickly wrapped in deep slumber.

  When they awoke it was broad day, and the whining of the dog told themat once that he had detected something suspicious.