“If you try it,” spluttered Rattleton, menacingly, “I’ll hake your bread—I mean I’ll break your head! I saw her first, and I have first claim there!”
“Break away, there, you chumps,” laughed Frank. “We have business first, you know. We must speed on toward California and bring this wonderful trip of ours to a successful finish. Onward is the cry.”
That afternoon they bade farewell to George and Mildred, and rode away, sorry indeed at the parting.
[CHAPTER XVIII.—OLD FRIENDS.]
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“We are a set of jolly, jolly lads, As we ride—as we ride away! You bet we’re up to date, but are no cads, As we ride—as we ride away! We’ve crossed the plains and scaled the Rockies high, And now hurrah! for ’Frisco’s town is nigh; We sing as toward that port we swiftly fly, As we ride—as we ride away!” |
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.”