THE CANOE.
Ned Trimble would not hear the repeated thanks of our friends, but waved them an impressive and magnificent farewell as they took their departure. They were not yet beyond sight of each other when they heard him calling to them in excited tones, and the next moment he came running after them.
"I think you said you was going to undertake to foller the river down the valley, didn't you?"
They made answer that such was their intention, whereupon he hastened to add:
"About a mile down, under some bushes that stick out by a big rock, on the same side that you're traveling, is a little Injin canoe that is just the thing you want. You're welcome to it."
"But how shall we thank you?"
"I don't know; again, my noble friends, I bid thee farewell, and if forever, still forever, fare thee well."
The eccentric miner lifted his hat, bowed very low, and sauntered back to his friends with the air of a monarch who had just indulged in some gracious act of condescension, while our friends, delighted beyond measure, hurried forward on their journey.
They were now amply provided—each having a gun and plenty of ammunition, and their faithful dog. They began to look upon themselves as on a holiday excursion. The only thing was, that there was rather too strong a tinge of danger about it. If they were but a hundred or two miles nearer home, and their parents had no anxiety regarding them, it would be more pleasant. But then, they could easily understand how much worse it easily could be, and they were heartfelt at the good fortune which had followed them thus far on their strange entry into California. The most that they could ask was that it might continue.
Elwood and Howard were anxious to test their marksmanship, but prudence forbade it, as the chances were that they would need all their ammunition, and the report of their guns might draw inconvenient attention to themselves.