“How much do you make?” asked Jim, in the same style that he would have inquired the time of day.
“Four hundred and seventy dollars. Is this all yours, Jim?” inquired Inwood, hardly comprehending the pleasant truth.
“Shouldn’t wonder now if I had sumfin’ to say ’bout it.”
The three withdrew to a more private place, where the money was again counted, and it was found to amount to the sum mentioned. Jim explained how he had been engaged in saving for the last five years, as he had an idea that there would come some “’casion” like this. He was shrewd enough to keep its existence a profound secret until the crisis in their affairs, well knowing that Inwood would have considered that moment of necessity as at hand long before.
And so the three horses were purchased, and a number of articles which they needed, and, leaving San Francisco, they took a southeast direction toward San Jose and continuing on in the same course, struck a pass in the Coast Range near the 37th parallel.
By this time, they were far beyond the limits of civilization, and traveling in a wild, savage country, where they occasionally met emigrants and miners, but more frequently encountered red men and wild beasts.
California then, as now, was rapidly filling up, but among the mountains were thousands of miles where the foot of white men had never trod, and where, beyond question, the auriferous particles lay in glittering masses, only waiting for the spade of the miner, or the rock-splitting powder of the blaster.
Before reaching the regions of the mountains, Inwood made careful inquiries, and learned that the residence of the Underwoods lay but a small distance from San Jose, and that, by a slight deviation from his course, he could take it in his path. He did so, neither his brother nor the astute African entertaining the slightest suspicions of the true object which drew him thither.
They caught sight of the large Mexican-looking building, with its low roof, broad wings and extensive outbuildings, its vast droves of cattle and sheep, which were scattered here and there over an area of many miles; all these signs of the thrift and wealth of the owner, and it was with strange emotions that Inwood halted on a small eminence a short distance away, and gazed down upon the pleasant scene.