They rode a little here and a little there, the ponies pushing their way through the tremendous growth; but it was all the same. Shanty after shanty was in ruins where it could be traced, but desertion everywhere.
But during the search, moved by a strange feeling of opposition, the friends shrank from approaching the dense grove which hid the home they had left. They all shared the feeling that it would be too painful to look upon the traces of the fire that without doubt had levelled with the soil the house they had toiled over, and it was not until Griggs spoke that something like a spell which had hung over them was driven away.
“Seems to me,” he said, “that when the fellows burned or carried off all their stuff they made a pretty clean sweep. I’m just going across now to have a look at my old spot; but I don’t suppose there’ll be any dinner waiting there. Won’t you have a look at your old roost first?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, making an effort. “I couldn’t go in yonder before. Chris, boy, there’s no one to blame but ourselves; we deserted the old place; but it seemed to be hard to bear. Let’s look at the ruins, if there are any left.”
They forced their way through a dense grove of fruit-trees and wild growth which towered above the plantings of the past, the ponies breaking down the lush vines and succulent canes, till they were brought up suddenly by something solid which was overgrown by a vine.
“What!” cried the doctor.
“Ahoy! Griggy!” roared Chris through his hands. “Ahoy! Hooray! Here’s one of our vines loaded and breaking down with grapes.”
The next minute the American and his companions had forced their way up to the front of the big shanty and its shed—the barracks, as they had termed it—to find that their fellow-settlers had respected the nailed-up doors and shutters, leaving at their exodus the unlucky district just as it had been at the peril finders’ departure; but Nature had been hard at work for her part, toiling as she toils in a rich country to destroy man’s work and restore all to its pristine state.
But though vines had draped, and shoots had dislodged shingles, the stoutly-nailed walls stood firm. No firebrand had been set to the sawn-up wood, and after some work with an axe to wrench away the boards that had been nailed over window-shutter and door, there was the old place fairly intact, with the utensils just as they had been left.
The consequence was that the wanderers, after seeing to their weary beasts and leaving them grazing in the midst of abundance, made their own dinner seated at the rough table, drinking the water from the swift river hard by, and finding, half smothered by the competing growth, abundance of peaches and Bartlett-pears to supplement the grapes ripening on the roof of the old home.