Two months after the adventures related in last chapter, our wandering trio of friends found themselves bivouacked in one of the forests of the far West, just as the shades of evening were beginning to deepen into night. They had bade adieu to kind-hearted Captain Lyell at Monte Video, finding a passage in an American ship to San Francisco. Heavy weather had been experienced while rounding the Horn, weather that put them in mind of the old days up north in the ice-fields: strong head-winds snow-laden, against which they could scarcely stand, far less walk; tempestuous grey seas, foam-fringed, that often broke aboard of them with sullen roar, or went hurrying astern with an angry growl, like a wild beast disappointed in its prey. But the good barque had borne herself well. And when at length her head was fairly north, clouds, and gloom, and storm fled away; the sun shone down on a sea of rippling blue; reefs were shaken out, stu’n’sails set alow and aloft; and in a few weeks they were safely at anchor not far off that busy world’s mart, that mighty mushroom city called San Francisco. Here they had lazed for a whole week, then wended their way towards the wilderness. Yet am I loth to call it a wilderness, this beautiful tract of country in which they now found themselves. Savage and wild it was; its woods more often rang with the war-whoop of the Indian, or the roar of the grizzly bear, than echoed to the sound of the white roan’s rifle; savage in all conscience. But no one who has not wandered in its great and interminable forests, roamed over its mountains, or embarked on its thousand and one rivers and lakes, could imagine that such sublime scenery could exist anywhere out of a poet’s dream or an artist’s fancy.
Now, although as the historian of their adventures, I am quite willing to admit that our heroes were, after nearly three years of wandering and hair-breadth ’scapes, and adventures in almost every land the sun shines upon, both good travellers and sportsmen in the true sense of the word, still, I think, it was lucky for them they met with two experienced hunters, who consented to guide them on their expedition to the northern backwoods of America. They met them, as they had met Lyell, at a table d’hôte, in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco; and in a few days a friendship was cemented between them, which none of the party had ever reason to repent of, because they were men of the world.
And here we have the five of them, mostly intent on the preparation of the evening meal. Lyell is cook to-night; and he evidently cooks from no badly-stored larder. Yonder hangs a lordly deer; wild-fowl they have in prolusion; and in a short time they will, doubtless, enjoy their al fresco dinner as only sportsmen can.
Dugald McArthur, one of their pioneers, is standing with his arms folded, and his brawny shoulders leant against a tree, while honest John Travers is carefully examining the mechanism of Chisholm O’Grahame’s bone-crusher. Chisholm himself is gazing dreamily at the log-fire, and so, too, is Frank. But Dugald is the first to break the silence. He bends down, and lays a hand on Chisholm’s shoulder.
“I say,” he remarks, “you wouldn’t think to look at me that there was much the matter with me, would you?” Chisholm smiled by way of reply.
“But there is, though,” continued Dugald. “I’m suffering from a disease the doctors call nostalgia, and I oftentimes dream o’ the bonnie hills and glens of dear auld Scotland.”
(Nostalgia, home-sickness; an irresistible longing to return to one’s native land, which sometimes becomes with the Swiss a fatal disease.)
“Well, you don’t look very bad, I must say,” said Chisholm. “But if going back will cure you, why not go with us?”
“It is just what Jack and I mean to,” said Dugald. “Now wait a wee until we have eaten supper, and sit down to toast our toes, and John and I will tell you what brought us out.”