We seemed to be making forced marches, and seldom stayed to do much hunting, except simply for sake of fresh meat.
Unless one keeps a diary on the road—and that is what neither Jill nor I did—it is impossible to remember a tithe of the many little events that happen, or the character of the scenery. During the first six or eight days of this journey, however, there was but one character in the scenery, and that I have already noted; and great events were few and far between, so that only a few impressions remain recorded on the tablets of my memory.
I will never forget our quiet camp life of an evening, when the tents were raised, and we settled down for enjoyment. Sometimes even yet, when sleepless in bed of a night I allow my mind to revert to them, and they never fail to woo me to sweet and dreamless slumber.
The dinner was, of course, the great event of the evening, and it was wonderful how well Pedro cooked that meal, considering the few things at his command. Lawlor and he were our servants in a manner of speaking, but immediately after dinner they joined the group around the camp fire, and there we sat chatting and telling stories till ten o’clock or past.
Every one had something to tell, and Castizo, though full of adventurous stories and reminiscences himself, never failed to draw “yarns,” as sailors call them, from others.
Even Jill and I found our tongues, and told Castizo about the little escapades of our schoolboy days. He listened to these, I think, far more eagerly than he did to the wilder exploits of Ritchie, Lawlor, and Pedro.
He laughed heartily over our piratical experiences, running with, or being run away with by the hulk, and firing our pistols at the flag-ship.
“Your sister Mattie,” I remember him saying one evening, “must be a darling child, and as full of spirit and fun as a young puma.”
“She is all that,” “She is all that,” said Jill and I together.
It used to amuse Castizo to hear my brother and me, when mutually excited, speak thus together in one breath and in the same words. He would laugh, and then say—