But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The student of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year, owing to a freak of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by two English lads.
Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a business-trip, and became the guest of Cyrus’s father. He brought with him his two sons, Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus, familiarly called Dol, who was more than a year younger.
Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long vacations with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid mountains in England and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a sixty-mile spin on their “wheels,” were good football players, excellent rowers, formed part of the crew of their father’s yacht, could skilfully handle gun and fishing-rod, but they had never camped out.
They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with only a canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between them and the sky—
“While a music wild and solemn
From the pine-tree’s height
Rolls its vast and sea-like volume
On the wind of night.”
Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his camping excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth escapes, their hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany him on the trip into northern Maine which he was then projecting for the following October.
Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English fellows, to whom, for his father’s sake, he played the part of genial host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them “first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them.” And as the acquaintance progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad chest, musical voice, and wide-apart gray eyes,—so clear and honest that their glance was a beam,—proved a personage so likable that the student adopted him as “chum,” forgetting those five years which had been a gulf between them.
Dol, whose eyes were of a more steely hue than his brother’s, striking fire readily and showing all manner of flinty lights, who had a downright talent for mimicry, and a small share of juvenile self-importance, came in for regard of a more indulgent and less equal nature.
Directly he got an inkling of the desire for a forest trip which stirred in the boys’ breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all night, Cyrus gave them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into Maine. Mr. Farrar did not purpose returning to Europe till midwinter. His consent was easily obtained. He presented each of his sons with a new Winchester repeating rifle, with which they practised diligently at a target ere the eventful day of the start dawned, though their leader emphatically insisted that the prime pleasures of the trip were not to be looked for in the slaughter done by their hands.
Wearing the camper’s favorite dress of stout gray tweed, the trio left Boston on a lovely September evening towards the close of the month, taking a fast night train for Maine, brimful of enthusiasm about the wild woods and free camp-life. The hue of their clothes was chosen with a view to making their figures resemble the forest trunks, so that they would be less likely to attract the notice of animals, and might get a chance to creep upon them undetected.