"As the days passed by I rapidly convalesced, and erelong was able to walk through the orange-groves, or sail with Roger out on the tranquil water; but whenever I had nerved myself up to the point of asking the fate of my friends, to my horror I would find that same old sickening, wavering sensation steal over my brain that I remembered so well, and I would shudder to think that I stood, as it were, upon the brink of madness.
"So in our long rambles on the sea-shore or drives on the beach, we shunned all allusion to the fateful past, tacitly ignoring the unexplained sequel to that terrible tragedy; but the suspense and strain were so great that it is a blissful thing that events followed which diverted my mind from the painful subject, or perhaps my reason may have been utterly overthrown.
"Roger had disposed of his teams, and, after consulting me, procured tickets to San Francisco, a small village that had sprung up on the coast to the north, and as he gave me my ticket he said with a smile:—
"'We will be pards, George, and divide profit and loss up in the mines, and when you strike it "rich," why, you can repay me; and as for interest—guess we will smoke that out at your expense.'
"I replied, through my tears, that all the gold of this earth could not repay his kindness and generosity.
"Before sailing on the Lapwing I wrote to my friends in Missouri, telling them briefly of the disaster which had befallen me, but that I was with the best fellow alive; and in my letter to sister Amy I told her how nobly Roger had cared for me in my direst hour of trial and need, and I hinted that she must wait for me to bring him back, which I would do when I had regained my lost fortune by working in the mines, to which we were now just starting, full of hope and enthusiasm.
"Our first day out on the Pacific proved that body of water to be woefully misnamed indeed; for the weather was just as vile and fickle as I ever saw on the much maligned Atlantic. In the evening Roger and myself were seated on deck, watching the sun set in a pile of black clouds, which, as the broad streams of amber and violet flamed up from behind the sombre mass, slowly changed to purple, rose, and crimson, edged with gold.
"When the brilliant hues had faded, the dusky clouds rested on a sullen sea, that was only ruffled by the fitful breeze, which rose and fell, then died away, leaving a death-like calm, oppressive as it was foreboding.
"The frightened sea-birds flew screaming by, flapping their broad white wings, then fading swiftly away. The captain now came on deck, and, by his quick orders and restless movements, we knew that he anticipated danger from the storm which we could see rapidly rising, and the rigging was soon in order to meet the heavy gale.
"A fiery moon rose in the pale eastern sky, and out to the south-west hung the bow-shaped cloud, black as ebony, save when veined by the blood-red lightning; but as the majestic mass towered to the zenith, it changed to green, edged by a roll of fleecy white, which rose and fell as if weaving a shroud for sea and sky.