The next day they turned over their sole remaining wagon and their ambulance to a government quartermaster. Then, having no baggage, they were ready, without further preparation, to embark on the steamer Orizaba for San Francisco, to which place General Elting and Binney Gibbs had gone on, by stage, from Los Angeles, some days before.
As the great ship entered the Golden Gate and steamed up the bay, past Tamalpias, past the Presidio, past Alcatraz Island, and into the harbor of San Francisco, Glen Eddy found it hard to realize that it was all true, and that this young explorer, who was about to set foot in the city of his most romantic day dreams, was really the boy who had started from Brimfield ten months before, without an idea of what was before him.
Chapter XL.
A HOME AND TWO FATHERS.
Of course they all went to the Occidental, for everybody went first to the Occidental in those days. As they drove through the city, in open carriages, their long hair, buckskin shirts, rags, in some cases soleless and toeless boots, and generally wild and disreputable appearance attracted much amused attention from the well-dressed shoppers of Montgomery Street; and, when they trooped into the marble rotunda of the great hotel, they excited the universal curiosity of its other and more civilized guests.
But they did not mind—they enjoyed the sensation they were creating; and Glen, who was one of the wildest-looking of them all, rather pitied Binney Gibbs on account of the fine clothing he had already assumed, as the two met and exchanged hearty greetings once more.
"Come up into my room, Glen," said Binney, eagerly, "I've got a lot of Brimfield news, and there's a pile of letters for you besides. Only think, Lame Wolf is playing short-stop on the ball nine, and they say he's going to make one of the best players they've ever had."
The last news Glen had received from home was in the letters Mr. Hobart had brought from Santa Fé nearly five months before. He had learned then of Lame Wolf's safe arrival at Brimfield, and of his beginning to study English; but now to hear of his being on the ball nine! That was making progress; and the boy felt very proud of his young Indian. But there was more startling news than that awaiting him. In one of the letters from his adopted father, which, though it bore the latest date, had already been waiting in San Francisco more than a month, he read, with amazement, the following paragraphs:
"I have just received a note from a lady who writes that she met a gentleman in New Mexico who told her all about you. She was intensely interested, because she thinks she knew your mother, and travelled with her and you on the day the train was wrecked in Glen Eddy creek, when you and I were the only survivors. She also says that the mother with whom she travelled said her baby was just a year old, and that day was his birthday. So, my dear boy, if it should happen that you and the baby she mentions are the same, you are a year younger than we have always thought you, and are just the age of Binney Gibbs. In conclusion, the lady writes that she believes your real father to be still alive, and she thinks she knows his name, but prefers not to mention it until she hears from me all that I know of your history. I, of course, wrote to her at once, and am anxiously expecting an answer. I never loved you more than now, and to give you up will well-nigh break my heart; but, if there is anything better in store for you than I can offer, I would be the last one to stand in the way of your accepting it.