“Good enough,” said Frank. “Well, we’ll start just as soon as I can buy all of my supplies, which will take a day or two, and then hurrah for the West.”
“Hooroo!” cried Barney Shea.
On a bright, sunshiny morning in midsummer, a little steamboat puffed up to the dock at Clarksville, and was made fast to the pier.
A crowd of interested idlers stood on the wharf, and among them was a young man of medium height, but with broad and well-set shoulders, who stood well forward, looking eagerly at the passengers on the deck of the crowded steamship.
Suddenly he espied two familiar faces on the deck, and, rushing eagerly forward, he shouted:
“Frank! Barney!”
“Charley Goorse! Charley Goorse!” excitedly exclaimed Shea.
“Yes, that’s Charley Gorse,” said Frank, and, with Barney at his side, he leaped on the pier and dashed up to his stalwart Western cousin.
“Dear old boy,” cried Gorse, seizing him in a bearish hug, “you’re just as thin and boyish as ever.”