“Master Will wants to speak to you, Mr Hale, and to Mr Bunco, too,” she said on returning.
“Come along, Mister Bunco,” said Larry, “that’ll be the order to trip our anchors.”
“My friends,” said Will Osten, when the two were seated on the corners of their respective chairs in the drawing-room, “I sent for you to say that circumstances have occurred which render it necessary that I should visit California. Do you feel inclined to join me in this trip, or do you prefer to remain in England?”
“I’m yer man,” said Larry.
“So’s me,” added Bunco.
“I thought so,” said Will, smiling; “we have been comrades together too long to part yet. But I must start without delay, and mean to go by the plains and across the Rocky Mountains. Are you ready to set off on short notice?”
“In half an hour av ye plaze, sur,” said Larry.
Bunco grinned and nodded his head.
“The end of the week will do,” said Will, laughing; “so be off and make your preparations for a long and rough trip.”
In pursuance of this plan, Will Osten and his two staunch followers, soon after the date of the above conversation, crossed the Atlantic, traversed the great Lakes of Canada to the centre of North America, purchased, at the town of Saint Pauls, horses, guns, provisions, powder, shot, etcetera, for a long journey, and found themselves, one beautiful summer evening, galloping gaily over those wide prairies that roll beyond the last of the backwood settlements, away into the wild recesses of the Western Wilderness.