THE LAST.
Up the banks of the beautiful Rhine, through picturesque hamlets, over
high, rugged mountains, and in the glory and grandeur of the forests, our
horseback travellers sought and found the best of all treasures--health
and happiness.
The Swabian Mountains, and the Schwarz Wold, or Black Forest,--a group of
mountains covered with forests,--through which they rode thirty-seven
miles, required from them the greatest endurance.
Nevertheless, upon the woody mountains, steep and difficult to climb as
they were, they found several thriving villages, where they were kindly
received, and where all their wants were generously supplied.
But on one occasion, when a violent storm arose, and they were near no
village, they were obliged to take shelter in an empty barn, and there
remained through the night, sleeping, with their horses, upon the hard,
board floor, with their knapsacks for pillows.
And Johnny had one thrilling adventure.
They had encamped for the night upon a small plateau, and, before
dismounting, Johnny rode back to the edge, and was looking down upon the
plains beneath, when suddenly he felt the ground give way from above where
his horse was standing, and in an instant horse and rider, covered by a
bank of sand, were sliding helplessly down the mountain. The shower of
sand smothered their cries, and neither the doctor nor Eric noticed their
disappearance at first. But presently Eric, turning to speak to him,
exclaimed,--
"Where in the world is Johnny?"
The doctor looked hastily up. Seeing the fresh earth at the edge of the
plateau, he rushed to the spot, examined it, and exclaiming, "Heavens! the
child has fallen down a slide!" prepared to descend in the same place.
"Eric, stay up there, and take care of the horses," he said, and was soon
out of sight.
Eric secured the horses, and then crept to the place from which the doctor
had disappeared. He found, just beneath him, a long line of large troughs,
open at both ends, and overlapping each other like shingles. It extended
entirely down the side of the mountain, and to his horror Eric saw at its
foot a lake.
"O, Johnny, Johnny! my dear little cousin! And uncle Charlie, too--they
will surely be killed!" he cried, in agony. For he knew at once that they
had gone down a timber slide, and was afraid they would be drowned in the
lake.
And now I suppose I must tell you what a timber slide is.
The Black Forest Mountains are covered with large and valuable trees,
which are felled and sold by their owners; and as it would be decidedly
inconvenient to take horses and carts up the mountain, and utterly
impossible to get them down with a heavy load of those giant trees with
sound necks, an ingenious Swiss invented the cheap and rapid way of
getting the trees off the mountain by means of a slide, formed of immense
troughs lapped together, and terminating in the lake, where the heavy logs
are chained together and floated to a railway or wharf, just as they are
done in our own country by the loggers of the Maine forests and other
woody regions.
Of course a descent in one of these slides, under ordinary circumstances,
would be extremely dangerous to human life and limb. But it fortunately
happened that neither the doctor, Johnny, nor Jack were seriously injured,
for the slide had been disused for some time, and in consequence of an
accident, somewhat similar to Johnny's, had been partially removed, and a
high, soft bank of sand lay at its new terminus.
Johnny and Jack were pitched violently into this, and rescued from their
very uncomfortable position by a party of English travellers encamped near
by.
Many were the exclamations uttered at the marvellous and sudden entrance
of our young friend upon the quiet beauties of the twilight scene, and
bewildered Johnny scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry.
His first anxiety was for Jack, but the English gentleman who drew him
from the sand-bank would pay no attention to the horse until he was
convinced that Johnny was unhurt. Assured about this, he patted and
soothed poor frightened Jack, and walked him carefully over the soft
greensward, to see if he appeared at all lame; and then Johnny was
delighted enough to hear the horse pronounced all right.
Johnny had several pretty bad bruises, which the Englishman, who was a
physician, dressed for him.
By the time this was done Dr. Ward, whose descent had been much slower and
more careful than Johnny's, reached them, and his anxieties were at once
quieted by Johnny's assurance that it was
"Just the jolliest coast I ever had."
After examining both Johnny and Jack, to assure himself of their
well-being, and heartily thanking the Englishman for his kind assistance,
the doctor asked permission to leave Johnny under his care until he could
get Eric and the horses from the top of the mountain.
The new friend willingly undertook the care of Johnny, and the doctor
hastened up the mountain to relieve Eric's anxiety.
Johnny seated himself near the door of the tent, and a young man of the
party brought him some grapes. Jack neighed wistfully for his share, for
Johnny had made a great pet of him, always dividing his fruit with him.
"I'll give you some, Jack," he said, walking towards the horse. "Gracious,
how stiff and sore I feel."
While Jack was champing his feast with great satisfaction, an English boy,
of Johnny's size, came towards them.
"Is that your horse?" said he.
"Yes," answered Johnny; "isn't he a good one?"
"_Is_ he a good one?" asked the boy.
"I guess he is," said Johnny, hotly; "there isn't a better horse
anywhere."
"But papa's groom told me," persisted the English lad, "that a horse with
four white feet and a white nose was worthless. He says,--
'One white foot, buy him,
Two white feet, try him,
Three white feet, deny him,
Four white feet and a white nose,
Take off his skin and throw him to the crows.'"
Johnny detected a roguish glitter in his companion's blue eyes, and with a
corresponding twinkle in his own, merely answered,--
"My old nurse says,--
'There was an old woman went up in a basket
Seventy times as high as the moon.'
I suppose you believe that, too."
This ready answer pleased the other, and they were soon fast friends.
"What is your name?" Johnny asked.
"Arthur Montgomery," was the reply.
Johnny wondered where he had heard the name before; but though he was sure
he had heard it, he could not remember where.
He began to feel quite tired and sleepy before the doctor returned for
him, and his bruises ached badly. Once he would have cried and worried
every one about him, if in such an uncomfortable state; but now he bore
the pain like a Spartan.
The doctor came at last, and after thanking the Englishman again, he led
the tired horse, with weary Johnny upon his back, to a wood-cutter's
cottage near at hand, where they were to pass the night.
Eric welcomed them with tears of joy in his eyes.
"O, Johnny, what a narrow escape you have had!"
"We ought to be very thankful," said the doctor.
"Yes," said Johnny, sleepily, "I am thankful!"
He woke up just before Eric went to bed, and said,--
"That boy said his name was Arthur Montgomery. Where have I heard that
name, Eric?"
"Why," exclaimed Eric, "that was the name on the box of money I found!"
"I knew I'd heard it somewhere," murmured Johnny, dropping off to sleep
again.
Eric ran to tell his uncle.
"Ah," said the doctor, quite pleased to be able to return a good deed, "we
will see them in the morning."
But in the morning the English travellers had disappeared, and our party
could find no trace of them.
Eric was much disappointed. Now he would be obliged to wait patiently for
Mr. Lacelle's letter.
Johnny and Jack were not injured by their descent of the mountain, whose
only effects were some pretty sore bruises, which Johnny tried not to
mind, and an obstinacy in Jack's disposition that no human powers of
persuasion could ever remove. He could never, after that memorable slide,
be induced to go near the edge of any kind of an embankment; and he always
declined going aboard a steamer, until Beauty and Percy had gone safely
over the gangway.
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