STILL WAITING.
Tim O'Rooney and Howard Lawrence, after making their way out of the
range of hills to the river-side, where their canoe lay, waited until
dark, in accordance with their agreement, before venturing out upon the
river. They were quite uneasy, and to prevent their trail revealing them
they dropped a few hundred yards down the shore, where they awaited the
coming of darkness.
"Worrah! worrah!" said Tim with an immense sigh, "this is a bad day when
we came to leave the youngster with the rid gintleman. A fine youngster
was the same--bowld and presumin'. It's a qua'ar failin', Masther
Howard, that comes to me."
"Yes, I am sad enough, too."
"Ah! but it is not exactly that be the towken of another faaling
intirely."
"What is it then?"
"Whin it's yourself that is lost and awandtherin' off by yourself all
alone, and nobody with yees, then I thinks it's yees that I loves more
nor him that stays with me. But now, whin it's Elwood--God bless
him!--that's gone, he's dearer to me than all the rest of the world, not
exceptin' yourself. But," and Tim scratched his head in great
perplexity, "it's the same that puzzles me sorely. Could yees be afther
accounting for it?"
"Elwood and I both know that you think a great deal of us, and no doubt
it is because your affection is so equally divided."
"That's it. Yees have made it all plain. I likes each of yees more than
the other, and both of yees a great deal the most, whither be the towken
of takin' yees apart or together, or takin' both of yees separate, and
also wid each other."
Tim nodded his head again and again, as if to signify that it was clear
to his mind. Perhaps it was; but if so, one may doubt whether it was as
clearly expressed.
"There's another thing that troubles me," added the Irishman, with one
of those great inhalations of breath which seem to fill the entire
being.
"What is that?"
"Me pipe has gone out, and I hasn't the maans convanient to relight it."
"That is a small infliction which you can well afford to bear. I am only
anxious for the night, that we may speed on our way home to get
assistance for poor Elwood."
"Yis, if it's bist."
And just in that exclamation Tim O'Rooney echoed the sentiments of his
companion. Ever since leaving the range of hills, with the resolve to
hurry away in search of help, the question had been constantly rising in
his mind: "Is it best to do so?"
He tried to put it out of hearing, with the determination that he had
already decided; but, as if it were the pleadings of conscience, it
would not be stifled, and it came again and again, until when Tim spoke
it seemed almost as loud as his.
"I can't make up my mind about that," said he. "When we left the hills I
had not a moment's doubt but that he was in the hands of the Indians,
where there was great danger of our getting ourselves; but then we are
not sure of it, and suppose we go away and leave him wandering through
the woods until he is captured or is obliged to give himself up to keep
from starving. I imagine him following along the shore of the river
looking for us----"
"There! there! do yez shtop! No more for me; I've plenty," and the
Irishman drew his sleeve across his eyes, as if he were wiping an undue
accumulation of moisture, while Howard Brandon was scarcely less
affected at the touching picture which he had drawn, and which he felt
might be realized from his own remissness.
"I am sure I cannot tell which is for the best," he added in great
perplexity. "If a prisoner, he may be able to get away."
"Yis, yees are right; some dark night he can give the owld haythen the
slip, and make thracks for the river."
"And who knows but he has been able to elude them, and is only waiting
until dark to hunt us up?"
"Yez are right agin; I was about to obsarve the same myself."
There was one view of the case, which if it did occasionally force
itself upon the attention of Howard, he resolutely refused to utter a
reference to it. It was that Elwood had been killed accidentally, or by
the savages. That was too terrible a contingency to take definite shape
until there was no escaping it, and as all of us know better we won't
refer to it again.
"Then he may be in the power of these wandering Indians that took such
an interest in the antelope we left lying down among the rocks."
"Yis; yez are correct sure."
"How is it, Tim, that you agree with every supposition I make, no matter
bow different they are from each other?"
"Wal, you saas me mind is a little foggy, be the towken that I hasn't
had the pipe atween me lips since yesterday. When I'm deprived of that
pleasure I finds meself unable to reason clearly."
"That is the first time I have heard that smoke makes a thing clearer."
"Ah! that's the trouble," added Tim, with a desponding shake of his
head. "If this bad state of things continyees fur a few days longer,
yees'll have to laad me around wid a string, or else taach Terror to do
the same, as yez have saan a poor blind man and his dog do."
"You draw rather a woeful picture of yourself. But I suppose you can
hold out for a few hours longer, and when it becomes dark, we can make a
fire, light your pipe and get far away from it before any of the Indians
could reach the spot."
"I think yez are right, but me intellect is working so faably this
afternoon, that I faars to tax it too hard lest it topples over and gits
upsit intirely. Yis, yez are right."
"Somehow or other I think Shasta is in this neighborhood----"
"So does meself," interrupted Tim, in his anxiety to give assent.
"If he is, he will not forget the kindness of Elwood."
"Never!"
"And whether we wait here or not he will attend to his safety all the
same."
"That he will--you may depend on it."
"Then shall we wait here or hurry down the river for help?"
"Both, or aither as yez plaise."
"But, Tim, we must do one or the other."
"Let us slaap and draam over it."
This struck Howard as a good suggestion, as they both needed slumber
sorely, and adjusting themselves in the canoe, with the Newfoundland as
ever maintaining guard, they were quickly wrapped in deep slumber.
When they awoke it was broad day, and the whining of the dog told them
at once that he had detected something suspicious.