_ CHAPTER XLIX. HOMEWARD BOUND
Now that our friends were left entirely alone, it became a question whether they should continue journeying by day or night.
"It seems to me that we are approaching a more civilized part of the country," said Howard. "I think there will be little risk in continuing our journey."
Tim industriously used his paddle, and shortly afterward, Elwood pointed to an open space some distance inland.
"Yonder are people, and they look as if they were gathered around a camp-fire at their dinner."
Tim jerked his head around, gave a puff of his pipe and said:
"Rid gintlemen ag'in, and I'll shy the canoe under the bank, and craap along till we gets beyonst thim."
"No, they are not Indians--they are white men," quickly added Elwood.
A careful scrutiny by all ended in a confirmation of Elwood's suspicion.
"That is good," said Howard, with a pleased expression, "it shows that we are getting beyond the wild country into a neighborhood where white men abound, and where we can feel some degree of safety."
"I suppose they are miners or hunters who are taking their midday meal in the open air," added Elwood, who was still gazing at them.
"Shall we heave too, pitch over the anchor, and s'lute them?" asked Tim.
"No; go ahead, we have no time to spare."
The cheering signs continued. An hour later they descried several white men seated in canoes and fishing near shore. They exchanged the courtesies of the day with them and passed on, growing more eager as they neared the goal.
It would have been no difficult feat of the imagination for one standing on shore to fancy that the cause was a pocket edition of a Hudson River steamboat, so powerfully did Tim O'Rooney puff at his pipe, the whiffs speeding away over his shoulder in exact time with the dipping of the paddle, as though the two united cause and effect. The fellow was in the best of spirits. Suddenly he paused and commenced sucking desperately at his pipe-stem, but all in vain; no smoke was emitted.
"What is the matter?" asked Elwood.
"Steam is out, and the paddle won't go."
"Let me relieve you."
The boy used it with good effect, while Tim shoved his blunt finger into the pipe-bowl, shut one eye and squinted into it, rattled it on his hand, puffed at it again, turned his pockets wrong side out, then put them to rights, and repeated the operation, just as we open the door a half-dozen times to make sure our friend isn't behind it, then gave one of his great sighs and looked toward Howard.
"I put the last switch of tobaccy I had in the world into that pipe, just arter throwing myself outside of that quince of fish."
"Quience?" laughed the boy, "you mean _quintal_."
"Yis, and what's to come of Tim O'Rooney, if he doesn't git some more right spaddily. His intellect toppled all the mornin', and can't stand another such strain, or it'll be nipped in the bud afore it has reached the topmost round at the bar of fame."
"Why, Tim, you are growing poetical," called Elwood over his shoulder, not a little amused at his bewildering metaphors.
"We shall doubtless come across some friends before long who will be glad to supply you."
"Elwood!" called Tim.
"What is it!" he asked, pausing in his paddling.
"If you saas a rid gintleman do yez jist rist till I takes aim and shoots him."
"Why so blood-thirsty?"
"Not blood-thirsty, but tobaccy thirsty. The haythen deal in the article, and if we saas one he must yield."
Elwood promised obedience, but they saw nothing of the coveted people whom they had been so anxious to avoid hitherto, but a half-hour later Howard said:
"Heigh-ho! Yonder is just the man you want to see!"
A single person dressed in the garb of a miner was standing on the shore leisurely surveying them as they came along. There could be no doubt that he was supplied with the noxious weed, for he was smoking a pipe with all the cool, deliberate enjoyment of a veteran at the business.
"Shall I head toward shore!" asked Elwood.
"Sartin, sartin. Oh that we had Mr. Shasta here that he might hurry to land wid the ould canoe!"
A few minutes sufficed to place the prow of the boat against the shore, and Tim O'Rooney sprung out. The miner, if such he was, stood with his hands in his pockets, looking sleepily at the stranger.
"How do yez do, William?" reaching out and shaking the hand which was rather reluctantly given him.
"Who you calling William?" demanded the miner gruffly.
"I beg yez pardon, but it was a slip of the tongue, Thomas."
"Who you calling Thomas?"
"Is your family well, my dear sir?"
"Whose family you talking about?"
"Did yez lave the wife and childer well?"
"Whose wife and childer you talking about?"
"Yez got over the cowld yez had the other day?"
"'Pears to me you know a blamed sight more about me than I do, stranger."
"My dear sir, I have the greatest affection for yez. The moment I seen yez a qua'ar faaling come over me, and I filt I must come ashore and shake you by the hand. I faals much better."
"You don't say?"
"That I does. Would yez have the kindness to give me a wee bit of tobaccy?"
The sleepy-looking stranger gazed drowsily at him a moment and then made answer:
"I'm just smoking the last bit I've got. I was going to ax you for some, being you had such a great affection for me." _