mr. w—— stayed but three days in san francisco. advertising for a foreman and hands, he was soon overrun with applicants, and had plenty to choose from—good, sober, reliable men. good materials, too, were plenty to begin with, and in just three days the great “occidental book bindery” of e. w—— & son was advertised in every paper in san francisco, and the shop in full blast.
and the same evening mr. w—— took the sacramento boat, and was speeding on his way to oroville, where he was to meet the agent and banker of wells, fargo & co., and take his final departure in search of the “mountain home,” which he had seen in the sketch spoken of long ago, and a copy of which was in the letter of instructions which he carried from our hattie.
from sacramento by rail mr. w—— dashed on toward feather river, and before noon he was at the old national hotel, with a dozen chinamen at hand ready to dust him off, wash his clothes, or pick his pockets if the chance came around.
from the polite clerk he soon learned the location of wells, fargo & co.’s office and bank, and in a short time he was in the private office of the latter.
with his letter of introduction extended, he introduced his name, and was met with that cordial,[200] open-handed, open-hearted welcome which the stranger ever gets in california.
to mr. morrison, the agent—a splendid young man—mr. w—— opened his business, asking if he knew a mr. harry porchet, who was mining on the uppermost claim on feather river.
“i know all of him that any one can know,” said mr. morrison. “he is a very singular young man—ever sad and melancholy, strictly temperate, not even touching wine, using no tobacco, seeking no company. i tried to get him to stay a few days at my home; and once, when he came to deposit his gold, as he does every three months, induced him to take tea with me, where i thought my sister annie, one of the most gifted girls on this coast, and a fine conversationalist, might draw him out of his melancholy mood. but it was no use. he was polite and gentlemanly, but he would not thaw, as we say out here.”
“i must find him,” said mr. w——, with a sigh; for he felt as if he was sealing his own fate as a single man forever, if he found this young man all that he was represented to be, and called him out from the shadow of his gloomy exile into the sunlight of georgiana lonsdale’s presence.
“i will get you mules and a guide, for there is no other means of travel when you get into the mountains up feather river,” said mr. morrison; “and, as you cannot start with everything ready, camping fit-out and all, before morning, take tea with me to-night.”
mr. w—— consented, and when that evening he met the sister of the young banker and express agent, saw and viewed her wonderful beauty, and heard her sing songs of her own composition, accompanied[201] on piano and guitar, he thought that if young porchet could be so blind to those attractions, he was indeed true to the love he left behind him.
the next morning mr. w——, with an old mountain man for a guide, on a sure-footed mule, with two others in the train carrying provisions and stores, started on the perilous journey.
all day, creeping slowly along narrow trails, now on a ledge barely wide enough for the mule-path, overhanging the wild rushing river a thousand feet below—then pressing through chaparral so thick the animals could just get ahead—now shivering just below the snow range on a wind-swept ridge, then pitching down into a mining gulch full of busy men all grimy with yellow dirt—on they went the entire day long, halting but an hour at noon to give the mules a little barley and themselves a scanty lunch.
that night they camped in a grove of tall sugar pines, a little way back from the river, and over the camp-fire mr. w—— listened to thrilling stories of what california life was in ’49, when every one who came was mad with the greed for gold—when vice and crime ran hand in hand, life only held by the pistol-grip or knife point, and property held more by might than right.
early next day they were on the move up stream, now obliged to follow the river bank as near as possible, for the snowy range of the sierra nevada rose high above their heads.
at noon they came to a lonely little valley, not two acres in extent, shaded at one end by half a dozen trees and a huge overhanging precipice.
here two fat, sleek mules fed undisturbed, and as they rode up near them, the guide pointed to a pack[202] and riding-saddle hanging side by side under the cliff.
“here we camp. the man i seek is within a mile of this place, but no one outside of him ever went over the trail that reaches his claim, so far as i can learn,” said mr. w——, carefully looking over his map, sketch, and letter of instruction. “i will lunch, and then, leaving you here, try to find him.”
the guide assented. he had never been up the river quite so far before, and, old hand as he was in the mountains, he did not want to go any farther.
half an hour later mr. w—— left, heading for a black patch of chaparral that seemed to hang on the side of a fearful cliff.
he was gone over two hours, and he came back in a fearful stage of agitation.
“my friend is found,” he said. “but i fear that the joy of the news i carried him has killed him. i found him sick—very low. thinking it would revive him, i broke my news too suddenly. i left him in a death-like swoon, and i could not revive him. come with me quickly. i will pay you treble our agreement if we can only get him out safe, where i can get medical aid.”
the guide did not hesitate a second. he was rough, but all heart. his name was hal westcott.
after a fearful climb, which took them all of thirty minutes, the two men stood breathless on the plateau we saw in the sketch in front of the log cabin and above the whirl of milk-white waters.
“i almost dread to go in lest he be dead,” said mr. w——.
the guide pushed forward without a pause.
“zep! he is worth a thousand dead men!” cried bluff hal westcott. “he is sitting up.”
[203]
he was reading her blessed letter of recall. he was thin as a shadow, white with suffering and hunger, too, for he had been parched and dried up with fever, and had not touched food for days.
“but i am better,” he said. “i will live now. i did not care to live till this came.”
and he kissed the letter, while tears ran down his thin, wasted face.
the two strong men literally wept over him, while they hurried to make weak broth and boil some rice and water for his drink.
two days—their mules resting and feeding in the glade below—they tended and nursed him, and watched over him with such care as few suffering men ever got in a bleak place like that.
then, handling him almost as they would have done an infant, they got him down to the other camp; and they took the gold and his arms and packed them down also, so as to be ready to start for the outside world on the third day.
it would be a long, perhaps a dry story to tell in detail were i to describe that journey out. it had taken w—— and his guide but a day and a half to come in. yet it was four days after their start when poor porchet was laid upon a nice cool bed in belle vista cottage, as mr. morrison called his home.
and within an hour after, mr. w—— telegraphed to miss hattie butler:
“i have found him. he is all right—a noble and a true man. i love him as i would a brother. he has been sick, is weak yet, but we will start east in two or three days by the fastest trains. your ever unchanging and unforgetting friend,
“edward.”
[204]
he told harry porchet what he had done, and the latter said:
“you are only too good. heaven will reward you for it all, and make you happy.”
oh, how little did he realize that edward w—— was sacrificing all his hopes of happiness in carrying back to her he loved the man whom she only could love.
tenderly cared for, and attended by the best physician in oroville, with good, kind nursing, it was no wonder that the invalid was so soon ready to start out for the east.
edward w—— went down to san francisco for a single day, to see that all things went well in the occidental bindery, and then returned ready to start eastward.
the very next morning he telegraphed again:
“we are coming. we leave sacramento on the 10:30 train. all well!”
