To The West

"We are forgetting one thing," said Gunson, as we drew near our resting-place; and I believe now he said it to try and cheer me on. "Perhaps while we have been away the truant m...

One day seemed so much like another that we soon lost count of time, as we followed the windings and turns of the river, the beauty of the deep ravines that struck into the vall...

"Right behind him, mate. Don't be afraid. Tie his thumbs together too." I heard these words as I lay there in the darkness, and knew that our assailants must be securing Gunson,...

Gunson left us then, as if on purpose to give us an opportunity to talk about him; and as soon as he was out of hearing, Esau began by wiping the perspiration from his forehead...

We two lads wandered away one day along a valley down which a stream came gliding here, roaring in a torrent there, or tumbling over a mass of rock in a beautiful fall, whose sp...

Esau was quite right; he had a terribly discoloured eye next morning, and it was the first thing I saw as we both sat up together in the soft light under the great pine, though...

I said nothing then, but made signs to the Indians, who, partly from my motions, and partly from their understanding a few words of English, paddled the boat up to where we had...

"This is our travellers' hotel," he said, as we entered the bare-looking room, which was beautifully clean. "Don't trouble about cooking or preparing anything, for you are my gu...

I can't describe my feelings towards Gunson. One hour he seemed to me coarse, brutal, and common; at another he was the very reverse, and spoke in conversation as we tramped alo...

The pine-tree was still burning as we set off just after sunrise that morning, but a turn in the valley soon hid it from our sight. The weather was glorious again, and we made g...

Esau took it all coolly enough. I believe he thought hard sometimes, but it was soon over; and to him the most serious things in life seemed to be making a big meal and having a...

I don't know whether I was any more cowardly than most boys of my age; but I certainly felt a curiously nervous sensation that morning, and I was not alone in it; for Esau had a...

We were on shore next day, and, by the captain's advice, went to a kind of hotel, where they undertook, not very willingly, to accommodate us, the captain having promised to hel...

I awoke that next morning sore, miserable, and seeing everything through the very reverse of rose-coloured spectacles. For I was back at the Fort, and it now looked a very diffe...

We had not lost more than a quarter of an hour in this halt; but it was sufficient, as I found when I rose, to have cooled me down and made me feel fresh and ready for the arduo...

Mr John gave me a troubled look, for in his simple earnest way he was hurt at seeing the strained situation, and, as he told me afterwards, there was great excuse for his brothe...

All this was very cowardly no doubt, but circumstances alter cases, and it is only those who have lost their way in some wild solitude who can realise the terrible feeling of be...

I felt rather startled when we left the valley, for we came suddenly upon a large party of Indians who seemed very different to the quiet, stolid-looking beings we had been accu...

"No; don't talk about it," I replied quickly, for the idea was too horrible. But I took heart as I glanced at the loaded men, who walked on as calmly as if there were no danger...

I hardly remember how I left Mr Raydon's office, but I do recollect seeing the bear's head grinning at me, and that of the moose gazing at me in its weak, sorrowful way. My head...

We were not kept in doubt long about the proceedings of the enemy. I was in the strangers' quarters next day, talking in a whisper to Mrs John, while taking her turn at nursing...

"Flesh tea allee leady," cried a familiar voice in my ear; and I started up to see the sun peering over the edge of the mountains to light up the beautiful opalescent mists floa...

When I awoke next morning it was blowing hard, and the timbers of the schooner were groaning and creaking so dismally, that when every now and then a wave struck the bows, Esau...

"Indian--chinook come along, walkee, walkee," he said; and he pointed toward the west. "Wantee fire--make blead?" he said laconically; and then without losing a moment, he selec...

It was all done in a quiet, unobtrusive way, but it seemed plain to me that Mr Raydon did try to keep us apart, or under his eye, during Gunson's stay.

"Asleep? Yes, for a good eight hours. There, tumble up. Your washhand-basin is waiting for you. Now, Dean," he continued, touching him with his foot, "are you going to lie there...

When I opened my eyes again it was with a horrible sensation of sickness at my heart, and my eyes swam, but I could dimly make out Mr Raydon's face, as he leaned over me, and I...

"Do, do, pray try and help me, my dear," she whispered, so that her voice might not rise to the little bed-room where we could hear Esau stamping about, knocking the jug against...

After a whispered consultation we crept on again through the trees, until we could see a good-sized fire blazing and sparkling close down by the side of the pool, and about it--...

I was in the act of opening the swing-door stealthily, and was half through when I saw that Mr Dempster was acting precisely in the same way, stealing through the inner doorway,...

The scouts went out again and again, and though they never saw the enemy, they always brought back reports that they were still in the little valley, and trying for gold there.

I replied that I could, and followed Gunson, who showed me the way he had descended by the help of the rocks, and projecting roots of the dwarf firs which began to grow freely a...

That night when I got back to Camberwell, I found that not only had supper been ready above an hour, but Mrs Dean and Esau were both waiting for me to join them.

That's a big word to use, and seems more appropriate to a Roman emperor than to a London auctioneer; but, on quietly thinking it over, it is quite correct, for I honestly believ...

We landed at a rough wharf at the mouth of the wide river, where a few shanties and a plank warehouse stood just in front of a forest of pine-trees, the stumps, five or six feet...

"And he will as soon as he feels convinced, so be patient and wait. My brother is rather strange in his ways, and always was. When he becomes prejudiced through some idea he is...

"Tchah! What o' that! Why, only t'other day they used to double up like an old two-foot rule, or a knife with the spring broke. You're coming all right enough. I say, I want to...

"Sit fast," said Gunson, "both of you. Don't make any sign, and leave me to speak. But mind, if I say `Tent,' run both of you to the tent, and seize your weapons ready to do wha...

I heard every word uttered as I sat on my stool in the outer office, and I felt as if I could see my employer, short, stout, fierce-looking and grey, frowning at the thin, pale,...

We declared our readiness, and once more we began work, out in the silence of that beautiful valley, digging, washing, and examining, as we picked out the soft deadened golden s...

Our way was the same as the bear's, for the simple reason that it was the only open level part we could find on that side of the valley. To our left, the rocks went up in huge,...

Ask anybody what is the most delicious thing in life, and see what he or she will say. I do not believe any one will tell you what I do now. It is to have been dangerously ill,...

"Much better have let me had it my way, sir," said Esau, who, ever since he had seen the John Dempsters and their treatment of me, had grown to behave as if I was his superior.

They were both in the little sitting-room, when Maria, who had given me a very indignant look for dragging her down to the gate, announced the visitor and went away, closing the...

"Hah! The scoundrels!" panted Dempster, as he came up, flushed, bareheaded, his glossy coat covered with dust, and a great dark weal growing darker moment by moment on his foreh...

There was no alarm next day, and scouts who were sent out came back to report that they had tracked the enemy down the river, and then up into the forest by one of the side stre...

A few minutes after I saw how darkness and fancy can combine to startle one who wakes suddenly from sleep, for the man who had been Mr Raydon's companion on the previous day sud...

Quite an hour must have passed, and it had grown dark in that room, where the heads of moose, elk, bear, and mountain sheep looked down upon us from the walls, and the old clock...

That was really the prime difficulty in our leaving England--to keep Mrs Dean's ideas of necessaries within bounds. Poor little woman! She could not, try how her son and I would...

Poor Esau and I had had a hard time at the office, for it seemed that my patient forbearing way of receiving all the fault-finding made Mr Dempster go home at night to invent un...

"Yes," said Esau. "But what does he want here with a pistol? Some of the people board ship was coming to keep shop, some to farm, and some to be servants. I want to know what he...

Unwittingly we had made friends with the master of the little fishing craft and his men; and as we sat watching them in the moonlight, and looking away at the schooner, which al...

The wounded prisoners were not got rid of for quite a fortnight, during which time matters settled down again into the regular routine, one of my principal tasks being helping M...

I sat looking despondently at the wreck, for the accident had happened just as I felt sure of our overtaking the schooner, which was rapidly gliding away from us again, when Esa...

It was a dreary, toilsome climb up the narrow portion of the valley, and it was quite dark by the time we had reached the spot where we descended first that morning, and consequ...

In a year from that time there was not a single gold-digger left in the neighbourhood, for the news of fresh discoveries further north had drawn them all away, and Nature soon h...