Adrift in the Wilds | Page 8

"Boat ahoy!"
"What do you want?" came back in a gruff voice.
"Can you take four drowning passengers on board?"
"Not much," was the unfeeling answer, "Paddle away and you'll reach California one of these days."
"How far are we from it?"
"Double the distance, divide by two, and you'll have it."
Nothing further was extracted from the men, but they could be heard laughing and talking boisterously with each other, and the odor of their pipes was plainly detected, so close were the parties.
"Thank heaven, we are not dependent upon them!" said Mr. Yard. "If we were, we should fare cruelly indeed."
"Who are they?"
"A part of the crew of the steamer, who seized the boat at the first appearance of danger, and left the helpless to perish."
An hour later, long after the boat had disappeared, and when our friends were toiling bravely forward, a low, dark object directly in front attracted their notice.
"What is it?" whispered Elwood.
"It is land!" was the joyful reply. "I am walking upon the sand this minute, and you can do the same!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE CALIFORNIA COAST.
They were safe at last! The four dropped their feet and found them resting upon smooth packed sand, and wading a few rods they all stood upon dry earth. Terror, as he shook his shaggy coat and rubbed his nose against his young masters seemed not the least joyful of the party.
"Isn't this grand!" exclaimed Elwood. "When did the ground feel better to your feet? Saved from fire and water!"
"Our first duty is to thank God!" said Mr. Yard reverently. "He has chosen us out of the hundreds that have perished as special objects of his mercy. Let us kneel upon the shore and testify our gratitude to Him."
All sunk devoutly upon their knees and joined the merchant, as in a low, impressive tone he returned thanks to his Creator for the signal mercy he had displayed in bringing them safely through such imminent perils.
"Now, what is to be done next?" inquired Mr. Yard, as they arose to their feet and looked around them. "The first thing I should like to do is to procure a suit of clothes, and I hope I shall be able to do it without stripping any of the dead bodies that will soon wash ashore."
"What is the naad?" asked Tim O'Rooney. "Baing that it's a warrum summer night, and there saams to be few in the neighborhood that is likely to take exsaptions to your costume."
"But day is breaking!" replied the merchant, pointing across the low, rocky country to a range of mountains in the distance, whose high, jagged tops were blackly defined against the sky that was growing light and rosy behind them.
"Yes, it will soon be light," said Howard. "See! there are persons along the shore that have come down to the wreck?"
"They are some of the passengers that have managed to reach land. I will go among them and see whether any of them have any clothing to sell," laughed Mr. Yard as he moved away.
As the sun came up over the mountains it lit up a dreary and desolate scene. Away in the distance, until sky and earth mingled into one, stretched the blue Pacific, not ridged into foam and spray like the boisterous Atlantic, but swelling and heaving as if the great deep was a breathing monster. A few fragments of blackened splinters floating here and there were all that remained to show where a few hours before the magnificent steamer, surcharged with its living freight, so proudly cut the waters on her swift course toward the Golden Gate.
Several ghastly, blue-lipped survivors in their clinging garments were wandering aimlessly along the shore, the veriest pictures of utter misery, as they mumbled a few words to each other, or stared absently around. They seemed to be partially bereft of their senses, and were probably somewhat dazed from the fearful scenes through which they had so recently passed.
Several sails were visible, but they were so far away that it was vain to hope to attract their attention. Three large boats could be seen away to the northwest, skirting along shore and making their way toward San Francisco as rapidly as muscle and oars could carry them. What recked they whether the passengers were buried with the steamer, sunk in the ocean, or left to perish on the desolate coast?
The Coast Range, which descends into California from Oregon, in some places comes within twenty-five or thirty miles of the sea, while at other times it recedes to over a hundred. The particular point where our friends were suffered to land was rough, barren and rocky, and behind them, with many peaks reaching the line of perpetual snow, rose the noble Coast Range, between which and them stretched a smaller range of mountains.
Around them the country appeared desolate and