Dick Onslow

Dick Onslow, by W.H.G.
Kingston

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Title: Dick Onslow Among the Redskins
Author: W.H.G. Kingston
Illustrator: George Soper
Release Date: May 15, 2007 [EBook #21459]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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ONSLOW ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Dick Onslow; or The Adventures of Dick Onslow among the Redskins,
by W.H.G. Kingston.

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This story takes place mainly in or near the Rocky Mountains of North
America, as we follow the adventures of a member of an emigrant party
during their move to California.
Rattle-snakes, bears, rock-slides, avalanches, steep descents, and many
other hazards, to say nothing of numerous attacks by unfriendly tribes
of Red Indians, fill the pages of this book with terrifying and perilous
situations. Not a long book, but very good value.
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DICK ONSLOW; or THE ADVENTURES OF DICK ONSLOW
AMONG THE REDSKINS, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.
CHAPTER ONE.
MY FRIENDS THE RAGGETS--OUR PROPOSED
MIGRATION--JOURNEY COMMENCED-- ATTACK OF THE
INDIANS--A SHOT THROUGH MY LEG--HORRIBLE
ANTICIPATIONS-- HIDE IN A BUSH--CLIMB A TREE--MY
THOUGHTS IN MY CONCEALMENT--LISTEN IN
EXPECTATION OF AN ATTACK--STARVING IN THE MIDST OF
PLENTY--SOME ONE APPROACHES--I PREPARE TO FIRE.
In few countries can more exciting adventures be met with than in
Mexico and the southern and western portions of North America; in
consequence of the constantly disturbed state of the country, the savage
disposition of the Red Indians, and the numbers of wild animals,
buffaloes, bears, wolves, panthers, jaguars, not to speak of alligators,
rattlesnakes, and a few other creatures of like gentle nature. My old
school-fellow, Dick Onslow, has just come back from those regions;
and among numerous incidents by flood and field sufficient to make a
timid man's hair stand on end for the rest of his days, he recounted to
me the following:--

After spending some time among those ill-conditioned cut-throat
fellows, the Mexicans, I returned to the States. Having run over all the
settled parts, of which I got a tolerable bird's-eye view, I took it into my
head that I should like to see something of real backwoodsman's life.
Soon getting beyond railways, I pushed right through the State of
Missouri till I took up my abode on the very outskirts of civilisation, in
a log-house, with a rough honest settler, Laban Ragget by name. He
had a wife and several daughters and small children, and five tall sons,
Simri, Joab, Othni, Elihu, and Obed, besides two sisters of his wife's
and a brother of his own, Edom Ragget by name. I never met a finer set
of people, both men and women. It was a pleasure to see the lads walk
up to a forest, and a wonder to watch how the tall trees went down like
corn stalks before the blows of their gleaming axes. They had no idea I
was a gentleman by birth. They thought I was the son of a blacksmith,
and they liked me the better for it.
Some months passed away; I had learned to use my axe as well as any
of them, and a fine large clearing had been made, when the newspapers,
of which we occasionally had one, told us all about the wonderful
gold-diggings in California. At last we talked of little else as we sat
round the big fire in the stone chimney during the evenings of winter.
Neighbours dropped in and talked over the matter also. There was no
doubt money was to be made, and quickly too, by men with strong
arms and iron constitutions. We all agreed that if any men were fit for
the work, we were. I was the weakest of the party, do ye see? (Dick
stands five feet ten in his shoes, and is as broad-shouldered as a dray
man.)
Just then, an oldish man with only two stout sons and a small family
drove into the forest with a light wagon and a strong team of horses, to
look about him, as he said, for a location. He came to our house, and
Laban and he had a long talk.
"Well, stranger," said Laban, "I guess you couldn't do better than take
my farm, and give me your team and three hundred dollars; I've a mind
to go further westward."
The offer was too good to be refused. The bargain was struck, and in

two days, several other settlers having got rid of their farms, a large
party of us were on our way to cross the Rocky