CHAPTER XVI.
BROWN’S MISFORTUNE.
Chase realized his situation, but he was not as badly frightened as he would have been a few months before. One soon learns to bear up bravely under almost any adverse circumstances, especially if he have an object in view. Chase had an object to accomplish, and that was to reach home and friends once more. He could do nothing toward it while he was locked up there, so he at once began an examination of his prison with a view to escaping from it. He waited until the landlord had descended the stairs, and then, after listening a few minutes at the door, to make sure that he did not come back, turned his attention to the nearest window. He found there only the shattered remains of a sash, and what he had supposed to be blinds were rough boards nailed on the outside. These boards were further secured by two bars of iron, one at the top and the other at the bottom. They had been forced out a little at the bottom, as far as the bar would allow them to go, and there were deep dents and scratches on them, showing that a lever of some kind had been used against them.
“This room is a regular jail,” thought Chase. “That landlord takes in all the sailors that come here, and after they have spent every cent of their money, he locks them up here until he gets ready to ship them off on some vessel. That’s what he intends to do with me, and he seems in a fair way to accomplish his object.”
Talking thus to himself, Chase made a close examination of the fastenings of the window. Some one who had been confined in that room had made a desperate effort to push off the boards, that was evident, for the marks of the lever he had used were there yet. But before the boards could be pushed out far enough to draw the nails, they had been stopped by the bar outside. The first thing was to get at these nails and break them off. The bottom of one of the boards could then be pushed aside, leaving an opening through which he could crawl out.
Chase thought a moment, and then pulling out his knife, which fortunately contained a large, strong blade, set to work to cut through the soft wood of the window-sill, down to one of the nails which held the outside board. This he did in a very few minutes. Then he placed the point of his knife under the nail, and prying it up until he could take hold of it with his fingers, bent it back and forth until he broke it off. Three others were served in the same way, and then Chase pushed the lower end of the board aside and looked out. The roof of the adjoining house was six or eight feet lower than the window. It was flat, and there was a woman upon it engaged in hanging out clothes. She hung up the last article while Chase was looking at her, and picking up her empty basket disappeared through a scuttle which she left open behind her.
“I don’t much like the situation,” said the boy, wiping the big drops of perspiration from his face. “My only way of escape is through that house. Suppose that scuttle leads into the living-room of some family, and I should find a big fellow there who would want to know my business?”
Chase did not stop to answer this question, being resolved to trust to luck. He was working his way through the window while he was talking to himself, and hanging by his hands dropped down upon the roof. He ran at once to the scuttle, and upon looking into it, saw that it led into a hall which did not seem to be occupied. Without hesitation he descended the ladder, hurried down the flight of steps he found at the end of the hall, and in a moment more was safe in the street.
The very first man he saw when he got there was the landlord, John McKay, who stood in the open door of his boarding-house, no doubt looking out for an opportunity to take in some other unwary sailor who had just landed from a long voyage. If the boy’s sudden appearance caused him any surprise, he did not show it. He made no move, and neither did he say anything. Chase walked away, looking back now and then to make sure that the landlord did not follow him, and at the first corner he found a policeman, to whom he hurriedly related all that had passed since his arrival at the boarding-house. The officer did not act as though he heard a word of the story. He kept looking up and down the street, and when the boy ceased speaking walked slowly toward the boarding-house, Chase following. The landlord saw them coming, but, somewhat to Chase’s surprise, exhibited no signs of alarm. He kept his place in the doorway, and when the two came up, said, familiarly:
“Hallo, Jenkins!”
“How are you, Mack?” said the officer. “This boy says you’ve got a bundle of his.”
“Well, that isn’t the only lie he’s told since I first seen him,” returned the landlord. “He came to my house about two weeks ago, without clothes or money, and I’ve been boarding him free gratis ever since.”
“Why, I came to your house not more than an hour ago, and you took my bundle away from me and robbed me of five dollars besides,” said Chase, greatly amazed at the man’s impudence.
“Do you hear that, Jim?” said the landlord, turning partly around and addressing some one in the house.
“I do,” replied a voice; and a burly fellow, whom Chase had not before seen about the premises, came out from behind the bar and approached the door. “That’s the return you always get for doing a sailor-man a kindness. I can show on the books that he owes for two weeks’ board and lodging.”
“I guess you had better move on,” said the officer, turning to Chase.
“And leave my clothes and money? I guess not. They’re mine and I want them. I make a complaint against this man, and it is your business to arrest him.”
“Go on without another word,” said the policeman, “or I’ll make it my business to run you in.”
Chase was not a city boy, but he knew what the officer meant. Filled with surprise and bewilderment, he turned about and made his way around a corner, out of sight. When he reached the next street he looked back, and saw that the policeman was standing on the corner watching him.
“Now I am beaten,” thought Chase, turning down the first street he came to, in order to leave the hated officer out of sight. “A landshark robs me in broad daylight, and a policeman upholds him in it, and threatens to arrest me if I say another word! I wonder if that is what city folks call justice!”
Chase lost heart now, for the only time since his first night on board the Petrel. With no clothing or money, alone in a strange city, where the officers appeared to be in league with the rascals, and an honest boy was followed and watched as if he were a suspicious character, it was no wonder that he felt afraid and dispirited. He did not dare remain in San Francisco now, for if, while in search of employment, he should chance to wander back on policeman Jenkins’s beat, that officer might arrest him and have him locked up as a vagrant. The bare thought was horrifying to Chase, who hurried along as if he hoped to get away from it, turning down every corner he came to, until at last he found himself near the wharf again. Here he was accosted by a stalwart young fellow with a pack on his back, who hurriedly asked if a boat, which was lying close by with steam up, was the one that carried passengers from Fr’isco to Vallejo.
“I am sure I don’t know,” answered Chase. “I am a stranger here. Where is Vallejo?”
“It is on the other side of the bay,” replied the man. “It is the place where they go to take the cars for the States.”
“Then I should like to go there,” said Chase, eagerly. “I am bound for the States.”
“So am I, if I can ever get there. I came out here three years ago to dig gold, and I had more money when I first got here than I have ever had since. I shall never be able to scrape enough together to pay my fare to Indiana, so I am going to work my way back. They want hands on the railroad up here at Independence. They are paying three dollars a day.”
“Now, I should like a chance like that,” said Chase. “Where is Independence?”
“Up the road a piece.”
“How is one to get there?”
“That’s the question. If we were only at Vallejo, we could walk up the railroad; but there are twenty-five miles of water between us and that place.”
“Well, won’t the railroad company furnish transportation to those who want to work for them?”
“I don’t know. Suppose we go back and look.”
Chase did not know what the man meant by going back and looking, but he followed him without asking any questions, and presently found himself in front of a large placard posted on a billboard and headed—
“500 More Men Wanted to Work on the Central
Pacific Railroad.”
It was this notice that had first put it into the head of Chase’s new acquaintance to work his way back to his home in Indiana; and near the bottom was something that had escaped his eye:
“For further particulars and transportation, apply at the Company’s Office, No. 54 K street, Sacramento.”
“Humph! we are no better off now than we were before,” said Chase, who remembered enough of his geography to know that Sacramento was some distance from San Francisco. “How are we ever going to get to the company’s office.”
“Go right aboard that steamer you see up there,” said a man, who was standing near enough to them to overhear their conversation. “She goes to Vallejo, and from there you can take the train to Sacramento.”
“Without a cent in our pockets?” asked Chase’s companion.
“Yes, if you will contract to work on the railroad for one month.”
“I will, and be glad of the chance,” said Chase. “We are obliged to you for the information.”
Chase and his friend hurried back to the steamer, and going on board seated themselves near a group of men who were congregated on the lower deck. They were rough-looking fellows, of all nationalities, and as many of them were talking earnestly in their own tongue—although nobody appeared to be listening to them—the hubbub that arose made Chase wonder. Like himself, they were bound for the company’s office; and he shovelled dirt and blasted rocks in company with some of them for many a day afterward.
During the run up the bay Chase told his new friend, who said his name was George Brown, something of his history, and in return Brown gave him a sketch of his own life. It did not take him long to do it, for he had nothing interesting or exciting to tell. He had left a comfortable home in the States, hoping to acquire a fortune in a few days in California. He had gone first to the mines, and, although he had seen men take gold in paying quantities from holes almost by the side of the one in which he was working, he had not been able to earn enough to pay for his provisions. He had finally become a teamster, and on more than one occasion had been glad to saw wood for his breakfast. He was bound to get home now in some way, and when he once got there he would stay. If he had worked half as hard on his farm as he had worked in California for the last three years, he would have had money in the bank.
The trip up the bay would, no doubt, have been a pleasant one to Chase had he been in a frame of mind to enjoy it. But he was thinking of his home off in Louisiana, and of his friends, who now seemed farther away from him than ever before. If this man, who was accustomed to work and to “roughing it,” had been three years trying to get back to his home, how long at that rate would it take him, Chase asked himself.
When the steamer reached Vallejo he followed the others to the train, and was packed away in a box-car for Sacramento. At the company’s office he went through certain forms of agreement, which he could not have repeated when he came out if he had tried, and was then ordered into another box-car that was to take him to Independence. He travelled night and day, and, although he had no bed to sleep on, he had plenty to eat, and kept up his spirits by telling himself over and over again that every turn of the wheels brought him nearer to his home.
Arriving at Independence, he was put to work at once, and during the next month led a life of toil and hardship to which his experience on board the Petrel was mere boy’s play. The first thing he did when he had a few minutes’ leisure, was to hunt up the superintendent, or the “boss,” as the men called him, to whom he stated his troubles, and of whom he begged a stamped envelope, and a sheet of paper, and borrowed a lead-pencil. With these he wrote a long letter to his father, telling what he had done since leaving Bellville and what he intended to do, not forgetting to mention the amount which he thought would be necessary to take him home; and having given the letter into the hands of the superintendent, who promised to see that it was duly sent off, he went to work with a lighter heart than he had carried for many a day, believing that by the time his month had expired, the assistance he so much needed would be at hand.
“And when it does come, Brown,” said Chase, who had learned to look upon his new acquaintance with almost a brother’s affection, “you shall not be left out in the cold. If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t be here now, and I’ll see you through as far as my money will take us.”
It was well for the boy’s peace of mind that he did not know what became of that letter. The superintendent put it carefully away in his pocket, and took it out again—nearly eight weeks afterward, when the one who wrote it was hopelessly lost in the mountains near Fort Bolton.
Although Chase expected a happy deliverance out of all his troubles without any effort on his part to bring it about, neither he nor Brown neglected to post himself in everything that it might be necessary for them to know, in case they should be compelled to continue their journey without money to pay their fare on the stages. Among other things, they learned that the Union Pacific, which was slowly advancing to meet the road on which they were at work, had progressed beyond Cheyenne, and that between that point and Independence there were several trails and stage-routes, some longer and some shorter, but any one of which would lead them in the direction they wished to go. Their fellow-workmen assured them that it would not be much of a tramp across the country for a couple of healthy youngsters, and if at any time they got out of food, the first man they met would be willing to supply them, no matter whether they had money or not.
The month for which Chase and his friend had contracted wore slowly away, but the expected letter from Bellville did not arrive. Chase grew more and more impatient and anxious as the days passed, and when he was paid off at the end of the month, he would have been glad to renew his contract, but Brown would not listen. “Let’s put out and go to work when we reach the other road,” said he. “You can write to your father just as well from Cheyenne as you can from here. Your letter must have miscarried.”
Brown emphasized his advice by declaring that he was going whether Chase did or not. Cold weather was coming on, he said; the snow had fallen, during the previous winter, sixty feet deep over seven miles of the road-bed on which the rails had since been laid, and he did not like the idea of being shut out from home by any such barrier as that. He was bound to get through to the other side of the mountains before winter set in, come what might. So Chase reluctantly made up the small bundle of clothing and bedding he had purchased from the stores, put carefully away the slender stock of money that he had remaining after paying his board-bill and other debts he had contracted, and followed Brown, who stepped off with a light heart. The latter’s face was turned toward home once more, and that was enough to put him in the best of spirits.
“If we were in the settlements now,” said he, making an effort to bring Chase’s usual smile back to his face, “the folks would say of us: ‘Look at those two tramps; lock the dog in the hen-house.’ But out here, where there are better fellows than ourselves as poor as we, we are ‘emigrants,’ and people don’t think it necessary to watch us, lest we should steal everything they’ve got.”
Keeping up a fire of small-talk, Brown enlivened many a mile of their first day’s journey, and finally succeeded in making his companion take a brighter view of their prospects. They made about twenty miles by dark, and then built a fire beside the road and went into camp.
Chase awoke once during the night and saw Brown sitting by the fire, engaged in tying his money up in his handkerchief. He simply noted the fact, and would never have thought of it again, had it not been brought to his mind by an incident that happened the next day. They were walking along toward the close of the afternoon, when Brown, who had kept up a constant singing and story-telling, suddenly paused and put his hand into his pocket. He opened his eyes, felt in his other pocket, then threw down his bundle and began a thorough examination of his clothing.
“What’s the matter?” asked Chase.
“Matter enough,” replied his companion, glancing back along the road. “I’ve lost my money.”