FOR TEN minutes—it seemed an hour to him—Guy stood there with his hands on the side waiting for the signal which was to tell him that the moment had arrived for him to make a strike for his liberty; but Flint did not give it.

Guy began to get impatient. He looked about the deck, but although the crew were in sight, none of them seemed to be paying any attention to him or his movements. The first mate was standing at the head of the companion ladder, gazing toward the light-house at the entrance of the harbor, and the second mate, the one he most feared, was nowhere to be seen. But for all that, he was close by, and on the watch, too. Flint saw him, and that was the reason he did not give the signal for which Guy was so impatiently waiting.

The vigilant officer, who seemed to see everything that took place on board the vessel, knew Guy’s plans as well as he knew them himself, for he had crouched at the head of the ladder and looked down into the forecastle while Guy was preparing for his attempt at escape.

The mate’s first thought was to seize him as he came on deck and shake him out of his superfluous clothing; but after a little reflection he decided to adopt another mode of punishment. He would wait until Guy was about to leave the ship and then give him a lesson that he would remember as long as he lived.

As Flint turned away after taking leave of his young friend, he saw the mate crouching behind the long boat, holding in his hand a stick of wood which he had caught up as he passed the galley.

The sailor knew in an instant why he was there, and would have turned back to warn Guy, but the officer, divining his intention, made an impatient gesture with his hand, and Flint was obliged to pass on.

Guy waited and listened, growing more and more impatient, until at last he could no longer control himself. The wharf was almost within reach of him, and if his feet were once firmly planted upon it, his escape could be easily accomplished. A few quick bounds would carry him out of sight in the darkness, and if he were followed, he could creep into some alley or door-way and remain there until the danger was past. He resolved to try it.

He put one leg over the rail, paused an instant to make sure that the movement had not attracted attention, then threw the other over, and lowered himself slowly toward the wharf. His feet had almost touched it, and Guy was already congratulating himself on his escape, when a stick of stove-wood, propelled with all the force of a sinewy arm, whistled through the air, and striking the rail within an inch of his head, bounded off, and fell into the water. Had it struck him, as the mate fully intended it should when he sent it flying from his hand, it would have knocked him senseless.

While Guy was looking all around to see where the missile came from, the officer arose from his concealment and showed himself.

“That was a pretty good shot,” said he, “but the next one will come closer than that. Crawl back, you lubber. Now,” he added, as the boy tremblingly obeyed, “go below, and stay there till I call you.”

As Guy started off in obedience to the order, the mate hastened his movements by aiming a blow at him with his fist, and following it up by a vicious kick with his heavy boot; but the boy, having learned to be always on the lookout for these favors, nimbly eluded them both.

“I wish I were a man for a few minutes,” thought Guy, as he ran down the ladder into the forecastle and began pulling off his extra clothing; “I’d settle with you, Mr. Schwartz, and pay you back in your own coin. I’ve failed once, but I’ll not fail the next time I try it. I’ll have more time at San Francisco, for Flint says we’re going to discharge our cargo there. Perhaps it is just as well, after all,” he added, determined, to look on the bright side, if there was any, “because when I reach San Francisco I shall be but a short distance from the Rocky Mountains, and can begin the life of a hunter as soon as I please. Don’t I wish I was there now with a good horse and gun, and such a dog as the boy trappers had? Never mind, I’ll have them one of these days, if I only live to get off this vessel.”

About the time Guy was ordered below by the second mate, the captain returned, accompanied by three or four policemen. Guy heard them open the hatch and go into the hold, and remembering that the robbers had promised to make a desperate resistance, he listened to their movements with no little anxiety, momentarily expecting to hear the sounds of a fierce struggle going on among the freight, but nothing of the kind happened.

The sight of the locusts and badges borne by the officers of the law took all the courage out of the burglars, who quietly passed up their weapons and allowed handcuffs to be slipped on their wrists. The box was then hoisted off the other burglar, and he was placed upon a stretcher and carried ashore. It was all done in five minutes, and when Guy was ordered on deck to assist in getting the vessel under way—or rather to stand by and look on while the others did it—the policemen and their prisoners had disappeared in the darkness.

This was the last incident worthy of record that happened while Guy remained on board the Santa Maria. Nothing occurred to break the monotony of the voyage, which continued two hundred and ten days, and which our runaway afterward looked back upon as the dreariest part of his existence.

With the robbers disappeared all traces of that “other crew” of which the sailors stood so much in fear. The most superstitious among them kept a close watch for a few nights, starting at every unusual sound; and when the wind freshened during the mid-watch, casting anxious glances toward the main-topsail yard, where the ghost who shouted “Stand from under!” was accustomed to station himself. But nothing startling was ever seen or heard, and the men finally ceased to speak or think of the matter.

Flint came in for some slight punishment for assisting Guy in his attempt to desert the vessel, and Upham and his crony were hazed for a day or two for keeping the ship waiting in port for a crew; but the mate’s ill-will seemed to wear itself out at last, and then things went on smoothly with everybody except the runaway.

Mr. Schwartz could not forget that Guy had tried to impose upon him by rating himself as able seaman, when he scarcely knew the maintruck from the kelson, and he did not intend that Guy should forget it either. He never allowed him a moment’s peace while he was on duty, and sometimes, when he felt particularly vindictive, he would keep him on deck long after the rest of the watch had gone below. Guy’s life almost became a burden to him. The only pleasure he found was in looking at the pictures in the “Boy Trappers,” and dreaming of the easy, glorious existence he would lead when once he became a hunter.

When he tumbled into his bunk he would lie awake for hours building his gorgeous air-castles. Under the influence of his lively imagination the walls of his dingy quarters would seem to widen out and loom up until they became lofty, snow-capped mountains; the dreary forecastle, smelling of tar and bilge-water, would become a beautiful glade decked with flowers and embowered with trees; the smoky lantern would grow into a cheerful camp-fire; the weather-beaten walls would change into tall, broad-shouldered hunters and trappers; the chests, which were ranged on one side of the forecastle, would take the shape of horses staked out to graze; and the clothing hanging about would be transformed into buffalo humps and juicy haunches of venison.

Then Guy would imagine himself stretched out on his blanket among these wild, congenial spirits, wearing a coonskin cap and dressed in a full suit of buckskin, gaudily ornamented (he couldn’t be a full-fledged hunter without a coonskin cap and a suit of buckskin, especially the latter, which, according to the cheap novels he had read, always set off the wearer’s “slender, well-knit frame to such good advantage”), his “deadly rifle, with which he could drive a nail or snuff a candle at sixty yards’ distance,” lying by his side; his tomahawk, hunting-knife and lasso hanging from a tree over his head, his fierce wolf-dog that could pull down a buck or throttle an Indian with all ease, reposing at his feet, and his horse, an animal which had carried him safely through many a desperate fight with savages and wild beasts, and which for speed and endurance was never equaled, grazing a little apart from the others and rendered conspicuous by his great size and exceeding beauty.

“And suppose this horse was the celebrated white pacer of the plains,” soliloquized Guy, carried fairly up to the seventh heaven of happiness by his wild dreamings; “a horse that no living man had ever ridden until I caught him with my own lasso and tamed him with my own hands! Ah! And suppose these men were government scouts and I was the chief of them? ‘The Boy Chief of the Rough Riders of the Rocky Mountains!’ Whew! Wouldn’t that be a sounding title, though? Oh, I’m bound to make myself famous before I am ten years older. Dear me, I wonder if this miserable vessel will ever reach San Francisco?”

When Guy dropped to sleep at last it would be to revel in such scenes as this, until the hoarse voice of the second mate brought him back to the realities of earth again. He lived in this way just seven months—how careful he was to count the days as they dragged slowly by—and when at last he was beginning to despair and to believe that the voyage never would have an end, Flint one day pointed out something in the horizon which looked like a cloud, but which he said was land, adding that he had heard the first mate say that if they had no bad luck they would pass the Golden Gate in about three days.

Guy had been waiting most impatiently for this announcement, and now he could not have told whether he was glad or sorry to hear it. He longed to feel the solid ground under his feet once more, but there was an obstacle in the way of his getting there that he dreaded to encounter.

That was the second mate, whose eyes followed every move he made while he was on deck. Since he detected the boy in his attempt to desert the vessel, the officer had been more brutal than he was before; and he had promised, too, that if he caught Guy in any more tricks of that kind he would knock him overboard the very first good chance he got.

Guy believed that the mate fully intended to carry it out. Flint thought so, too, and advised extreme caution. He and Guy held many a long consultation, but could decide upon no definite plan of operations. The only thing the boy could do was to be governed by circumstances, and this time be careful not to act in too great a hurry.

On the afternoon of the fourth day after land was discovered the Santa Maria entered the harbor of San Francisco and came to anchor, where she was to remain a day or two—so Guy heard—before she was hauled into the wharf. No sooner had she swung round to her anchor than one of the boats was put into the water, and when it had been manned the captain came on deck carrying a basket on his arm.

“Pass the word for Thomas,” said he.

Guy heard the call, and was hurrying aft in response to it when he was met by the second mate.

“Look here, my hearty,” said the officer, “you’re to go ashore to carry the captain’s basket. But listen now—no nonsense. I know every hole and corner in ’Frisco, and if you don’t come back with the old man I’ll be after you with a sharp stick, and if I catch you—well, you know me.”

The mate finished with a peculiar nod of his head, which had a peculiar meaning in it.

Guy picked up the captain’s basket in obedience to a gesture from that gentleman, and followed him into the boat. His mind was in such a whirl of excitement and uncertainty that he took no note of what was going on around him. Here was a chance for liberty, but he did not know whether to improve it or not. He had nothing with him except his money, and that he always carried in his monk-bag, which was slung around his neck. The blankets and extra clothing which he would probably need before he could have time to earn others, were in his bundle in the forecastle, and so was that book of Henry Stewart’s, which was to him what chart and compass are to the mariner.

Guy set great store by that book. It would, he thought, be of as much service to him as the blankets and extra clothing, for he knew nothing about hunting and trapping; in fact, he had never fired a gun half a dozen times in his life, and he could make but poor headway until he had received instructions from some source.

Having no mind of his own and knowing next to nothing outside of school books, he had leaned upon somebody ever since he had been away from home—Bob Walker first, and then Flint—and he had expected when he left the vessel to have the book for a counselor. It told how to build camps, how to cook squirrels and venison on spits before the fire, how to travel through the thickest woods without the aid of a compass or the sun, and how he ought to conduct himself in all sorts of terrible emergencies, such as fights with Indians and grizzly bears. It would be a rather risky piece of business for him to depend on his own judgment and resources, and it would be equally risky to wait for another opportunity to desert, for it might never be presented.

Guy did not know what to do, and there was no one to whom he could go for advice.

“Thomas, you stay here till I come.”

These words aroused Guy from his reverie. He looked up and found himself standing at the foot of a long, wide stairway leading up into a building which looked like a warehouse. The Santa Maria was hidden from his view by the masts and rigging of the vessels lying at the wharf, the boat in which he had come ashore was out of sight, and so was the captain, who went quickly up the stairs and disappeared through a door, which he slammed behind him. Now or never was the thought that passed through Guy’s mind, and without stopping to dwell upon it an instant, he dropped the basket and darted away as fast as his legs could carry him, turning down every street he came to, and putting as many corners as possible between himself and the harbor.

Guy had learned at least one thing during the eight or nine months he had been on the water, and that was that in all seaport towns the sailors’ quarters are located near the docks, hence his desire to leave that part of the city behind him in the shortest possible space of time. He never wanted to meet a sea-faring man again—he had learned to despise the name as well as the calling. Besides, he knew that if the second mate fulfilled his threat of searching the city for him, that part of it to which the sailors most resorted would be the very first place he would visit. Guy wondered if there was a hunters’ boarding-house in town. The officer would never think of looking for him there.

The deserter made remarkably good time for a boy who had been worn almost to a shadow of his former self by hard fare and harder treatment, settling down in a rapid walk at intervals, and then breaking into a run again when he reached a street in which there were but few people to observe his movements, and was finally brought to a stand-still by a sign which caught his eye—J. Brown, gunsmith.

The words drove all thoughts of the mate out of his mind, and suggested to him a new train of reflections. He was out of danger for the present—he had been running fully half an hour, as nearly as he could guess at the time—and had leisure to ponder upon a question which just then arose in his mind. Here was a chance to provide himself with as much of a hunter’s outfit as his limited supply of money would purchase. Should he improve it, or wait until some future day? It was a matter that could not be decided on the spur of the moment, so Guy seated himself on a dry-goods box in front of a store opposite the gunsmith’s, and thought about it.

After he had recovered a little of his wind, and got his brain in working order, Guy walked across the street and looked in at the gunsmith’s window. He saw there everything a hunter could possibly need—rifles, shotguns, hunting-knives, revolvers, game-bags, traps, and fishing-tackle—such a variety, in fact, that Guy could not at once make up his mind what he wanted most. The window on the other side of the door was filled with saddles, bridles, blankets, spurs and ponchos. As Guy looked at them a second question arose in his mind.

“Now, how am I going to get my horse?” he asked himself. “I must have one, for I never heard of a hunter traveling about on foot. It wouldn’t look well. Besides, what if I should happen to get into a fight with Indians or grizzly bears? Why, I’d be rubbed out sure. And if I can think up some way to get a horse, how am I going to earn the money to buy a saddle and bridle for him? Great Scott! there’s always some drawback to my plans.”

And this seemed to be a serious drawback, too. Whenever Guy had indulged in his day-dreams, he had always imagined himself a prosperous and famous hunter, with all the comforts and luxuries of his calling at his command. The question had sometimes forced itself upon his mind, how was he to get all these things? But it was always an unwelcome one, and was dismissed with the comforting reflection that it would be time enough to worry about such little matters when he stood in need of them. That was the way he disposed of the horse question now.

“I’ll get my gun and other things I need, and think about a horse some other time,” he thought. “Perhaps I can buy one already trained from some friendly Indian for a plug or two of tobacco; and, by the way, I guess I had better get some tobacco for that purpose. Or, I may find a hunting-ground so well stocked with game that I can trap and shoot enough beaver and otter in a few days to pay for a good horse. But the mischief of it is, I don’t know how to hunt and trap those animals, and there’s that book I need so much on board the Santa Maria. No matter, I’ll wiggle through some way. What I want just now is a shooting-iron.”

So saying, Guy opened the door and went into the gun-shop.