AS soon as Billy and Stubby were sure they were not being followed they stopped to rest and to form new plans.
“Stubby, what in the world are you carrying in your mouth?”
Dropping it so that he could answer, Stubby replied, “A nice, large piece of beef.”
“Beef! Where did you get any beef, I should like to know.”
“Well, you see I can’t live on grass and roots as you can and as I was pretty hungry, I took my chance of getting stoned and stole this piece as we ran by the smoke-house. Didn’t you notice the little house in the clump of bushes near the side of the corral wall?”
“No, I did not see it, or know that you were behind me until just now, for you did not bark, and I expected I would have to wait awhile for you to join me, but now I see that you had your mouth so full you could not bark. You go ahead and make a good supper of your steak and I will make mine of these tender, green leaves.”
As they ate they talked of their future and Billy said he was getting tired of Mexico as it had too much sand, cacti and other stickly plants and not enough water and grass.
“Now, I say, we get out of it as soon as we can, but how we are going to do that is a puzzle to me, for it seems to me the further we travel south from California the hotter it gets, and I say instead of traveling south as we have been doing, that we change our course and keep to the west. In that way we will come to the Pacific coast.
“When we get there we can follow the shore until we come to some town or city where we can take an ocean steamer and be carried away anywhere. Who cares where? just so that we get away from this hot, dusty country. Besides, I am very anxious for another ocean voyage and always have been since Day and I came from Constantinople.
“My! Stubby, how I should like to see my sweet little sister and dear father and mother again. And would it not be strange if we should happen to get on a ship bound for Boston? I can tell you, if we should have such luck I would not let the grass grow under my feet until I was back on the farm again.”
“I believe you are homesick,” said Stubby.
“You’re right I am.”
“Well, I don’t blame you for I, too, would be homesick if I had ever had a home with a sister and dear parents in it, but you see I have never known what it was to have a home or any one to care for me.”
“Just see how that old volcano is smoking now, and what a bright reflection it throws on the sky above it!”
“It is due west from here. What do you say to our going to the top of it and seeing what a volcano really does look like at close range? It may be our only chance to see one for they don’t have any in the United States.”
“Say we do, and perhaps, it is so high, we can see the ocean from its top. We shall then be able to see how far we have to travel before reaching the coast.”
“That is a good idea and we will follow it out. Now let us lie down here and spend the night and start early in the morning before the sun gets too hot.”
Ten minutes later they were both asleep with Stubby curled up under Billy’s nose. He always got as close to him as possible for company.
It took our travelers several days to reach the volcano and its summit, and those days were days of hardships, with little to eat or drink, and both were looking tired and thin when we met them again within a few feet of the opening of the crater.
“Billy, I think sight-seeing is pretty hard work, especially when you have to walk all the way and nearly die of thirst and hunger. These hot cinders and hardened lava are burning and cutting my feet all to pieces and I wish I had hoofs like yours.”
“Well, if you wish you had my hoofs, I wish I had your short hair, for I am almost suffocated with my long coat, besides the air in this altitude is hard to breathe. One gets out of breath so easily and feels as if there was nothing to the air. Phew! what’s that terrible odor? It smells as if a whole factory of sulphur matches had gone off at once. Hark! What is that rumbling noise? It sounds like thunder, but it can’t be that for the sky is without a cloud and is as blue as blue can be. Say, Stubby, did you feel the earth shake then? If we were down on the level I should think it were an earthquake. Gracious! did you hear that explosion and feel the earth shake again? We had better get out of this.”
Just then the smoke rolled away for a minute and they saw they were within a few feet of the top so they decided they would not give up, bad as the sulphur and smoke were, until they had taken one peep into the crater.
This one peep nearly cost Stubby his life, for just as he had crawled to the very brink and was looking down, down, down into the very bowels of the earth where lava was boiling and steam hissing, an extra whiff of sulphur arose from the boiling, seething mass below which choked and strangled him so he could not move.
Billy had jumped back barely in time to escape it and was just starting on a run down the cone away from this dangerous place when he heard a little whine and saw Stubby drop over on his side as if dead. With a bound Billy was back, and grabbing him by the nape of his neck, as a cat carries her kittens, he carried him down the volcano’s side to safety.
It took Stubby a long while to come to and when he did so he found his poor little torn and bleeding feet as well as his nose resting in the cool sands of a little stream, and all he had to do, if he wanted a drink, was to stick out his tongue and let the water run through his mouth.
“Well, Stubby, are you feeling better?” he heard Billy say when he tried to open his eyes to see where he was.
“How in the world did I get here? Can you tell me that? for I had given up the hope of ever getting off that hot volcano again.”
“Indeed, I can, for I carried you every step of the way in my mouth, and when I got here I thought every tooth in my head would drop out, and instead of the little light weight dog I started with, I thought I was carrying an elephant, you got so heavy.”
“Billy, old fellow, you are a brick. That’s what you are.”
The next day Stubby was all right, and noticing that this little stream flowed toward the west, they followed it for two reasons. One, because they thought it would eventually run into the ocean; and the other, because they were afraid to leave it for fear of not finding any more water, and it was impossible to travel in this dry, hot country without having lots of water.
This little stream proved a perfect godsend to them as it quenched their thirst, cooled their aching feet and bodies and saved them many a long climb as it always kept its course and flowed straight on.
Had they followed the mountain trail it would have led them up hill and down and over many stones and brambles. Now, when they came to a precipice that shut off their path by its steep side they took to the stream and either waded or swam around it. In this way they reached the seashore days before they had expected to and with happy eyes they looked over the peaceful, blue bosom of the Pacific Ocean.
“Stubby, I feel as if I had escaped from prison to get out of that lonesome country full of insects, snakes and centipedes. Oh! how refreshing this salt breeze smells.”
“Yes, but I smell something sweeter to doggie nostrils and that’s the smell of frying meat. There must be a fisherman’s cottage around that bend. Good-bye, I’m off for some of it, and I mean to have some, even if I have to steal it from the red hot stove.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry and I’ll go with you.”
“No, you had better stay here. You are so big they will see you, while I am little and so near the color of the sand that I can sneak in and not be seen, and after finding out who lives there and getting a piece of meat, I will come back and tell you all about it.”
“Very well, but bring me back a bunch of carrots or a cabbage if you find any for I am as tired of eating leaves as you are of going without meat.”
Stubby crept cautiously round the bend and then laid down behind a bush out of sight so that he could watch and see who lived in the house. On the doorstep sat a stoop-shouldered man smoking a stubby pipe, while in front of him on the sand played three or four little children, bare-headed, bare-footed, with only faded calico slips on.
Through the open door Stubby could see the wife and mother leaning over the stove cooking, yes, he knew it by the smell, the selfsame steak he was longing for. He sneaked cautiously and quietly round to the back of the cottage and there—Oh, be joyful—he spied the remnants of the heifer that had been killed so that the family could have a taste of fresh meat, which was as great a treat to them as to Stubby, for they generally lived on salt meat and fish, which the father caught, for he was a fisherman, and took to a little town ten miles up the coast for shipment to large cities.
After Stubby had eaten all he wanted of the fresh meat he ran back to Billy and told him there was a small garden of vegetables back of the cottage where he could go as soon as it was dark and have a feast.
The tired, sleepy heads of the fisherman and his family had hardly touched their pillows when a large, black goat could have been seen in the midst of a vegetable garden, eating cabbages, turnips and lettuce, while a little yellow dog sat on a brown speckled rock and licked his chops after a meal of fresh beef and cold boiled potatoes he had found just inside the kitchen door, nicely chopped for breakfast.
Presently Stubby gave a sudden, sharp bark of alarm which made Billy throw up his head to see what was the matter, when what should he see but the rock Stubby was sitting on, walk off with four legs with a queer flat head sticking out from one side. Stubby jumped off in a hurry and was nearly bitten in two by a quick snap of the jaws of this queer looking beast, bird or fowl. They did not know which to call it as they had never before seen or heard of a snapping turtle, and that is what this was. Stubby had taken its shell for a large stone, as it had its head and feet drawn in out of sight when he jumped upon it.
This turtle was a huge one that the fisherman had caught the day before and was going to take to town in the morning to sell to a hotel-keeper to make turtle soup of.
The next morning Billy and Stubby kept out of sight until the fisherman had loaded his wagon with fish, vegetables and his turtle, and had started on his way to town. Then they ran out of their hiding place and followed him, taking great care to keep out of sight and in this way they soon came to the seaport town and followed him down to the wharf. When they reached the town they both walked under the wagon so that people would think that they belonged to the fisherman and would let them alone.
When they arrived at the wharf where lay a vessel ready to sail for San Francisco, the fisherman got off his wagon to unload and then, for the first time, he spied Billy and Stubby who were still under it and he was very much surprised to see them there I can tell you.
One of the sailors said, “What will you take for your goat?”
Without letting on that Billy was not his or that he had never laid eyes on him before, he said, “Well! as he is pretty fine, big goat, I can’t let you have him for less than five dollars.”
“All right. It’s a go,” said the sailor, who had lots of money at present, having just received his pay and not having had a chance to spend it.
“And what will you take for the dog?” asked another.
“Well, I don’t know as I care to sell him,” said the fisherman, thinking if he held off they would give him more money.
“You can’t expect to get much for him,” said another. “He is too tarnation homely.”
“That’s a matter of taste,” drawled the fisherman. “Looks ain’t everything in this world, and you can’t find a smarter rat dog along this coast.”
He threw this remark in for he knew it would catch the sailor as the ships are always infested with rats.
“Well, I’ll give you a dollar for him.”
“No, I couldn’t think of selling him so cheap,” and he climbed into his wagon, as if he were going off and did not care to part with him.
“I’ll give you two dollars and a half, and not a cent more.”
“I don’t care to sell him, but as he has cleaned out all the rats at my place I guess I’ll let you have him.”
The sailors gave him the money for the goat and the dog, and he drove off a happy man, but he did not let the grin show on his face until he was out of sight of the sailors.
Now this was a great streak of luck for Billy and Stubby, and was just what they wanted, so they followed their new masters on board without giving any trouble and by night their ship had sailed out of port and was on her way to San Francisco.