"'As you were still delirious and in a helpless condition, I could not bear the thought of leaving you at the latter place, but brought you along with the train to this place, where we arrived last week, and I am overjoyed to see you on your feet again.'
"'But what was the fate of Walraven and his wife?' I cried, in great excitement.
"Seeing the wild look again coming into my eyes, he said, with a saddened expression:--
"'Do not ask any more questions, my boy. When you become stronger I will tell you all. But now, my friend, do try to think of pleasanter themes. If you do not, you will surely relapse into your former deplorable state.'
"Therefore I took his kindly advice, and ignored the past with all its bitter memories, and listened with growing interest to his hopeful plans for the future. As he told of the great gold-fields that had been discovered in the newly acquired California, that were of such fabulous richness, he said, that all the world was wild with excitement and wonder, I began to feel the infection of his enthusiasm, and almost forgot the fact that I was penniless and two thousand miles from home.
"The next day I felt still stronger; but the ugly wound on my head was not yet entirely healed, being a painful reminder of the terrible blow which I had received the night of the attack at the corral.
"As the days passed by I rapidly convalesced, and erelong was able to walk through the orange-groves, or sail with Roger out on the tranquil water; but whenever I had nerved myself up to the point of asking the fate of my friends, to my horror I would find that same old sickening, wavering sensation steal over my brain that I remembered so well, and I would shudder to think that I stood, as it were, upon the brink of madness.
"So in our long rambles on the sea-shore or drives on the beach, we shunned all allusion to the fateful past, tacitly ignoring the unexplained sequel to that terrible tragedy; but the suspense and strain were so great that it is a blissful thing that events followed which diverted my mind from the painful subject, or perhaps my reason may have been utterly overthrown.
"Roger had disposed of his teams, and, after consulting me, procured tickets to San Francisco, a small village that had sprung up on the coast to the north, and as he gave me my ticket he said with a smile:--