forced to defer his first self-prepared breakfast until he had reached
water, and a less dangerous place than the wild-oat field to build
his first camp fire. This he found a mile further on, near some dwarf
willows on the bank of a half-dry stream. Of his various efforts to
prepare his first meal, the fire was the most successful; the coffee
was somewhat too substantially thick, and the bacon and herring lacked
definiteness of quality from having been cooked in the same vessel.
In this boyish picnic he missed Susy, and recalled, perhaps a little
bitterly, her coldness at parting. But the novelty of his situation, the
brilliant sunshine and sense of freedom, and the road already awakening
to dusty life with passing teams, dismissed everything but the future
from his mind. Readjusting his pack, he stepped on cheerily. At noon he
was overtaken by a teamster, who in return for a match to light his pipe
gave him a lift of a dozen miles. It is to be feared that Clarence's
account of himself was equally fanciful with his previous story, and
that the teamster parted from him with a genuine regret, and a hope that
he would soon be overtaken by his friends along the road. "And mind that
you ain't such a fool agin to let 'em make you tote their dod-blasted
tools fur them!" he added unsuspectingly, pointing to Clarence's mining
outfit. Thus saved the heaviest part of the day's journey, for the
road was continually rising from the plains during the last six miles,
Clarence was yet able to cover a considerable distance on foot before
he halted for supper. Here he was again fortunate. An empty lumber
team watering at the same spring, its driver offered to take Clarence's
purchases--for the boy had profited by his late friend's suggestion to
personally detach himself from his equipment--to Buckeye Mills for a
dollar, which would also include a "shakedown passage" for himself on
the floor of the wagon. "I reckon you've been foolin' away in Sacramento
the money yer parents give yer for return stage fare, eh? Don't
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