Chapter XV The Last
Up the banks of the beautiful Rhine, through picturesque hamlets, over high, rugged mountains, and in the glory and grandeur of the forests, our horseback travellers sought and found the best of all treasures—health and happiness.
The Swabian Mountains, and the Schwarz Wold, or Black Forest,—a group of mountains covered with forests,—through which they rode thirty-seven miles, required from them the greatest endurance.
Nevertheless, upon the woody mountains, steep and difficult to climb as they were, they found several thriving villages, where they were kindly received, and where all their wants were generously supplied.
But on one occasion, when a violent storm arose, and they were near no village, they were obliged to take shelter in an empty barn, and there remained through the night, sleeping, with their horses, upon the hard, board floor, with their knapsacks for pillows.
And Johnny had one thrilling adventure.
They had encamped for the night upon a small plateau, and, before dismounting, Johnny rode back to the edge, and was looking down upon the plains beneath, when suddenly he felt the ground give way from above where his horse was standing, and in an instant horse and rider, covered by a bank of sand, were sliding helplessly down the mountain. The shower of sand smothered their cries, and neither the doctor nor Eric noticed their disappearance at first. But presently Eric, turning to speak to him, exclaimed,—
“Where in the world is Johnny?”
The doctor looked hastily up. Seeing the fresh earth at the edge of the plateau, he rushed to the spot, examined it, and exclaiming, “Heavens! the child has fallen down a slide!” prepared to descend in the same place.
“Eric, stay up there, and take care of the horses,” he said, and was soon out of sight.
Eric secured the horses, and then crept to the place from which the doctor had disappeared. He found, just beneath him, a long line of large troughs, open at both ends, and overlapping each other like shingles. It extended entirely down the side of the mountain, and to his horror Eric saw at its foot a lake.
“O, Johnny, Johnny! my dear little cousin! And uncle Charlie, too—they will surely be killed!” he cried, in agony. For he knew at once that they had gone down a timber slide, and was afraid they would be drowned in the lake.
And now I suppose I must tell you what a timber slide is.
The Black Forest Mountains are covered with large and valuable trees, which are felled and sold by their owners; and as it would be decidedly inconvenient to take horses and carts up the mountain, and utterly impossible to get them down with a heavy load of those giant trees with sound necks, an ingenious Swiss invented the cheap and rapid way of getting the trees off the mountain by means of a slide, formed of immense troughs lapped together, and terminating in the lake, where the heavy logs are chained together and floated to a railway or wharf, just as they are done in our own country by the loggers of the Maine forests and other woody regions.
Of course a descent in one of these slides, under ordinary circumstances, would be extremely dangerous to human life and limb. But it fortunately happened that neither the doctor, Johnny, nor Jack were seriously injured, for the slide had been disused for some time, and in consequence of an accident, somewhat similar to Johnny’s, had been partially removed, and a high, soft bank of sand lay at its new terminus.
Johnny and Jack were pitched violently into this, and rescued from their very uncomfortable position by a party of English travellers encamped near by.
Many were the exclamations uttered at the marvellous and sudden entrance of our young friend upon the quiet beauties of the twilight scene, and bewildered Johnny scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry.
His first anxiety was for Jack, but the English gentleman who drew him from the sand-bank would pay no attention to the horse until he was convinced that Johnny was unhurt. Assured about this, he patted and soothed poor frightened Jack, and walked him carefully over the soft greensward, to see if he appeared at all lame; and then Johnny was delighted enough to hear the horse pronounced all right.
Johnny had several pretty bad bruises, which the Englishman, who was a physician, dressed for him.
By the time this was done Dr. Ward, whose descent had been much slower and more careful than Johnny’s, reached them, and his anxieties were at once quieted by Johnny’s assurance that it was
“Just the jolliest coast I ever had.”
After examining both Johnny and Jack, to assure himself of their well-being, and heartily thanking the Englishman for his kind assistance, the doctor asked permission to leave Johnny under his care until he could get Eric and the horses from the top of the mountain.
The new friend willingly undertook the care of Johnny, and the doctor hastened up the mountain to relieve Eric’s anxiety.
Johnny seated himself near the door of the tent, and a young man of the party brought him some grapes. Jack neighed wistfully for his share, for Johnny had made a great pet of him, always dividing his fruit with him.
“I’ll give you some, Jack,” he said, walking towards the horse. “Gracious, how stiff and sore I feel.”
While Jack was champing his feast with great satisfaction, an English boy, of Johnny’s size, came towards them.
“Is that your horse?” said he.
“Yes,” answered Johnny; “isn’t he a good one?”
“Is he a good one?” asked the boy.
“I guess he is,” said Johnny, hotly; “there isn’t a better horse anywhere.”
“But papa’s groom told me,” persisted the English lad, “that a horse with four white feet and a white nose was worthless. He says,—
‘One white foot, buy him,
Two white feet, try him,
Three white feet, deny him,
Four white feet and a white nose,
Take off his skin and throw him to the crows.’”
Johnny detected a roguish glitter in his companion’s blue eyes, and with a corresponding twinkle in his own, merely answered,—
“My old nurse says,—
‘There was an old woman went up in a basket
Seventy times as high as the moon.’
I suppose you believe that, too.”
This ready answer pleased the other, and they were soon fast friends.