standing side by side
and gazing after them. At last they appeared like mere specks on the
landscape, and the knoll itself finally faded from their view.

At San Francisco they found their vessel, the _Rainbow_, a large
full-rigged ship, ready for sea. Embarking with their boxes of
gold-dust they bade farewell to the golden shore, where so many young
and vigorous men have landed in hopeful enthusiasm, to meet, too often,
with disappointment, if not with death.

Our friends, being among the fortunate few, left it with joy.

The _Rainbow_ shook out her sails to a favouring breeze, and, sweeping
out upon the great Pacific, was soon bowling along the western coast of
South America, in the direction of Cape Horn.

CHAPTER TEN.

CHANGE OF SCENE AND FORTUNE.

The fair wind that swept the good ship _Rainbow_ away from California's
golden shores carried her quickly into a fresh and purer atmosphere,
moral as well as physical. It seemed to most, if not all, of the
gold-finders as if their brains had been cleared of golden cobwebs.
They felt like convalescents from whom a low fever had suddenly
departed, leaving them subdued, restful, calm, and happy.

"It's more like a dream than a reality," observed Ben Trench one day, as
he and Polly sat on the after part of the vessel, gazing out upon the
tranquil sea.

"What seems like a dream?" asked Philosopher Jack, coming aft at the
moment with Watty Wilkins, and sitting down beside them.

"Our recent life in California," replied Ben. "There was such constant
bustle and toil, and restless, feverish activity, both of mind and body;
and now everything is so calm and peaceful, and we are so delightfully
idle. I can hardly persuade myself that it is not all a dream."

"Perhaps it is," said Philosopher Jack. "There are men, you know, who
hold that everything is a dream; that matter is a mere fancy or
conception, and that there is nothing real or actually in existence but
mind."

"Bah!" exclaimed Watty with contempt; "what would these philosophers say
if matter, in the shape of a fist, were to hit them on their ridiculous
noses?"

"They'd say that they only imagined a fist and fancied a blow, I
suppose," returned Jack.

"And would they say that the pain and the blood were imagination also?"

"I suppose they would."

"But what if I were to come on them slily behind and hit them on their
pates before they had a chance to see or to exert their terribly real
and powerf