Читать книгу The Mutiny of the Flying Spray - Arthur Hunt Chute - Страница 7
ОглавлениеTHE ARGONAUTS
Almost as soon as we got the gold fever, Tug and I had joined a club of young fellows, called the “Argonauts,” which was organized to devise ways and means of helping its members to get to the gold fields.
Tug, who had been elected president of the club, expressed its purpose, when at the opening, he said:
“Gentlemen, we’ve only got one idea in founding this institution, and that’s to arrive at the diggings.
“They’re making money hand over fist in California, but it isn’t the money altogether that we’re after. Of course, it’ll be nice to get it. But, wherever there’s something doing, we fellows have an idea that we ought to be there.
“When there’s a football game, I’d sooner be on the field than on the grandstand. I guess it’s the same with this gold rush, we want to go in while the goin’s good.”
The meeting cheered their heads off at this sentiment, but as the months slipped past we saw that it would take more than cheering to pay the piper.
The night of our disappointing interview with Captain Peabody, we went to a meeting of the club, in anything but good humor.
When one of our biggest mouth-artists had just gotten through telling us for the hundredth time what he intended to do, Tug suddenly jumped on a chair, declaring:
“Boys, I’m through with this hot-air association. Six months after we founded this club; we’ve just as many members as we started with, always ready to sing, ‘Oh, Sussanah!’ at the top of their lungs, and cheer tall talk.
“Now, after all this time, we haven’t any of us got one inch nearer to the gold.
“That guy that just sat down has been blowing off more steam here every night, and if he doesn’t look out, he’s going to bust his boiler.
“For the last time, I tell you fellows that I’m bound for California, overland, Panama, or round the Horn; I’m going to get there. For us fellows that mean business, the time has come to quit talking and start doing.
“If any of you feel the same as I do, you’d better chuck the pipe-dreaming. We ain’t exactly kids, and if we go in for action, even yet some of us may be able to have our little get-together out there as gold-rush millionaires.
“But if we keep on the way we’re going, first thing you know we’ll be sipping gruel in the old men’s home, and talking of those great chances that we missed away back in the days o’ the Forty-nine.
“That’s why, boys, I’m going to quit right now, as president of this club. I’m through with California Associations that haven’t got anything but chewed air to show for it.”
