Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California

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Henty George Alfred. Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California

CHAPTER I. WESTMINSTER! WESTMINSTER!

CHAPTER II. A COLD SWIM

CHAPTER III. A CRIPPLE BOY

CHAPTER IV. AN ADOPTED CHILD

CHAPTER V. A TERRIBLE ACCUSATION

CHAPTER VI. AT NEW ORLEANS

CHAPTER VII. ON THE MISSISSIPPI

CHAPTER VIII. STARTING FOR THE WEST

CHAPTER IX. ON THE PLAINS

CHAPTER X. A BUFFALO STORY

CHAPTER XI. HOW DICK LOST HIS SCALP

CHAPTER XII. THE ATTACK ON THE CARAVAN

CHAPTER XIII. AT THE GOLD-FIELDS

CHAPTER XIV. CAPTAIN BAYLEY

CHAPTER XV. THE MISSING HEIR

CHAPTER XVI. JOHN HOLL, DUST CONTRACTOR

CHAPTER XVII. THE LONELY DIGGERS

CHAPTER XVIII. A DREAM VERIFIED

CHAPTER XIX. STRIKING IT RICH

CHAPTER XX. A MESSAGE FROM ABROAD

CHAPTER XXI. HAPPY MEETINGS

CHAPTER XXII. CLEARED AT LAST

Отрывок из книги

IT is winter. Christmas is close at hand, and promises to be a bitterly cold one. The ice has formed smooth and black across the Serpentine, and a number of people are walking along by its banks, looking forward to some grand skating if the frost does but hold two days longer. The sky is blue, and the sun shining brightly; the wind is fresh and keen; it is just the day when people well-clad, well-fed, and in strong health, feel their blood dancing more freely than usual through their veins, and experience an unusual exhilaration of spirits. Merry laughter often rises from the groups on the bank, and the air rings with the sharp sound made by pieces of ice sent skimming by mischievous boys over the glassy surface, to the disgust of skaters, who foresee future falls as the result of these fragments should a slight thaw freeze them to the surface.

Among those walking by the edge of the ice were Frank Norris and Fred Barkley; with them was a bright-faced girl of some fourteen years old. Alice Hardy was cousin to both the young fellows, and was a ward of their uncle, Captain Bayley, an old and very wealthy retired officer of the East India Company's Service. His fortune had not been acquired in India, but had descended to him from his father, of whom he had been the youngest son. His elder brothers had died off one by one, all unmarried or childless, and soon after he obtained his commission he was recalled home to take his place as the next heir to his father's estates; then he had married.

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"I always observe, my dear," Captain Bayley said sarcastically, "that women would do wonderful things if they had only been born men. Nature appears to be always making mistakes by putting the dauntless and heroic spirits into female bodies, and vice versa."

"I don't like you when you talk like that, Uncle Harry – that is, I shouldn't like you if I thought you meant it; but you only talk so out of contradiction. If I had said I thought Frank was very foolish for having gone into the water, you would have taken the opposite side directly."

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