260 EAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



now and then upheaved by a swelling wavelet ; I knew 

 what that was, anyhow, from my Poole experiences. 

 '^A tidy company/^ quoth Ryles. Closer and closer 

 they come, charming away like a myriad of broody 

 hens. All of a sudden, ten or a dozen of them up and 

 away over our heads, and then another lot, and then 

 another, when whish ! come the body of them like a troop 

 of cavalry, some of them so close to us that I believe I 

 could have knocked them down with a walking-stick. 

 '' Ah./' said I, ^' youVe got it all your own way now ; just 

 wait till to-morrow, my beauties. Til show you a trick. ^' 

 We wandered back in the gloaming, which in California 

 is all too short, and made ourselves comfortable for the 

 night ; for, although a winter in S. California is not 

 exactly cold, still it^s quite chilly enough at night. A 

 dead log was rolled up to the door of our tent, and a 

 roaring fire was soon lighting up the red woods around 

 us. Over our one solitary "glass of grog, to which we 

 strictly limited ourselves, we told yarns far into the 

 evening. Poor Ryles ! he had seen a few ups and 

 downs in his time; had been a soldier, a steamboat 

 runner, bootblack, fisherman, and an arrant poacher 1^11 

 be bound. He appeared to have been everywhere. 

 Last year he had been down to Nicaragua to shoot 

 parrots and other pretty birds for the sake of their 

 skins ; he had yellow fever twice, and " chucked the 

 consarn up.^^ As for Injans, he seemed on intimate 

 terms with every tribe from Arizona to the Red River ; 

 but for a real live liar, of clear grit, commend me to a 

 Californian hunter. Generally speaking, however, liars 

 (hunting ones) are more amusing than other common 

 people to while away an evening. In the middle of some 

 interminable yarn of his about a skulking Injun, with a 



