On Tiptoe; A Romance of the Redwoods (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1922. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV THE two young people plunged into the forest, Davenport leading the way. Rapscallion cut wide, interrogatory circles around them. Punketty-Sniwles attempted to follow, but was sternly ordered back. The inextricable web of cause and effect we call chance decreed that Gardiner should be standing nearest; that upon Gardiner's unenthusiastic care Punketty-Snivvles ihould be bestowed by Burton. After they had resumed their walk they could hear the little beast's shrill, yapping protest, as nagging to the nerves as the reiterated cry of the fever owl in the African jungle. The yapping suddenly ended by a squeak of anguish. Punketty-Snivvles had been well swatted, and that swat had added Gardiner to his list of enemies. In the slow revolving of the incidents and accidents that make up our story this enmity had important results. Punketty-Sniwles was a true Bourbon in that he never learned and never forj got. Davenport led the way skilfully on ever-rising ground, following the faint, mossy half-trace of what was a water course only when rain was actually falling. It afforded comparatively clear footing through the lofty bracken, dogwood and smaller thicket which spread beneath the redwood giants like a carpet with a nap ten feet high The sun, searching in turn with its slanting shafts and arrows every aisle and pocket of the forest, had thoroughly warmed the air. A thousand odours thus released drifted like butterflies idly here and there, fluttering against the senses and away again; smell of hot evergreen needles, smell of lush, green, over-warm things, smell of damp, dark, uprooted earth, smell of the cool of running water, and the faint, unguessable, elusive little perfumes too shy to make themselves fully known. These were the busiest and most numerous...