Dick and old Bob seemed to grow timid as they approached the confines of civilization, but they were coaxed on board the train, and when the party reached San Francisco, they were taken off to the Stranger. The matter of the voyage around the world had been brought for up discussion a few times, but Dick had found his tongue at last, and declared that it was not to be thought of. The boys knew better than to press the subject, and hoped that time would accomplish what arguments could never do. A few hours on board the Stranger in the harbor, where vessels were constantly coming and going, might increase their confidence, while it familiarized them in some slight degree with life on ship-board, and perhaps they could then be induced to change their minds. Archie had tried to persuade Dick to follow him and his companions to the cross-trees; but the trapper, after glancing down at his colossal proportions, and then up at the ratlines, which looked no larger than so many threads, declared that the ropes wouldn't bear his weight, and remained below.
"Now, this feels natural!" exclaimed Featherweight swinging back and forth on his dizzy perch with such apparent recklessness that Dick Lewis, who now and then looked up at him, fairly shook in his moccasins; "and I am ready for new adventures and new sights beyond the seas. Our fellows can say, what the books tell us comparatively few American travellers can say, and that is, we have seen the most of the wonders of our own country. I never expect to see anything grander than the Yo Semite Valley. I wonder how long it will be before Uncle Dick will hoist the signal for sailing?"
"Just as soon as the stores are aboard," said Eugene. "We may get off to-morrow."
"Will Dick and Bob go with us?"
"No," said Archie. "We might as well give that up. And since I have come to think of it, I don't want them to go unless they are perfectly willing to do so."
"Nor I," said Eugene. "If it frightens them so badly to travel on a railroad train, what would be their feelings when they found the schooner tossing about on such waves as we saw coming around the Horn? I shall urge them no more."
"They have been talking to Frank about it," continued Fred. "They always go to him and believe every word he says – that is, almost every word."
"Ah! yes; I was going to put that in," said Archie. "They don't like to believe that the world is round. They don't say so with their mouths, but they do with their eyes."
"And they don't know what to think about elephants as large as that house of Potter's, and lions and tigers, and snakes twenty feet long," said Fred.
"And a whale bothers them," chimed in Eugene; "and Dick laughed the other day when I told him about a flying-fish."
"What's going on down there?" asked Archie, as the sound of voices in animated conversation came up from the deck.
The boys looked below and saw that the group, which they had last seen scattered over the quarter-deck, were gathered about Dick Lewis, who appeared to be making them a speech. Now and then he illustrated his remarks by pointing to something he had placed at his feet; but the boys could not see what it was, for the Club were crowded about it and hid it from view. They were missing something, that was evident; but they did not intend to miss any more of it, and it was but the work of a few seconds to swing themselves out of the crosstrees on to the ratlines, and descend to the deck. They ran up to the group, and found that the object over which the trapper was holding forth was simply a mess-pan filled with water.
"Them stories you've been a tellin' seems wonderful to me an' ole Bob, who never heard the like afore," Dick was saying as the boys came up. "We don't conspute 'em, 'cause bein' unedicated men, we never had no book larnin', an' don't know nothing outside the mountains an' the prairy. Now, you tell me that thar's three times as much water on the 'arth as thar is ground; that you're goin' to start from Fr'isco an' sail clean around it in this yere little boat, an' that if me an' ole Bob'll go with you, we won't even know that we're sailing round the world. Won't we know when we come to the edge?"
"There isn't any edge to it," said Frank.
"Sho! Thar can't help bein' an edge if the world is round, can thar? This yere," said Dick, pointing to the pan of water, "is the sea; an' this yere," he continued, fumbling in the pockets of his hunting shirt, "is the 'arth."
As he spoke he drew out a piece of hard tack, which he had rudely shaped with his knife to represent his idea of the rotundity of the earth. The corners were cut off, making the biscuit nearly round, and there was a piece clipped out of the side of it, in shape something like a bottle with a very short neck and wide body, to represent the Golden Gate and the harbor of San Francisco. This miniature world Dick placed in the middle of the pan of water, and then straightened up and looked triumphantly at his audience. Eugene glanced at it, choked back a laugh and then rushed off to find the steward, while the trapper went on with his illustration.
"Now, thar's the 'arth," said he, placing his finger on the biscuit, "flat like a pan-cake, as anybody can see it is, that's ever been out on the prairy, an' round like you say it is. Here is the sea all around it, an' here's Fr'isco. Now, after you go out of the Golden Gate an' start to sail round the 'arth," said Dick, moving his long finger through the water around the biscuit, "can't you see the edge all the way round? I can understand that, which wasn't so very plain to me a few days ago, but now comes something I can't see into. You say the 'arth turns over onct every day, but that don't by no means stand to reason, 'cause jest see what would happen," – he went on, placing his finger under the biscuit and raising one edge of it out of the water. "If it turned over, one side of it would keep gettin' higher an' higher all the time, an' finally the houses, an' trees, an' mountains, an' folks would get to slidin' an' slidin', an' when they come to the edge, they'd all slip off into the water; an' when the 'arth turned cl'ar over" – here he flopped the biscuit up side down in the pan – "whar would we all be?"
None of his auditors had attempted to interrupt the trapper, and the reason was because there was not one among them who could trust himself to speak, not even Uncle Dick. Believing from their silence that he had got the better of all of them, the trapper said he was more firmly convinced than he had ever been before, that all the learning in the world was not to be found in books, and was about to throw the contents of his mess-pan over the side, when Eugene came elbowing his way into the group, carrying an apple in one hand and a small magnet in the other.
"Now, Dick," said he, "let me talk a minute. You haven't quite got the idea. In the first place, that piece of hard tack doesn't represent the shape of the earth, but this apple does, pretty nearly. In the next place, the globe doesn't revolve through water, for the water forms part of the earth and turns with it."
"Sho!" exclaimed the trapper. "It would all spill out."
"Hold on a minute, and I'll show you that it can't spill out. The world revolves through the air. Don't you fellows criticise now," continued Eugene, turning to his companions. "If, when I get through, you want to explain that the earth really revolves through space, and that the air goes with it, except such portions as are left behind and form the trade-winds, you are welcome to do it; but it is quite beyond me."
Eugene handed the magnet to Archie to hold until he was ready to use it, and with the point of his knife rudely traced upon the apple the shape of the continents and the principal oceans. This done, he went on with his explanation, which was simply a repetition of what every boy learns when he first begins the study of geography. He described the motions of the earth as well as he could, and used the magnet to illustrate the attraction of gravitation. Dick listened attentively, and when Eugene finished, took the apple from his hand and looked at it with a great deal of interest. He turned it over several times, and appeared to be meditating upon something.
"They're goin' to sail round the 'arth this way," said he, moving his finger slowly around the circumference of the apple, and talking more to himself than to the boys standing about, "an' when they get around here" – he stopped and thought a moment, holding the end of his finger under the apple – "when they get around here, they'll be – Human natur'!" he cried suddenly, as if frightened at the discovery