Just as I stepped on the boat next morning, a man rushed up to me with a “Hello there! how are you?” as he grasped me by the hand.  Seeing that I did not recognize him, he said:  “I don’t believe you know me.”  I told him that he had one the best of me.  He said:  “You are the boy scout that was with Capt.  Mill last summer, and you rode in my wagon.”  Then I recognized him.  His name was Healey, and at the time was running a restaurant in San Francisco, and he insisted on my going to his place when I got to the city, which invitation I accepted.  His establishment was known as the Miners’ Restaurant.

Mrs. Healey and her little daughter, eleven years old, knew me as soon as I entered the door, and were apparently as glad to see me as though I had been a relative of the family.

The next morning when I offered to settle my bill they would not take a cent, but requested me while in the city to make my home with them.

That day I went out to the Fort, which was three miles from the city, and on arriving there the first man I met was Lieut.  Harding, who at once conducted me to Col.  Elliott’s quarters.

That afternoon we made the rounds of the Fort, and Col.  Elliott, when introducing me, would say:  “This is the ‘boy scout,’ who was out with us last summer, and whom you have heard me speak of so often.”

I made my home with Col.  Elliott and his wife during my stay at the Fort, which was two weeks.

CHAPTER XIII.

Something worse than fighting Indians.—­Dance at col.  Elliott’s.—­ Conspicuous suit of buckskin.—­I manage to get back to Beckwith’s.

That night Mrs. Elliott had every lady that belonged around the Fort at her house, and she took the “boy scout” along the line and introduced him to every one of the ladies.  This was something new to me, for it was the first time in my life that I had struck society, and I would have given all of my previous summer’s wages to have been away from there.  I did not know how to conduct myself, and every time I made a blunder—­which seemed to me every time I made a move—­I would attempt to smooth it over, and always made a bad matter worse.

Next morning at the breakfast table I told the Colonel and his wife that I was going back into the mountains as fast as I could get there.  I knew I could track Indians, and fight them if necessary, but I did not know how to entertain ladies, especially when my best clothes were only Indian-tailored buckskin.

Mrs. Elliott assured me that she would not have had me come there dressed differently, had it been in her power to prevent it.  “Dressed otherwise than you are,” she said, “you would not be the same ‘boy scout’ that my husband has told us so much concerning.”

Of course this was encouraging, and I concluded that I might not have been so painfully ridiculous as I had supposed.  For, be it known, I had been scarcely able to sleep the night before for thinking of what an outlandish figure I had cut that night before all those high-toned ladies, and of the sport my presence among them must have created.