Adrift in the Wilds; Or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys.

Reproduction of the original: Adrift in the Wilds by Edward S. Ellis

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For the first time Captain Strathmore looked down at the little girl, who was staring around her with the wondering curiosity of childhood. She was apparently about six years of age, and the picture of infantile innocence and loveliness. She was dressed with good taste, her little feet being incased in Cinderella-like slippers, while the pretty stockings and dress set off the figure to perfection. She wore a fashionable straw hat, with a gay ribbon, and indeed looked like a child of wealthy parents, who had let her out for a little jaunt along some shady avenue. When Captain Strathmore looked down upon this sweet child, a great pang went through his heart, for she was the picture of the little girl that once called him father. Her mother died while little Inez was an infant, and, as soon as the cherished one could dispense with the care of a nurse, she joined her father, the captain, and henceforth was not separated from him. She was always on ship or steamer, sharing his room and becoming the pet of every one who met her, no less from her loveliness than from her childish, winning ways. But there came one awful dark day, away out in the Pacific, when the sweet voice was hushed forever, and the rugged old captain was bowed by a grief such as that which smites the mountain-oak to the earth. The little girl who now looked up in the face of Captain Strathmore was the image of Inez, who years before had sunk to the bottom of the sea, carrying with her all the sunshine, music and loveliness that cheered her father’s heart. With an impulse he could not resist, the captain reached out his arms and the little stranger instantly ran into them.

Edward Sylvester Ellis (April 11, 1840 - June 20, 1916) was an American author who was born in Ohio and died at Cliff Island, Maine.Ellis was a teacher, school administrator, journalist, and the author of hundreds of books and magazine articles that he produced by his name and by a number of noms de plume. Notable fiction stories by Ellis include The Steam Man of the Prairies and Seth Jones, or the Captives of the Frontier.Internationally, Edward S. Ellis is probably known best for his Deerfoot novels read widely by young boys until the 1950s.Dime novelsSeth Jones was the most significant of early dime novels of publishers Beadle and Adams. It is said that Seth Jones was one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite stories. During the mid-1880s, after a fiction-writing career of some thirty years, Ellis eventually began composing more serious works of biography, history, and persuasive writing. Of note was "The Life of Colonel David Crockett," which had the story of Davy Crockett giving a speech usually called "Not Yours To Give." It was a speech in opposition to awarding money to a Navy widow on the grounds that Congress had no Constitutional mandate to give charity. It was said to have been inspired by Crockett's meeting with a Horatio Bunce, a much quoted man in Libertarian circles, but one for whom historical evidence is non-existent.PseudonymsBesides the one hundred fifty-nine books published by his own name, Ellis' work was published under various pseudonyms, including: "James Fenimore Cooper Adams" or "Captain Bruin Adams" (68 titles)"Boynton M. Belknap" (9 titles)"J. G. Bethune" (1 title)"Captain Latham C. Carleton" (2 titles)"Frank Faulkner" (1 title)"Capt. R. M. Hawthorne" (4 titles)"Lieut. Ned Hunter" (5 titles)"Lieut. R. H. Jayne" (at least 2 titles in the War Whoop series)[8]"Charles E. Lasalle" (16 titles)"H. R. Millbank" (3 titles)"Billex Muller" (3 titles)"Lieut. J. H. Randolph" (8 titles)"Emerson Rodman" (10 titles)"E. A. St. Mox" (2 titles)"Seelin Robins" (19 titles)He was a major author during the era of inexpensive fiction of the nineteenth century (dime novels). Because he wrote under dozens of pseudonyms, as well as under his own name, it is virtually impossible to know exactly how many books he wrote, but it is believed to be in the hundreds. Notable works include: The Lost Trail (1884), The Land of Mystery (1889), Through Forest and Fire (1891), Two Boys in Wyoming (1898), Thomas Jefferson (1898/1903), The Jungle Fugitives (1903) and Oonomoo: The Huron (1911).