Quite evidently he must go back to that cousin in New York who was to help him if things went wrong. That things had gone wrong, from the moment of his getting off the train, onward4 through his terrifying interview with Half-Breed Jake, was not to be denied. This seemed to be one of the few certain facts in the whirling confusion of his affairs. He recollected5 now how the friendly porter had felt misgivings6 as to the length of his stay in Rudolm and had reminded him that the train that would carry him back to the world he knew, would go through at six o’clock in the morning. After long pondering, he decided7 to take it.
Just as he was about to go to bed he heard a sound at the window, a handful of pebbles8 striking against the glass. He got up to look out and saw some one standing9 on the doorstep below.
“It is I, Jethro Brown,” called a cautious voice. “Can you come down? I want to talk to you.”
Hugh took up his candle and stole on tiptoe down the stairs. All of the Ingmarssons were sound asleep. He contrived10 to shoot back the bolts and open the front door without a sound. The clerk from the hotel, looking more lank11 and awkward than ever in the candle light, stood waiting outside.
“I saw your window was bright and I had some things to tell you,” he said. “I am sorry to bring you down.”
Hugh blew out the candle and they sat down together on the doorstep.
“It is all right,” he said; “you wouldn’t have found me to-morrow. I am going away early in the morning.”
“Going?” echoed the other in a tone of the greatest disappointment and dismay. Then he heaved a deep sigh.
“Well,” he remarked, “I suppose it is the only thing you can do, but somehow I had kind of hoped you were going to stay.”
“Why?” Hugh stared in astonishment12, for what difference could it make to any one whether he remained in Rudolm or went away?
Jethro sat staring at the ground between his feet and shuffled13 them uneasily several times.
“That Half-Breed Jake has been at the hotel all evening,” he said at last. “He has been talking a long time about the Edmonds boys and how they have disappeared because they had to. It is true that John’s books at the bank were pretty badly mixed and they have had an expert up to go over them, but nothing has been proved yet, one way or the other. It seemed to me, at last, that Jake talked rather too much. He always hated the Edmonds boys, they were too square and honest and they had blocked him more than once in some of his devilment. If there is a mean or a cruel or a crooked14 way of doing a thing, he will do it. That’s Jake.”
“But why is every one so afraid of him?” inquired Hugh. “He is only one man against all of you.”
“It is just part of living here to be afraid of him, I suppose, and to try to keep out of trouble with him,” Jethro answered slowly. “The Indians fear him so much that they will do anything he says; he understands them as very few men do and he uses his knowledge to get what he wants. A man who can control these Chippewas has a lot of power. There is a white deer that ranges these woods once in a long time and is supposed to bring bad luck. The Indians have a saying that whoever sees the white deer or opposes Half-Breed Jake is sure to die inside a year.”
“But the Swedes have better sense than that!” exclaimed Hugh.
“The Swedes are very superstitious15 too, and once they are convinced of a thing it is hard to make them change. And it does seem that whoever stands in Jake’s way is cursed with bad fortune until he gives it up. There are only a few that ever dared stand out against him, such as the Edmonds boys, and where are they?”
Hugh sat quiet, watching the moon come up over the eastern rim16 of the valley. He found Jethro as talkative as the Swedes were silent, but he felt no very great interest in these accounts of Half-Breed Jake, a man whom he instinctively17 hated and would, he hoped, never see again. Only wonder as to why Jethro wished him to stay in Rudolm and what all these details had to do with himself, held his lagging attention.
“Do you see that road,” Jethro went on heatedly, “that road yonder that leads over the hill? That would have meant a lot to the people here, but it came to nothing. It was to be built through the woods as far as Jasper Peak and would have opened up the country at the upper end of the lake. Jake stopped it. He calls all that country his, and is bound to keep the fishing and the hunting and trapping for himself. He killed the plan with open threats and secret lies: at first the men went at it with a rush, but in the end somehow the whole thing fell through. It was the first time he ever scored a real victory off Oscar Dansk.”
Hugh turned, his interest caught at last.
“That is one person I want to know about,” he said. “Who is this Oscar Dansk?”
“He is Linda Ingmarsson’s younger brother,” Jethro answered. “You know that much and it is hard to tell you a great deal more. Oscar isn’t like the rest of us. I don’t quite know what to say about him; he is always dreaming about something big, some way. His father must have been quite a great person back in Sweden; he was poor to the end of his life, just as every one in Rudolm is poor, but you can see that Oscar and Linda are not quite the same kind of people as the rest.”
“He doesn’t live here in Rudolm?” Hugh said.
“Not now, he lives out beyond Jasper Peak. He is proving up on some kind of a claim, homesteading, right in the country that Half-Breed Jake calls his. He was here in April when war was declared and went down pell-mell to Duluth to enlist18, wanted to go into the Navy, I think, these Swedes all do. But they wouldn’t take him, or for the army either, I don’t know why. He came back in a few days, looking grim and set and not saying a word to any one. He went right off into the woods again and we’ve scarcely seen him since. It was a cruel disappointment, I think, as bad as when he couldn’t build his road.”
“But why did he care so much about the road?”
Hugh’s curiosity about that mysterious highway had grown greater and greater, yet even now it was not to be satisfied.
“He had something big in his mind,” Jethro said vaguely19, “so big I never quite understood it. He was a fellow who could always see farther than the rest of us, I think. John Edmonds used to say he did, although even he lost faith in the plan about the road at last, and that nearly broke Oscar’s heart. Some people even said they had quarreled, but I don’t believe it. Oscar wasn’t the sort to bear a grudge20.”
Jethro thrust his hands deep into his pockets and turned at last to face Hugh squarely.
“That is what I am getting at,” he said. “Oscar Dansk can find John and Dick Edmonds if any man on earth can do it. But some one would have to go out through the woods to tell him, otherwise it might be weeks before he hears what has happened. And the only person to go is you.”
“I?” cried Hugh in amazement21, “I? Why, that’s impossible.”
“All right,” said the other briefly23, “I was afraid maybe you would take it that way. Of course, after all, you oughtn’t to try it. Well, good-night.”
He shambled off into the dark, leaving Hugh still staring in astonishment. He wished that he had not said quite so decisively that the plan was impossible, so that at least he might have heard more of it. How strange it was that, after leading up to the subject so long, Jethro should have dropped it so quickly. Probably he himself knew that it was impossible as well as did Hugh.
Very slowly he went up to bed, still wondering. It was in vain that he tried to compose his mind to sleep: he could not, for thinking of what Jethro had said. For an hour he tossed and turned and puzzled and pondered. At last he got up and went to the window, thinking that he might feel sleepy if he sat there for a while.
The moon was very bright now, so that all the little square houses showed plainly, as did the white expanse of the empty street. Nothing stirred in all of the sleeping town; the very quiet and peace did indeed make him feel drowsy24 almost at once. He yawned a great yawn and was just about to turn from the window when a moving shadow caught his eye. Some one was coming down the deserted25 street, some one who walked noiselessly but swiftly and with great determination. It was a woman, he could see, an Indian squaw, with broad, bent26 shoulders and heavy dark hair. Even at that distance and in the deceiving moonlight he felt certain that it was the woman he had seen before, Laughing Mary.
She turned in at the gate and came hurrying up the path, but she did not reach the door. Two men followed her, one lithe27 and stooping, the other tall and moving with great strides—there was no doubt in Hugh’s mind that it was Half-Breed Jake. He seized the woman by the shoulder and whirled her about just as, very plainly, she was on the point of mounting the doorstep and knocking at the door. There followed an altercation28, whispered, yet so full of fierceness and passionate29 gesture that Hugh, at his window, could feel the fury of their quarrel even there. It was almost like watching a dance of shadows, so noiseless did they manage to be, although now and then he caught a low-voiced sentence, couched in guttural Chippewa, and once, to his surprise, he heard his own name, spoken very distinctly by Laughing Mary.
She was not smiling now but speaking volubly, gesticulating, urging and insisting something, to which Jake slowly and determinedly30 shook his head. She kept pointing to the bale of furs still under his arm and seemed to be voicing her desire with such violence in the face of his continued refusal that finally, in angry impatience31, he raised his arm as though to strike her. She winced32 and cowered33, but still persisted, advancing her dark wrinkled face almost into his to utter her last word. Whatever she said seemed to have effect, for Jake’s arm dropped to his side and, muttering angrily, he stooped down to open his pack and give her what she demanded. What the coveted34 article was, Hugh could not see, for the Indian husband, Kaniska, was standing in the way.
Then all three went out quickly through the gate, as silent and as swift as ghosts. For the first time, Hugh noticed that Jake, who walked behind, moved with a slight unevenness35 in his giant stride.
It had grown so late that Hugh in spite of his curiosity and excitement was sleepy at last. He lay down again, going over and over once more the puzzles of the day. What ought he to do? What had these strange people to do with him? Why did Jethro say that he was the only one to go on that impossible errand, why did the fellow not go himself? If there were really a chance of his helping36 the Edmonds boys, Hugh would have risked anything gladly, but this plan was such absolute madness! No, thought Hugh, he had made up his mind, he would not change it again, he would go to-morrow.
He arose at five, packed his belongings37 and, on hearing Linda stirring in the kitchen, went down to explain to her. She heard him through in silence and without protest.
“I suppose you must know best,” was her only comment.
When he made an attempt to thank her for all her kindness, she refused to listen.
“The Edmonds boys are my friends,” she said, “and for them I would do much. This was nothing.”
She came to the door to bid him good-by and stood watching him as he went down the path to the gate. The morning mist lay heavy in the little valley and stretched upward in wreaths over the hills. The air was cold, so that he turned up his coat-collar and walked very briskly. Once he looked back and saw that Linda Ingmarsson had come out to the gate and stood leaning over it almost as though she were about to call him back. She made no sign, however, so he turned once more and walked on toward the station. He found that he was early, that the little building was still locked and that he must sit down on the narrow bench at the edge of the platform and wait. The mist lifted, little by little, until he began to see the miles of blue water, the hills and the vast unbroken forest sweeping38 down to the water’s edge. How would it be, he thought with a shudder39, to be lost in that unending maze22 of green?
Presently he heard footsteps coming up the stairs and around the corner of the building. He glanced up quickly and saw that it was Jethro Brown again, wearing a dingy40 straw hat on the back of his head and carrying a suitcase. He loitered at the other end of the platform and would not have come near, but Hugh arose from his seat and went straight to him.
“You must tell me,” he said, “why you thought I was the only one to carry that news to Oscar Dansk. I have thought of nothing else all night.”
Jethro flushed.
“I shouldn’t ever have spoken of it at all,” he stammered41, “I don’t know what possessed42 me. I just got to thinking and felt that something ought to be done, that some one ought to go. But I should not have come to you, of course you couldn’t do it.”
“If I did go,” Hugh persisted, “how would I ever find the way?”
He did not really know himself why he asked the question.
The other turned and pointed43.
“You would follow that road to the top of the hill and where it ends you would find a trail that runs across the range of forest beyond. It leads to a little Chippewa village on Two Rivers; there’s an Indian boy there, Shokatan, who could guide you the rest of the way. He got to be quite a friend of mine when he came in to the Indian school near here and he knows English, though he probably won’t be willing to speak it now. I could give you a letter and I know he would help you.”
It was plain that Jethro had thought it all out.
Hugh still stood pondering.
“Why don’t any of the Swedes go?” he asked, “aren’t they willing?”
“They are willing enough,” Jethro returned, “but they have given up. They say there is no hope. Once they have made up their minds there is no changing them.”
“And why,” questioned Hugh bluntly, “don’t you go yourself?”
“Oh,” Jethro answered simply, “I forgot to tell you that. Of course I would go only I am leaving to-day. I’ve enlisted44. I’ve got my orders. I’m going to Fort Snelling.”
“Oh,” cried Hugh, “how did you manage? My father wouldn’t let me. How old are you?”
“I am a little under age but I made them take me,” replied Jethro. “There wasn’t much trouble about getting consent, I haven’t any one that my going would make any difference to.”
Hugh’s whole view of the affair underwent a sudden and tremendous change. If Jethro was going to the war, why, that made everything different! He must think and think quickly, for, far off among the hills, he heard the whistle of the approaching train.
“Well,” Jethro said, breaking into his reverie, “I will be taking the forward coach when the train comes in, so I may not see you again. Good-by.”
He reached out his huge, red hand and Hugh shook it, still half dazed.
“Did you write that letter to the Indian?” he said, and, as the other nodded, “Give it to me. I haven’t decided yet but I—I might need it.”
Jethro pulled a paper from his pocket and handed it to him.
“No, no,” he cried, immediately after, “it is not the right thing at all for you to go. Do not think about it again. Here’s the train. Good-by.”
“Good-by,” said Hugh, still in doubt, “good-by and good luck.”
Jethro strode away down the platform just as the big locomotive came thundering in. Hugh was turning slowly toward the Pullman coaches at the further end when he heard quick short footsteps behind him and little Carl Ingmarsson very red and breathless came panting up.
“I wanted to say good-by,” he said; “we never knew you were going until Mother told us.” He laid his square, firm little hand in Hugh’s.
“It was good of you to come,” returned Hugh. “What did your mother say about my going?”
“She didn’t say much,” Carl replied, “I think she had been crying.”
“Crying?” echoed Hugh; “why?” This seemed the most amazing thing of all the surprises that had come to him.
“I think she didn’t want you to go,” the little boy answered, “I don’t understand it. She doesn’t often cry.”
So there was more than one person who wanted him to help and was confident of his success. And even Half-Breed Jake and Laughing Mary seemed to feel that he was in some way involved in the matter. Should he go or stay? Time was passing.
The grinning porter looked at him doubtfully, then picked up his stool and climbed up the steps of the last car. The long train, with its shining brass45 rails, hooded46 vestibules and sleepy passengers peering from the windows, looked as though it had come from another world than this wild, wooded country where such strange things could come to pass. The brakeman glanced inquiringly over his shoulder and shouted,
“All aboard!”
The bell began to jangle, the wheels creaked and groaned47, the heavy cars slowly gathered headway—there was still time to run and catch the last step, but Hugh did not move. The line of cars, with a final echoing whistle, slid away into the morning mist and disappeared behind the shoulder of a hill, leaving him behind, committed at last to his adventure.
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收听单词发音
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1
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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2
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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3
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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5
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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7
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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8
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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9
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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10
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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11
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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12
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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13
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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14
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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15
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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18
enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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19
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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20
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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21
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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23
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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24
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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25
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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26
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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28
altercation
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| n.争吵，争论 | |
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29
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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30
determinedly
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| adv.决意地；坚决地，坚定地 | |
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31
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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32
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
cowered
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的过去式 ) | |
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34
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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35
unevenness
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| n. 不平坦，不平衡，不匀性 | |
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36
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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37
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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38
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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40
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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41
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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43
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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44
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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45
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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46
hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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47
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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