“I reckon the Pennsylvania ’lection—”
Arkansas raised his finger impressively and Johnson stopped. Arkansas rose unsteadily and confronted him. Said he:
“Wha-what do you know a—about Pennsylvania? Answer me that. Wha—what do you know ’bout Pennsylvania?”
“I was only goin’ to say—”
“You was only goin’ to say. You was! You was only goin’ to say—what was you goin’ to say? That’s it! That’s what I want to know. I want to know wha—what you (’ic) what you know about Pennsylvania, since you’re makin’ yourself so d—-d free. Answer me that!”
“Mr. Arkansas, if you’d only let me—”
“Who’s a henderin’ you? Don’t you insinuate16 nothing agin me!—don’t you do it. Don’t you come in here bullyin’ around, and cussin’ and goin’ on like a lunatic—don’t you do it. ’Coz I won’t stand it. If fight’s what you want, out with it! I’m your man! Out with it!”
Said Johnson, backing into a corner, Arkansas following, menacingly:
“Why, I never said nothing, Mr. Arkansas. You don’t give a man no chance. I was only goin’ to say that Pennsylvania was goin’ to have an election next week—that was all—that was everything I was goin’ to say—I wish I may never stir if it wasn’t.”
“Well then why d’n’t you say it? What did you come swellin’ around that way for, and tryin’ to raise trouble?”
“Why I didn’t come swellin’ around, Mr. Arkansas—I just—”
“Oh, please, Mr. Arkansas, I never meant such a thing as that, I wish I may die if I did. All the boys will tell you that I’ve always spoke19 well of you, and respected you more’n any man in the house. Ask Smith. Ain’t it so, Smith? Didn’t I say, no longer ago than last night, that for a man that was a gentleman all the time and every way you took him, give me Arkansas? I’ll leave it to any gentleman here if them warn’t the very words I used. Come, now, Mr. Arkansas, le’s take a drink—le’s shake hands and take a drink. Come up—everybody! It’s my treat. Come up, Bill, Tom, Bob, Scotty—come up. I want you all to take a drink with me and Arkansas—old Arkansas, I call him—bully17 old Arkansas. Gimme your hand agin. Look at him, boys—just take a look at him. Thar stands the whitest man in America!—and the man that denies it has got to fight me, that’s all. Gimme that old flipper20 agin!”
They embraced, with drunken affection on the landlord’s part and unresponsive toleration on the part of Arkansas, who, bribed21 by a drink, was disappointed of his prey22 once more. But the foolish landlord was so happy to have escaped butchery, that he went on talking when he ought to have marched himself out of danger. The consequence was that Arkansas shortly began to glower23 upon him dangerously, and presently said:
“Lan’lord, will you p-please make that remark over agin if you please?”
“I was a-sayin’ to Scotty that my father was up’ards of eighty year old when he died.”
“Was that all that you said?”
“Yes, that was all.”
“Didn’t say nothing but that?”
“No—nothing.”
Then an uncomfortable silence.
Arkansas played with his glass a moment, lolling on his elbows on the counter. Then he meditatively24 scratched his left shin with his right boot, while the awkward silence continued. But presently he loafed away toward the stove, looking dissatisfied; roughly shouldered two or three men out of a comfortable position; occupied it himself, gave a sleeping dog a kick that sent him howling under a bench, then spread his long legs and his blanket-coat tails apart and proceeded to warm his back. In a little while he fell to grumbling25 to himself, and soon he slouched back to the bar and said:
“Lan’lord, what’s your idea for rakin’ up old personalities26 and blowin’ about your father? Ain’t this company agreeable to you? Ain’t it? If this company ain’t agreeable to you, p’r’aps we’d better leave. Is that your idea? Is that what you’re coming at?”
“Why bless your soul, Arkansas, I warn’t thinking of such a thing. My father and my mother—”
“Lan’lord, don’t crowd a man! Don’t do it. If nothing’ll do you but a disturbance27, out with it like a man (’ic)—but don’t rake up old bygones and fling’em in the teeth of a passel of people that wants to be peaceable if they could git a chance. What’s the matter with you this mornin’, anyway? I never see a man carry on so.”
“Arkansas, I reely didn’t mean no harm, and I won’t go on with it if it’s onpleasant to you. I reckon my licker’s got into my head, and what with the flood, and havin’ so many to feed and look out for—”
“So that’s what’s a-ranklin’ in your heart, is it? You want us to leave do you? There’s too many on us. You want us to pack up and swim. Is that it? Come!”
“Please be reasonable, Arkansas. Now you know that I ain’t the man to—”
“Are you a threatenin’ me? Are you? By George, the man don’t live that can skeer me! Don’t you try to come that game, my chicken—’cuz I can stand a good deal, but I won’t stand that. Come out from behind that bar till I clean you! You want to drive us out, do you, you sneakin’ underhanded hound! Come out from behind that bar! I’ll learn you to bully and badger28 and browbeat29 a gentleman that’s forever trying to befriend you and keep you out of trouble!”
“Please, Arkansas, please don’t shoot! If there’s got to be bloodshed—”
“Do you hear that, gentlemen? Do you hear him talk about bloodshed? So it’s blood you want, is it, you ravin’ desperado! You’d made up your mind to murder somebody this mornin’—I knowed it perfectly30 well. I’m the man, am I? It’s me you’re goin’ to murder, is it? But you can’t do it ’thout I get one chance first, you thievin’ black-hearted, white- livered son of a nigger! Draw your weepon!”
With that, Arkansas began to shoot, and the landlord to clamber over benches, men and every sort of obstacle in a frantic31 desire to escape. In the midst of the wild hubbub32 the landlord crashed through a glass door, and as Arkansas charged after him the landlord’s wife suddenly appeared in the doorway33 and confronted the desperado with a pair of scissors! Her fury was magnificent. With head erect34 and flashing eye she stood a moment and then advanced, with her weapon raised. The astonished ruffian hesitated, and then fell back a step. She followed. She backed him step by step into the middle of the bar-room, and then, while the wondering crowd closed up and gazed, she gave him such another tongue-lashing as never a cowed and shamefaced braggart35 got before, perhaps! As she finished and retired36 victorious37, a roar of applause shook the house, and every man ordered “drinks for the crowd” in one and the same breath.
The lesson was entirely38 sufficient. The reign39 of terror was over, and the Arkansas domination broken for good. During the rest of the season of island captivity40, there was one man who sat apart in a state of permanent humiliation41, never mixing in any quarrel or uttering a boast, and never resenting the insults the once cringing42 crew now constantly leveled at him, and that man was “Arkansas.”
By the fifth or sixth morning the waters had subsided43 from the land, but the stream in the old river bed was still high and swift and there was no possibility of crossing it. On the eighth it was still too high for an entirely safe passage, but life in the inn had become next to insupportable by reason of the dirt, drunkenness, fighting, etc., and so we made an effort to get away. In the midst of a heavy snow-storm we embarked44 in a canoe, taking our saddles aboard and towing our horses after us by their halters. The Prussian, Ollendorff, was in the bow, with a paddle, Ballou paddled in the middle, and I sat in the stern holding the halters. When the horses lost their footing and began to swim, Ollendorff got frightened, for there was great danger that the horses would make our aim uncertain, and it was plain that if we failed to land at a certain spot the current would throw us off and almost surely cast us into the main Carson, which was a boiling torrent45, now. Such a catastrophe46 would be death, in all probability, for we would be swept to sea in the “Sink” or overturned and drowned. We warned Ollendorff to keep his wits about him and handle himself carefully, but it was useless; the moment the bow touched the bank, he made a spring and the canoe whirled upside down in ten-foot water.
Ollendorff seized some brush and dragged himself ashore47, but Ballou and I had to swim for it, encumbered48 with our overcoats. But we held on to the canoe, and although we were washed down nearly to the Carson, we managed to push the boat ashore and make a safe landing. We were cold and water- soaked, but safe. The horses made a landing, too, but our saddles were gone, of course. We tied the animals in the sage-brush and there they had to stay for twenty-four hours. We baled out the canoe and ferried over some food and blankets for them, but we slept one more night in the inn before making another venture on our journey.
The next morning it was still snowing furiously when we got away with our new stock of saddles and accoutrements. We mounted and started. The snow lay so deep on the ground that there was no sign of a road perceptible, and the snow-fall was so thick that we could not see more than a hundred yards ahead, else we could have guided our course by the mountain ranges. The case looked dubious49, but Ollendorff said his instinct was as sensitive as any compass, and that he could “strike a bee-line” for Carson city and never diverge50 from it. He said that if he were to straggle a single point out of the true line his instinct would assail51 him like an outraged52 conscience. Consequently we dropped into his wake happy and content. For half an hour we poked53 along warily54 enough, but at the end of that time we came upon a fresh trail, and Ollendorff shouted proudly:
“I knew I was as dead certain as a compass, boys! Here we are, right in somebody’s tracks that will hunt the way for us without any trouble. Let’s hurry up and join company with the party.”
So we put the horses into as much of a trot55 as the deep snow would allow, and before long it was evident that we were gaining on our predecessors56, for the tracks grew more distinct. We hurried along, and at the end of an hour the tracks looked still newer and fresher—but what surprised us was, that the number of travelers in advance of us seemed to steadily15 increase. We wondered how so large a party came to be traveling at such a time and in such a solitude57. Somebody suggested that it must be a company of soldiers from the fort, and so we accepted that solution and jogged along a little faster still, for they could not be far off now. But the tracks still multiplied, and we began to think the platoon of soldiers was miraculously58 expanding into a regiment—Ballou said they had already increased to five hundred! Presently he stopped his horse and said:
“Boys, these are our own tracks, and we’ve actually been circussing round and round in a circle for more than two hours, out here in this blind desert! By George this is perfectly hydraulic59!”
Then the old man waxed wroth and abusive. He called Ollendorff all manner of hard names—said he never saw such a lurid60 fool as he was, and ended with the peculiarly venomous opinion that he “did not know as much as a logarythm!”
We certainly had been following our own tracks. Ollendorff and his “mental compass” were in disgrace from that moment.
After all our hard travel, here we were on the bank of the stream again, with the inn beyond dimly outlined through the driving snow-fall. While we were considering what to do, the young Swede landed from the canoe and took his pedestrian way Carson-wards, singing his same tiresome song about his “sister and his brother” and “the child in the grave with its mother,” and in a short minute faded and disappeared in the white oblivion. He was never heard of again. He no doubt got bewildered and lost, and Fatigue61 delivered him over to Sleep and Sleep betrayed him to Death. Possibly he followed our treacherous62 tracks till he became exhausted63 and dropped.
Presently the Overland stage forded the now fast receding64 stream and started toward Carson on its first trip since the flood came. We hesitated no longer, now, but took up our march in its wake, and trotted65 merrily along, for we had good confidence in the driver’s bump of locality. But our horses were no match for the fresh stage team. We were soon left out of sight; but it was no matter, for we had the deep ruts the wheels made for a guide. By this time it was three in the afternoon, and consequently it was not very long before night came—and not with a lingering twilight66, but with a sudden shutting down like a cellar door, as is its habit in that country. The snowfall was still as thick as ever, and of course we could not see fifteen steps before us; but all about us the white glare of the snow-bed enabled us to discern the smooth sugar-loaf mounds67 made by the covered sage-bushes, and just in front of us the two faint grooves68 which we knew were the steadily filling and slowly disappearing wheel-tracks.
Now those sage-bushes were all about the same height—three or four feet; they stood just about seven feet apart, all over the vast desert; each of them was a mere69 snow-mound, now; in any direction that you proceeded (the same as in a well laid out orchard) you would find yourself moving down a distinctly defined avenue, with a row of these snow-mounds an either side of it—an avenue the customary width of a road, nice and level in its breadth, and rising at the sides in the most natural way, by reason of the mounds. But we had not thought of this. Then imagine the chilly70 thrill that shot through us when it finally occurred to us, far in the night, that since the last faint trace of the wheel-tracks had long ago been buried from sight, we might now be wandering down a mere sage-brush avenue, miles away from the road and diverging71 further and further away from it all the time. Having a cake of ice slipped down one’s back is placid72 comfort compared to it. There was a sudden leap and stir of blood that had been asleep for an hour, and as sudden a rousing of all the drowsing activities in our minds and bodies. We were alive and awake at once—and shaking and quaking with consternation73, too. There was an instant halting and dismounting, a bending low and an anxious scanning of the road-bed. Useless, of course; for if a faint depression could not be discerned from an altitude of four or five feet above it, it certainly could not with one’s nose nearly against it.
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1
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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meandered
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| （指溪流、河流等）蜿蜒而流( meander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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ruses
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| n.诡计，计策( ruse的名词复数 ) | |
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entrap
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| v.以网或陷阱捕捉，使陷入圈套 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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10
elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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toils
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| 网 | |
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12
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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13
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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15
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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insinuate
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| vt.含沙射影地说，暗示 | |
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17
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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18
liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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20
flipper
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| n. 鳍状肢，潜水用橡皮制鳍状肢 | |
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21
bribed
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| v.贿赂( bribe的过去式和过去分词 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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22
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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23
glower
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| v.怒目而视 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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28
badger
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| v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠 | |
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browbeat
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| v.欺侮；吓唬 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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32
hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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34
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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braggart
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| n.吹牛者；adj.吹牛的，自夸的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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38
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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41
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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cringing
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| adj.谄媚，奉承 | |
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43
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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44
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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45
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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46
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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48
encumbered
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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50
diverge
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| v.分叉，分歧，离题，使...岔开，使转向 | |
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51
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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52
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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53
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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54
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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55
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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56
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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57
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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58
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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59
hydraulic
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| adj.水力的；水压的，液压的；水力学的 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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61
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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62
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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63
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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64
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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65
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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66
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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67
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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68
grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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69
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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70
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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71
diverging
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| 分开( diverge的现在分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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72
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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73
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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