If you take even a good-humored puppy of a savage1 breed and tie him to a kennel2 so that all his natural energy strikes in; if you feed him upon raw meat, when you feed him at all, but half starve him for the most part; and if you tantalize3 and goad4 him whenever you are in search of a pastime, he is more than likely to become a dangerous beast when he grows up. He is then a menace to the public, so you have but one course left—to take him out and shoot him.
That is the proper way to bring up dogs. It makes them useful members of society. And it applies equally well to Indians. It has worked beautifully with them for several hundred years. In Canada they have run it on another principle. But they have missed much of the fun we have had out of it. In the territories there was plenty of such fun. And it had pretty well reached its height in the spring of '83.
The Indians, being wicked, ungrateful, suspicious characters, doubted the promises of the White-eyes. But it is only just to be charitable toward their ignorance. They were children of the wilderness5 and of the desert places, walking in darkness. Had the lights of the benefits of civilization ever shone in upon them, they would have realized that the government[Pg 226] of these United States, down to its very least official representative, never lies, never even evades.
"Have I ever lied to you?" Crook6 asked them.
And the deaf old chief Pedro answered for them: "No," he said, "when you were here before, whenever you said a thing, we knew that it was true, and we kept it in our minds. When you were here, we were content; but we cannot understand why you went away. Why did you leave us? Everything was all right when you were here."
He was but an unlearned and simple savage, and the workings of a War Department were, of course, a mystery to him. He and his people should have believed Crook. The thoughtful government which that much-harassed general represented had done everything possible to instill sweet trustfulness into their minds. But the Apache, as all reports have set forth7, is an uncertain quantity.
The quiet, observant, capable man, whose fate it was to be always called in for the thankless task of undoing8 the evil work of others, made every effort to pacify9 this time, but he failed.
"Yes, we believe you," said the Apache; "but you may go away again." So he refused to be cajoled, and going upon the war-path, after much bloodshed, fled into Mexico.
The general took a couple of hundred Indian scouts11, enlisted12 for six months' service, a troop of cavalry13, and a half-dozen guides and interpreters, and followed across the border.
[Pg 227]
There was a new treaty, just made to that end. It was the fiercest of all the Apache tribes, the Chiricahuas, that had hidden itself in the fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, two hundred miles south of the boundary line. Geronimo and Juh and Chato, and other chiefs of quite as bloody14 fame, were with him. To capture them would be very creditable success. To fail to do so would entail15 dire16 consequences, international complications perhaps, and of a certainty the scorn and abuse of all the wise men who sat in judgment17 afar off.
The general kept his own counsel then, but afterward18, when it was all over, he confessed,—not to the rejoicing reporter who was making columns out of him for the papers of this, and even of many another, land,—but to the friends who had in some measure understood and believed in him, that the strain and responsibility had all but worn him out. And he was no frail19 man, this mighty20 hunter of the plains.
The general of romance is a dashing creature, who wears gold lace and has stars upon his shoulder straps21, and rides a fiery22 charger at the head of his troops. He always sits upon the charger, a field-glass in his hand and waiting aides upon every side, or flourishes a sword as he plunges23 into the thick of the battle smoke.
But Crook was not dashing, only quiet and steady, and sure as death. Upon parade and occasions of ceremony he wore the gold lace and the stars. To do his life's work he put on an old flannel24 shirt, tied a kerchief around his neck, and set a pith helmet over those farseeing, keen little eyes. He might have been a [Pg 228]prospector, or a cow-boy, for all the outward seeming of it. His charger was oftenest a little government mule25, and he walked, leading it over many and many a trail that even its sure feet could not trust.
There were plenty such trails in the Sierra Madre, through which the Apache scouts were guiding him to their hostile brothers. Cairness had come along with his own band of scouts. He had seen rough work in his time, but none equal to this. Eight mules26 stepped a hand's breadth from the path, and lay hundreds of feet below at the base of the precipice27, their backs broken under their aparejos. The boots were torn from the men's feet, their hands were cut with sharp rocks. They marched by night sometimes, sometimes by day, always to the limit of their strength. And upon the fourteenth morning they came upon the Chiricahua stronghold. Without the scouts they could never have found it. The Indian has betrayed the Indian from first to last.
It was a little pocket, a natural fortress28, high up on a commanding peak. Cairness crept forward flat along the rocks, raised his head cautiously and looked down. There in the sunrise light,—the gorgeous sunrise of the southern mountain peaks where the wind is fresh out of the universe and glitters and quivers with sparks of new life,—there was the encampment of the hostiles. It was a small Eden of green grass and water and trees high up in the Sierra—that strange mountain chain that seems as though it might have been the giant model of the Aztec builders, and that holds the mystery of a[Pg 229] mysterious people locked in its stone and metal breasts, as securely as it does that of the rich, lost mines whose fabled29 wonders no man can prove to-day.
There is a majesty30 about the mountains of the desolate31 regions which is not in those of more green and fertile lands. Loneliness and endurance are written deep in their clefts32 and ca?ons and precipices34. In the long season of the sun, they look unshrinking back to the glaring sky, with a stern defiance35. It is as the very wrath36 of God, but they will not melt before it. In the season of the rains, black clouds hang low upon them, guarding their sullen37 gloom. But just as in the sternest heart is here and there a spot of gentleness, so in these forbidding fastnesses there are bits of verdure and soft beauty too.
And the Indian may be trusted to know of these. Here where the jacales clustered, there was grass and wood and water that might last indefinitely. The fortifications of Nature had been added to those of Nature's man. It was a stronghold.
But the Apaches held it for only a day, for all that. They were unprepared and overconfident. Their bucks38 were for the most part away plundering40 the hapless Mexican settlements in the desert below. They had thought that no white troops nor Mexicans could follow here, and they had neglected to count with the scouts, who had been hostiles themselves in their day, and who had the thief's advantage in catching42 a thief. And so while the bucks and children wandered round among the trees or bathed in the creek43, while the hobbled[Pg 230] ponies44 grazed leisurely45 on the rank grass, and the squaws carried fuel and built fires and began their day of drudgery46, they were surprised.
The fight began with a shot fired prematurely47 by one of the scouts, and lasted until nightfall—after the desultory48 manner of Indian mountain fights, where you fire at a tree-trunk or lichened49 rock, or at some black, red-bound head that shoots up quick as a prairie dog's and is gone again, and where you follow the tactics of the wary50 Apache in so far as you may. The curious part of it is that you beat him at his own game every time. It is always the troops that lose the least heavily!
The Indian wars of the southwest have been made a very small side issue in our history. The men who have carried them on have gained little glory and little fame. And yet they have accomplished51 a big task, and accomplished it well. They have subdued52 an enemy many times their own number. And the enemy has had such enormous advantages, too. He has been armed, since the 70's, even better than the troops. He has been upon his own ground—a ground that was alone enough to dismay the soldier, and one that gave him food, where it gave the white man death by starvation and thirst. He knew every foot of the country, fastnesses, water holes, creeks53, and strongholds over thousands of miles. The best cavalry can travel continuously but twenty-five or thirty miles a day, carrying its own rations54. The Apache, stealing his stock and food as he runs, covers his fifty or seventy-five. The troops must find and follow trails that are disguised[Pg 231] with impish craft. The Apache goes where he lists, and that, as a general thing, over country where devils would fear to tread.
Then throw into the scale the harassing55 and conflicting orders of a War Department, niggardly56 with its troops, several thousand miles away, wrapped in a dark veil of ignorance, and add the ever ready blame of the territorial57 citizen and press, and the wonder is, not that it took a score of years to settle the Apache question, but that it was ever settled at all.
The all-day fight in the Sierra Madre stronghold was a very uneven58 one. There were two hundred and fifty of the government forces against some thirty-five bucks. But, after all, the number comes to nothing. You may as well shoot at one enemy as at a thousand, if he is not to be seen anyway, and you cannot hit him.
Cairness reflected upon this as he fired for exactly the seventh time at a pair of beady eyes that flashed at him over a bush-topped rock by the creek, not five and twenty yards away, and then vanished utterly59. There was something uncanny about it, and he was losing patience as well as ammunition60. Three bullets from a repeating rifle had about finished him. One had gone through his hat. The eyes popped up again. Cairness fired again and missed. Then he did a thoroughly61 silly thing. He jumped out from behind his shelter and ran and leapt, straight down, and over to the rock by the stream. The beady eyes saw him coming and sparkled, with an evil sort of laughter.
If Cairness had not slipped and gone sprawling62 down[Pg 232] at that moment, the fourth bullet would have brought him up short. It sung over him, instead, and splashed against a stone, and when he got to his feet again the eyes had come out from their hiding-place. They were in the head of a very young buck39. He had sprung to the top of his rock and was dancing about with defiant63 hilarity64, waving his hands and the Winchester, and grimacing65 tantalizingly66. "Yaw! ya!" he screeched67. Cairness discharged his revolver, but the boy whooped68 once more and was down, dodging69 around the stone. Cairness dodged70 after him, wrath in his heart and also a vow72 to switch the little devil when he should get him. But he did not seem to be getting him.
The fighting stopped to watch the Ojo-blanco playing tag with the little Apache, right in the heart of the stronghold. The general stood still, with a chuckle73, and looked on. "Naughty little boy," he remarked to the captain of the scouts; "but your man Cairness won't catch him, though."
With the sublime74 indifference75 to the mockery of the world, characteristic of his race, Cairness kept at it. It was ridiculous. He had time to be dimly aware of that. And it certainly was not war. He did not know that they were affording the opposing forces much enjoyment76. He had not even observed that the firing had stopped. But he meant to catch that much qualifiedly impudent77 little beast, or to know the reason why. And he would probably have known the reason why, if one of the Apache scouts, embarrassed by no notions of fair play, had not taken good aim and[Pg 233] brought his youthful kinsman78 down, with a bullet through his knee.
The black eyes snapped with pain as he fell, but when Cairness, with a breathless oath at the spoiler of sport, whoever he might be, pounced79 down upon him, the snap turned to a twinkle. The little buck raised himself on his elbow. "How! Cairness," he grinned. "How Mees Landor?" Cairness stopped short, speechless, with his mouth open. He did not even dodge71 after a bullet had hummed past his head. "Who the devil—!" he began. Then it dawned upon him. It was Felipa's protégé of the old Camp Thomas days.
He was standing80, and the boy was lying, and the shots of the Apaches flew about them. He stooped, and catching up his defeated foe81, whose defeat was not half so entire as his own, scrambled82 out of the pocket and back among the troops. He carried his prisoner, who kicked vigorously with his good leg, and struck with both fists in protest against the ignominy of being held under anybody's arm like a sack of grain, back to the tied horses.
"Look out for the little customer, will you?" he said to the medical officer. "He's a great chum of mine. Many's the can of condensed milk and bag of peanuts the ungrateful young one has had out of me." "What are you doing here?" he asked in the White Mountain idiom; "you aren't a Chiricahua."
The boy grinned again. "How Mees Landor?" he repeated. His savage perception had noted83 that those words had some "medicine" or other that paralyzed[Pg 234] the Ojo-blanco temporarily. Cairness swore at him in good English, and went off abruptly84.
At sunset the camp surrendered. There were seven dead bucks found, but no one ever knew, of course, how many had fallen into ravines, or dragged themselves off to die in nooks. The Apache does not dread85 death, but he dreads86 having the White-man know that he has died.
The spoils of the rancheria were varied88, and some of them interesting as well. There were quite a hundred mules and horses, and there was money, to the sum of five thousand dollars or more. Also there were gold and silver watches and clothes and saddles and bridles—all the loot of the unhappy haciendas and pueblas down on the flat. But the most treasured of all their possessions was a little photograph album which had begun its varied career in the particular home of the misguided Indian philanthropist, Boston.
There was human plunder41, too—women from the villages, all Mexicans but one, and that one was American. Cairness, having gone off with some scouts to reconnoitre, did not see them that night. When he came back it was already dark, and he took his supper; and rolling himself in his blanket slept, as he had always for the past fortnight, with only the faintly radiant night sky above him.
In the morning, while the cooks were getting breakfast and the steam of ration-Rio mounted as a grateful incense89 to the pink and yellow daybreak heavens, having bathed in the creek and elaborated his toilet[Pg 235] with a clean neckerchief in celebration of victory, he walked over to the bunch of tepees to see the women captives.
He knew while he was yet afar off which was the American. She stood, big and gaunt, with her feet planted wide and her fists on her hips90, looking over toward the general's tent. And when Cairness came nearer, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, observing the beauties of Nature and the entire vileness93 of man, she turned her head and gave him a defiant stare. He took his hands from his pockets and went forward, raising his disreputable campaign hat. "Good morning, Mrs. Lawton," he said, not that he quite lived up to the excellent standard of Miss Winstanley, but that he understood the compelling force of civility, not to say the bewilderment. If you turn its bright light full in the face of one whose eyes are accustomed to the obscurity wherein walk the underbred, your chances for dazzling him until he shall fall into any pit you may have dug in his pathway are excellent.
Nor was he disconcerted that she met him with a stony94 front and a glare of wrath. She glanced down at his outstretched hand, and kept her own great bony one on her hip91 still. Then she looked at him squarely again. She did not say "Well?" but she meant it. So he answered it blandly95, and suggested that she had probably forgotten him, but that he had had the pleasure of meeting her once in the States. She continued to stare. He held that a husband is a husband still[Pg 236] until the law or death says otherwise, and that it was no part of a man's business to inquire into the domestic relations of his friends; so he said that he had had the pleasure of meeting her husband recently. "He was at Fort Stanton," he added, "upon some little matter of business, I believe. You will be glad to hear that he was well." He did not see fit to add that he was also in the county jail, awaiting trial on charge of destruction of government property.
"What's your name, young feller?" she demanded. Cairness was hurt. "Surely, Mrs. Lawton, you have not so entirely96 forgotten me. I am Charles Cairness, very much at your service." But she had forgotten, and she said so.
He hesitated with a momentary97 compunction. She must have suffered pretty well for her sins already; her work-cut, knotty98 hands and her haggard face and the bend of her erstwhile too straight shoulders—all showed that plainly enough. It were not gallant99; it might even be said to be cruel to worry her. But he remembered the dead Englishwoman, with her babies, stiff and dead, too, beside her on the floor of the charred100 cabin up among the mountains, and his heart was hardened.
"I spent a few days with the Kirbys once," he said, and looked straight into her eyes. They shifted, and there was no mistaking her uneasiness. He followed it up instantly on a bold hazard. It had to be done now, before she had time to retreat to the cover of her blank stolidity101. "Why did you leave them to[Pg 237] be massacred? What did you have against her and those little children?"
"I didn't. None of your business," she defied him.
"I beg your pardon, madam," he said. "It happens to be my business, though."
Breakfast call sounded. At the first shrill102 note she started violently. She was very thoroughly unnerved, and he decided103 that an hour of thinking would make her worse so. He told her that he would see her after breakfast, and raising his hat again left her to the anticipation104, and to helping105 the Mexican captives cook their meal of mescal root and rations.
Later in the day, when the general and the interpreters were engaged in making clear to the bucks, who came straggling in to surrender, the wishes and intentions of the Great Father in Washington as regarded his refractory107 children in Arizona, he went back to the captives' tepee. The Texan was nowhere to be seen. He called to her and got no answer, then he looked in. She was not there. One of the Mexican women was standing by, and he went up to her and asked for the Gringa.
The woman shrugged108 her round brown shoulders from which the rebozo had fallen quite away, and dropped her long lashes109. "No se," she murmured.
"Ay que si! You do know," he laughed; "you tell me chula, or I will take you back to the United States with me."
She laughed too, musically, with a bewitching gurgle,[Pg 238] and gave him a swift glance, at once soft and sad. "Ella es muy fea, no es simpatica, la Gringa."
Undoubtedly110, as she said, the American was ugly and unattractive; but the Mexican was pretty and decidedly engaging. Cairness had been too nearly trapped once before to be lured111 now. He met the piece of brown femininity upon her own ground. "You are quite right, querida mia. She is ugly and old, and you are beautiful and young, and I will take you with me to the States and buy a pink dress with lovely green ribbons, if you will tell me where the old woman is."
"'Stá bajo," she stuck out her cleft33 chin in the direction of the trail that led out of the pocket down to the flat, far below.
"De veras?" asked Cairness, sharply. He was of no mind to lose her like this, when he was so near his end.
"Truly," said the little thing, and nodded vehemently112.
He left her ignominiously113, at a run. She stood laughing after him until he jumped over a rock and disappeared. "She is his sweetheart, the vieja," she chattered114 to her companions.
Cairness called to four of his scouts as he ran. They joined him, and he told them to help him search. In half an hour they found her, cowering115 in a cranny of rocks and manzanita. He dismissed the Indians, and then spoke116 to her. "Now you sit on that stone there and listen to me," he said, and taking her by the shoulder put her down and stood over her.
She kept her sullen glance on the ground, but she was shaking violently.
[Pg 239]
"Your husband is in jail," he said without preface. He had done with the mask of civility. It had served its purpose.
"No he ain't."
"Yes he is. And I put him there." He left her to what he saw was her belief that it was because of the Kirby affair. "You'll see when you get back. And I'll put you there, too, if I care to. The best chance you have is to do as I tell you."
She was silent, but the stubbornness was going fast. She broke off a bunch of little pink blossoms and rolled it in her hands.
"Your best chance for keeping out of jail, too," he insisted, "is to keep on the right side of me. Sabe? Now what I want to know is, what part Stone has in all this." He did not know what part any one had had in it, as a matter of fact, for he had failed in all attempts to make Lawton talk, in the two days he had had before leaving the post.
"Why don't you ask him?" said Mrs. Lawton, astutely117.
"Because I prefer to ask you, that's why—and to make you answer, too."
He sat down cross-legged on the ground, facing her. "I've got plenty of time, my dear woman. I can stop here all day if you can, you know," he assured her. Afterward he made a painting of her as she had sat there, in among the rocks and the scrub growth, aged106, bent118, malevolent119, and in garments that were picturesque120 because they were rags. He called it the Sibyl of the Sierra Madre. And, like the Trojan, he plied121 her with[Pg 240] questions—not of the future, but of the past. "Well," he said, "are you going to answer me?"
"Didn't you find out from him?" she asked.
He changed his position leisurely, stretching out at full length and resting his head on his hand by way of gaining time. Then he told her that it was not until after he had caught and landed her husband that he had discovered that Stone was in it.
"Who told you he was?" she asked.
"Never mind all that. I'm here to question, not to be questioned. Now listen to me." And he went on to point out how she could not possibly get away from him and the troops until they were across the border, and that once there, it lay with him to turn her over to the authorities or to set her free. "You can take your choice, of course. I give you my word—and I think you are quite clever enough to believe me—that if you do not tell me what I want to know about Stone, I will land you where I've landed your husband; and that if you do, you shall go free after I've done with you. Now I can wait until you decide to answer," and he rolled over on his back, put his arms under his head, and gazed up at the jewel-blue patch of sky.
There was a long pause. A hawk122 lighted on a point of rock and twinkled its little eyes at them. Two or three squirrels whisked in and out. Once a scout10 came by and stood looking at them, then went on, noiselessly, up the mountain side.
"What do you want to know for?" asked the woman, at length.
[Pg 241]
He repeated that he was not there to be questioned, and showed her that he meant it by silence.
Presently she began again, "Well, he wasn't in it at all. Stone wasn't."
This was not what Cairness wanted either. He persisted in the silence. A prolonged silence will sometimes have much the same effect as solitary123 confinement124. It will force speech against the speaker's own will.
Mrs. Lawton gritted125 her teeth at him as though she would have rejoiced greatly to have had his neck between them. By and by she started once more. "Bill jest told him about it—like a goldarned fool."
"That," said Cairness, cheerfully, "is more like it. Go on."
"That's all."
"Begging your pardon, it's not all."
"What the devil do you want to know, then?"
He considered. "Let me see. For instance, when did Lawton tell him, and why, and exactly what?"
"You don't say!" she mocked. "You want the earth and some sun and moon and stars, don't you, though? Well, then, Bill told him about a week afterward. And he told him because Stone had another hold on him (it ain't any of your business what that was, I reckon), and bullied126 it out of him (Bill ain't got any more backbone127 than a rattler), and promised to lend him money to set up for hisself on the Circle K Ranch87. Want to know anything else?" she sneered128.
"Several things, thanks. You haven't told me yet what version of it your husband gave to Stone." [Pg 242]Cairness was a little anxious. It was succeed or fail right here.
"Told him the truth, more idjit he."
"I didn't ask you that," he reminded her calmly. "I asked what he told."
"Say!" she apostrophized.
"Yes?"
"You're English, I reckon, ain't you?"
"Yes, and you don't like the English, I know that perfectly129."
"You're right, I don't. You're as thick-headed as all the rest of them."
"Thanks. But you started out to tell me what Lawton told Stone."
"He told him the truth, I tell you: that when we heard the Apaches were coming, we lit out and drove out the stock from the corrals. I don't recollect130 his words."
So that was it! It took all the self-command that thirty-five varied years had taught him not to rise up and knock her head against the sharp rocks. But he lay quite still, and presently he said: "That is near enough for my purposes, thank you. But I would be interested to know, if you don't mind, what you had against a helpless woman and those two poor little babies. I wouldn't have supposed that a woman lived who could have been such a fiend as all that."
The woman launched off into a torrent131 of vituperation and vile92 language that surprised even Cairness, whose ears were well seasoned.
[Pg 243]
"Shut up!" he commanded, jumping to his feet. "You killed her and you ought to be burned at the stake for it, but you shall not talk about her like that, you devilish old crone."
She glared at him, but she stopped short nevertheless, and, flinging down the stone she had been holding, stood up also. "All right, then. You've done with me, I reckon. Now suppose you let me go back to the camp."
He turned and walked beside her. "Don't you believe I know all that I want to. I've only just begun. So that scoundrel knew the whole murderous story, and went on writing lies in his papers and covering you, when you ought to have been hung to the nearest tree, did he?—and for the excellent reason that he wanted to make use of your husband! I worked on the Circle K Ranch and on that other one over in New Mexico, which is supposed to be Lawton's, and it didn't take me long to find out that Stone was the real boss."
"He's got Bill right under his thumb," she sneered at her weak spouse132.
They clambered up the mountain side, back to the camp, and Cairness escorted her to the tepee in silence. Then he left her. "Don't try to run away again," he advised. "You can't get far." He started off and turned back. "Speaking of running away, where's the Greaser you lit out with?"
She replied, with still more violent relapse into foul-tongued abuse, that he had gone off with a woman[Pg 244] of his own people. "Got me down into this hell of a country and took every quartillo I had and then skedaddled."
Cairness smiled. There was, it appeared, a small supply of poetic133 justice still left in the scheme of things to be meted134 out. "And then the Apache came down and bore you off like a helpless lamb," he said. "If I'd been the Apache I'd have made it several sorts of Hades for you, but I'd have scalped you afterward. You'd corrupt135 even a Chiricahua squaw. However, I'm glad you lived until I got you." And he left her.
But he kept a close watch upon her then and during all the hard, tedious march back to the States, when the troops and the scouts had to drag their steps to meet the strength of the women and children; when the rations gave out because there were some four hundred Indians to be provided for, when the command ate mescal root, digging it up from the ground and baking it; and when the presence of a horde136 of filthy137 savages138 made the White-man suffer many things not to be put in print.
But they were returning victorious139. The Chiricahuas were subdued. The hazard had turned well. There would be peace; the San Carlos Agency, breeding-grounds of all ills, would be turned over to military supervision140. The general who had succeeded—if he had failed it would have been such a very different story—would have power to give his promise to the Apaches and to see that it was kept. The experiment of honesty and of giving the devil his due would have a[Pg 245] fair trial. The voices that had cried loudest abuse after the quiet soldier who, undisturbed, went so calmly on his way, doing the thing which seemed to him right, were silenced; and the soldier himself came back into his own land, crossing the border with his herds141 and his tribes behind him. There was no flourish of trumpets142; no couriers were sent in advance to herald143 that the all but impossible had been accomplished.
On a fine Sunday morning in June the triumphant144 general rode into a supply camp twelve miles north of the line, and spoke to the officer in command. "Nice morning, Colonel," he said. And then his quick eyes spied the most desirable thing in all the camp. It was a tin wash basin set on a potato box. The triumphant general dismounted, and washed his face.
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1
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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2
kennel
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| n.狗舍，狗窝 | |
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3
tantalize
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| vt.使干着急，逗弄 | |
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4
goad
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| n.刺棒，刺痛物；激励；vt.激励，刺激 | |
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5
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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6
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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7
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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8
undoing
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| n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭 | |
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9
pacify
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| vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒)；抚慰 | |
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10
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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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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13
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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14
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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entail
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| vt.使承担，使成为必要，需要 | |
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16
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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17
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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18
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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19
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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20
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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21
straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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22
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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23
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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24
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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27
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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28
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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29
fabled
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| adj.寓言中的，虚构的 | |
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30
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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31
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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32
clefts
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| n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 )；裂口；cleave的过去式和过去分词；进退维谷 | |
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33
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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34
precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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35
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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36
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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37
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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38
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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39
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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40
plundering
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
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41
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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42
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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43
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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44
ponies
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| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
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45
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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46
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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47
prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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48
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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49
lichened
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| adj.长满地衣的，长青苔的 | |
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50
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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51
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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52
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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53
creeks
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| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
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54
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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55
harassing
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| v.侵扰，骚扰( harass的现在分词 )；不断攻击（敌人） | |
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56
niggardly
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| adj.吝啬的，很少的 | |
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57
territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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58
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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59
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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60
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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61
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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62
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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63
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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64
hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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65
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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66
tantalizingly
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| adv.…得令人着急，…到令人着急的程度 | |
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67
screeched
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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68
whooped
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| 叫喊( whoop的过去式和过去分词 )； 高声说； 唤起 | |
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69
dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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70
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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71
dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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72
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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73
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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74
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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75
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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76
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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77
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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78
kinsman
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| n.男亲属 | |
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79
pounced
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| v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
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80
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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81
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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82
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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83
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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84
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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85
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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86
dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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87
ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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88
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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89
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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90
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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91
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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92
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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93
vileness
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| n.讨厌，卑劣 | |
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94
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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95
blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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96
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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97
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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98
knotty
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| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
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99
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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100
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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101
stolidity
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| n.迟钝，感觉麻木 | |
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102
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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103
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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104
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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105
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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106
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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107
refractory
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| adj.倔强的，难驾驭的 | |
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108
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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109
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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110
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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111
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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112
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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113
ignominiously
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| adv.耻辱地，屈辱地，丢脸地 | |
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114
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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115
cowering
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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116
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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117
astutely
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| adv.敏锐地；精明地；敏捷地；伶俐地 | |
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118
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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119
malevolent
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| adj.有恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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120
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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121
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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122
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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123
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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124
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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125
gritted
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| v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的过去式和过去分词 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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126
bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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127
backbone
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| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
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128
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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129
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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130
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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131
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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132
spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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133
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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134
meted
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| v.（对某人）施以，给予（处罚等）( mete的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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136
horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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137
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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138
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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139
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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140
supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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141
herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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142
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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143
herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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144
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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