And the savage shows, too, in that your Englishman is not gregarious6. His house is his castle, his life is to himself, and his sentiments are locked within him. He is a lonely creature, in the midst of his kind, and he loves his loneliness.
But it is because of just this that no scion7 of ultra-civilization degenerates8 so thoroughly9 as does he. Retrogression is easy to him. He can hardly go higher, because he is on the height already; but he can slip back. Set him in a lower civilization, he sinks one degree[Pg 266] lower than that. Put him among savages10, and he is nearer the beasts than they. It does not come to pass in a day, nor yet at all if he be part of a community, which keeps in mind its traditions and its church, and which forms its own public opinion. Then he is the leaven11 of all the measures of meal about him, the surest, steadiest, most irresistible12 civilizing13 force. But he cannot advance alone. He goes back, and, being cursed with the wisdom which shows him his debasement, in loathing14 and disgust with himself, he grows sullen15 and falls back yet more.
It was so with Cairness. He was sinking down, and ever down, to the level of his surroundings; he was even ceasing to realize that it was so. He had begun by studying the life of the savages, but he was so entirely16 grasping their point of view that he was losing all other. He was not so dirty as they—not yet. His stone cabin was clean enough, and their villages were squalid. A morning plunge17 in the river was still a necessity, while with them it was an event. But where he had once spent his leisure in reading in several tongues—in keeping in touch with the world—and in painting, he would now sit for hours looking before him into space, thinking unprofitable thoughts. He lived from hand to mouth. Eventually he would without doubt marry a squaw. The thing was more than common upon the frontier.
He was in a manner forgetting Felipa. He had forced himself to try to do so. But once in a way he remembered her vividly18, so that the blood would burn in his heart and head, and he would start up and beat off the[Pg 267] thought, as if it were a visible thing. It was happening less and less often, however. For two years he had not seen her and had heard of her directly only once. An officer who came into the Agency had been with her, but having no reason to suppose that a scout19 could be interested in the details of the private life of an officer's wife, he had merely said that she had been very ill, but was better now. He had not seen fit to add that it was said in the garrison—which observed all things with a microscopic21 eye—that she was very unhappy with Landor, and that the sympathy was not all with her.
"Mrs. Landor is very beautiful," Cairness hazarded. He wanted to talk of her, or to make some one else do it.
"She is very magnificent," said the officer, coldly. It was plain that magnificence was not what he admired in woman. And there it had dropped.
Cairness remembered with an anger and disgust with himself he could still feel, that last time he had seen her in the mouth of the cave. That had been two springs ago. Since then there had been no occupation for him as a guide or scout. The country had been at peace. The War Department and the Indian Department were dividing the control of the Agency, with the War Department ranking. Crook22 had been trying his theories as practice. He had been demonstrating that the Indian can work, with a degree of success that was highly displeasing23 to the class of politicians whose whole social fabric24 for the southwest rested on his only being able to kill.
[Pg 268]
But the star of the politician was once more in the ascendant. For two years there had been not one depredation25, not one outrage26 from the Indians, for whose good conduct the general had given his personal word. They were self-supporting, and from the products of their farms they not only kept themselves, but supplied the neighboring towns. It was a state of affairs entirely unsatisfactory to the politician. So he set about correcting it.
His methods were explained to Cairness by an old buck27 who slouched up to the cabin and sat himself down cross-legged in front of the door. He meant to share in the venison breakfast Cairness was getting himself.
"So long as these stones of your house shall remain one upon the other," began the Apache, "so long shall I be your friend. Have you any tobacco?" Cairness went into the cabin, got a pouch28, and tossed it to him. He took a package of straw papers and a match from somewhere about himself and rolled a cigarette deftly29.
"I have been lied to," came the muttering voice from the folds of the red I. D. blanket, which almost met the red flannel30 band binding31 down his coarse and dirty black hair. It was early dawn and cold. Cairness himself was close to the brush fire.
"I have been cheated."
Cairness nodded. He thought it very likely.
"The Sun and the Darkness and the Winds were all listening. He promised to pay me dos reales each day. To prove to you that I am now telling the truth,[Pg 269] here is what he wrote for me." He held it out to Cairness, a dirty scrap32 of wrapping-paper scrawled33 over with senseless words.
"Yes," said Cairness, examining it, "but this has no meaning."
"That is a promise," the Indian insisted, "to pay me dos reales a day if I would cut hay for him."
The White explained carefully that it was not a contract, that it was nothing at all, in fact.
"Then he lied," said the buck, and tucked the scrap back under his head band. "They all lie. I worked for him two weeks. I worked hard. And each night when I asked him for money he would say to me that to-morrow he would pay me. When all his hay was cut he laughed in my face. He would pay me nothing." He seemed resigned enough about it.
Cairness gave a grunt34 that was startlingly savage—so much so that he realized it, and shook himself slightly as a man does who is trying to shake himself free from a lethargy that is stealing over him.
"And then, there was the trouble about the cows. They promised us one thousand, and they gave us not quite six hundred. And those—the Dawn and the Sky hear that what I tell you is true—and those were so old we could not use them."
Cairness nodded. He knew that the Interior Department had sent an agent out to investigate that complaint, and that the agent had gone his way rejoicing and reporting that all was well with the Indian and honest with the contractor35. It was not true. Every[Pg 270] one who knew anything about it knew that. Cairness supposed that also was the work of the politicians. But there are things one cannot make plain to a savage having no notions of government.
The buck went on, the while he held a piece of venison in his dirty hand and dragged at it with his teeth, to say that there was a feeling of great uneasiness upon the reservation.
The Chiricahuas could see that there was trouble between the officials, both military and civil, and the government. They did not know what it was. They did not understand that the harassed36 general, whose word—and his alone—had their entire belief, nagged37 and thwarted38, given authority and then prevented from enforcing it, had rebelled at last, had asked to be relieved, and had been refused. But they drew in with delight the air of strife39 and unrest. It was the one they loved best, there could and can be no doubt about that.
"Geronimo," mumbled40 the Apache, "has prayed to the Dawn and the Darkness and the Sun and the Sky to help him put a stop to those bad stories that people put in the papers about him. He is afraid it will be done as they say." The press of the country was full just then, and had been for some time past, of suggestions that the only good use the much-feared Geronimo could be put to would be hanging, the which he no doubt richly deserved. But if every one in the territories who deserved hanging had been given his dues, the land would have been dotted with blasted trees.
"Geronimo does not want that any more. He has[Pg 271] tried to do right. He is not thinking bad. Such stories ought not to be put in the newspapers."
Cairness also thought that they should not, chiefly because they had a tendency to frighten the timid Apaches. But he went on quietly eating his breakfast, and said nothing. He knew that only silence can obtain loquacity41 from silent natures. He was holding his meat in his fingers, too, and biting it, though he did not drag it like a wild beast yet; and, moreover, he had it upon a piece of bread of his own baking.
"There will be trouble with Geronimo's people soon."
"Shall you go with them?" asked Cairness.
"No, I am a friend of the soldier. And I am a friend of Chato, who is the enemy of Geronimo. I have no bad thoughts," he added piously42.
"And you think there will be trouble?" He knew that the buck had come there for nothing but to inform.
"I think that Geronimo will make trouble. He knows that the agent and the soldiers are quarrelling, and he and his people have been drinking tizwin for many days."
Cairness stood up and walked down to the water to wash his hands. Then he went into the cabin and brought out a small mirror, and all the shaving apparatus43 he had not used for months, and proceeded to take off his thick brown beard, while the Indian sat stolidly44 watching him with that deep interest in trifles of the primitive45 brain, which sees and marks, and fails to learn or to profit correspondingly.
And later in the day, when the buck had shuffled46 off again, Cairness brought out his pony,—a new one now, for the little pinto one had died of a rattlesnake bite, from which no golondrina weed had been able to save it,—and saddled it. Then he went again into the cabin. There was but one thing there that he valued,—a life-size head of Felipa he had done in charcoal47. It was in a chest beneath his cot. He locked his chest, and going out locked the door also, and putting both keys upon a ring, mounted and rode off along the trail.
It was his intention to go to Crook and to warn him if he needed warning, which was not probable, since he was never napping. He would then offer his services as a scout. He was sincerely attached to the general, and felt his own career in a way involved with that of the officer, because he had been with him, in one capacity or another, in every campaign he had made in the southwest.
Already he felt more respectable at the mere20 prospect48 of contact with his kind again. He was glad that the unkempt beard was gone, and he was allowing himself to hope, no, he was deliberately49 hoping, that he would see Felipa.
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收听单词发音
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1
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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2
groomed
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| v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的过去式和过去分词 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗 | |
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3
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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4
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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5
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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6
gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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7
scion
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| n.嫩芽，子孙 | |
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8
degenerates
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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9
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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10
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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11
leaven
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| v.使发酵；n.酵母；影响 | |
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12
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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13
civilizing
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| v.使文明，使开化( civilize的现在分词 ) | |
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14
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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15
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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16
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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17
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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18
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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19
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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20
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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21
microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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22
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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23
displeasing
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| 不愉快的，令人发火的 | |
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24
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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25
depredation
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| n.掠夺，蹂躏 | |
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26
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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27
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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28
pouch
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| n.小袋，小包，囊状袋；vt.装...入袋中，用袋运输；vi.用袋送信件 | |
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29
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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30
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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31
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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32
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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33
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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35
contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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36
harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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37
nagged
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| adj.经常遭责怪的；被压制的；感到厌烦的；被激怒的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的过去式和过去分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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38
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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39
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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40
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
loquacity
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| n.多话，饶舌 | |
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42
piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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43
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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44
stolidly
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| adv.迟钝地，神经麻木地 | |
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45
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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46
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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47
charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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48
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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49
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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