Blue Pete glided1 in and tossed aside the blanket of his Indian disguise with a gesture of irritability2. With a petulant3 kick his beaded moccasins struck the ceiling of the cave, and, sighing, he sank his feet into the more familiar high-heeled cowboy boots.
Mira, moving busily about the camp stove in a recess4, noted5 it all without turning her head--noted, too, that there the usual routine of his return was interrupted. The great two-inch spurs, his individual twist to cowboy attire--great spiked6 wheels which he never used, but whose glitter and rattle7 seemed to satisfy him--were forgotten. Instead, he sank to the rocky floor and meditatively8 drew from his belt the beloved corncob pipe.
Troubled, Mira went about the preparation of their evening meal with a plaintive9 quietness. Juno, too, seemed oppressed, for after a tentative wriggle10 of her stump11 of a tail she settled back on her haunches, eyes fixed12 on her mistress.
Mira struggled to hold back the tears, struggled harder to hide them when they persisted. To celebrate their return to the old cave under the river bank she had spent hours that afternoon scouring13 woods and river bottom for wild flowers; and a dozen old tin cans rescued from the camp garbage heap gleamed confused colour in the candle light. For more hours she had been rasping her little hands with scrubbing the rude table and the blocks that served as seats; and over the table she had draped after much experiment a gaudy15 Indian blanket, thereby16 approaching more nearly the atmosphere of home they both craved17 so eagerly. About the wall depended picture papers, meaningless in story but heavy with pathetic longing18.
Hitherto he had always noticed so quickly and eagerly her efforts toward their comfort. From the first it had been one of the rites19 of their association--he beaming wordlessly at the touches of decoration with which she busied herself about their wild homes, she glowing with vocal20 pleasure at the things he carved with his own hands--the chair back in the Cypress21 Hills cave, the shelves for her stores, the drawer in the table, the box for Juno to sleep in.
And now he did not seem to notice--and she had worked so hard.
Presently the odour of the cooking venison beat its way to his brain and he lifted his head from his chest. He saw then the flowers in the old tomato and butter tins, the Indian blanket hanging from the table, the fresh spruce boughs22 of their bed; and his neglect was to him akin23 to sacrilege. Rising, he made for the door and the darkness beyond.
Without turning she saw him leave, and in part she understood.
He was suffering--Blue Pete was suffering these days in mind as never in body. The accumulation of the intense longings24 since she had been torn from him down in the Hills to serve her sentence for rustling25 was struggling with other hopes and fears; and the fight was rending26. Until only a few days ago he had been heading with certain and speedy success for the day when Mira might return with head held high to the 3-bar-Y, her own ranch27. Only his guilt28 intervened, for she had already paid the penalty of her own rustling. It was the knowledge that she would never return without him that made the aim such a sacred one. To free her he must clear himself with the Police. And that could be only when every horse with whose stealing he had been connected was returned to its rightful owner. In his simplicity29 he imagined the law would be satisfied then.
So near had been the attainment30 of his one great ambition that his head sometimes whirled. Only two horses yet to recover! Then so many things had happened.
Throughout his engagement as a common bohunk Blue Pete had been happily unconscious of the embarrassing forces working subtly within him to thrust to the background his own redemption. He only knew he was uncomfortable, that strange processes were cropping to the surface in his once firmly fixed mind. It seemed treason to Mira--Mira, for whom everything was done--to delay a task so simple.
Yet he could not take the last two horses that alone, he imagined, stood between him and freedom, and relieve himself of new responsibilities.
"Pete!"
Mira's gentle voice came to him through the darkness, filled with trembling entreaty32. Conscience-stricken, he hurried back to the cave. She met him at the edge of the candle light and took his hand.
"Can't you tell me about it, Pete?"
With angry self-accusation he replied: "I cud 'a' got the horses, Mira, an'--an' we'd 'a' bin14 back in the Hills long before this. Thar was jes' a padlock to smash . . . an' I didn't smash it."
She smiled sadly and wound a small arm about his neck.
"I know," she whispered. "We can't help it. . . . There are so many reasons why we can't go yet."
She turned swiftly away to the stove that he might not see how it tore her. Never in his gloomiest suffering had Blue Pete longed as she had for a home. For he had never known home as she had. Her efforts to brighten up their days were the expression of a desire to plant in his inexperienced mind the picture of home that kept passing before her eyes. Her nights were but one long dream of a fireside, with Blue Pete in the other chair. And as the time of their penance33 seemed to be nearing an end the ugly ranch-house at the 3-bar-Y became to her a palace. Over and over again she planned the fresh home they would start--every chair and table and picture and rug had a place. Helen Mahon, the Sergeant34's wife--her own educated cousin--would help her, would supply the art Mira herself, in her prairie upbringing, only groped for. She would make of the 3-bar-Y a home for the whole Cypress Hills district. Every day of delay was agony.
Yet she spoke35 cheerfully. "It wouldn't be just--just right to go till the trestle's done, Pete, dear."
He looked at her sharply. It was the conviction he had been fighting many a day--that it seemed to be only his own had made it so much harder for him. From the silence he had forced on himself of late he spoke fiercely:
"That damned Pole! We can't let him win. We got to lick them bohunks."
"And Mr. Torrance--after all, Pete, he's only a tenderfoot. . . . Then there's Tressa."
He nodded slowly. "Yes, there's Tressa." A chivalry36 he would never have acknowledged had been thrusting the girl more and more into the foreground. From the ordinary perils37 of isolation38 father and lover might defend her, but in the great calamity39 that Blue Pete knew was planned to overwhelm her two protectors she would inevitably40 fall.
"But yuh shudn't have to wait, Mira," he burst out. "An yuh wudn't," he added miserably41, "if I wasn't jes' a common rustler42."
She came to him with quick steps and ran her fingers through his coarse hair.
"I wasn't no better, Pete--me and my brothers." In her emotion she had dropped back into the old looseness of speech.
He seized her hand in both his own and crushed it to his lips so that it hurt pleasurably.
"I know why yuh stole them horses," he murmured. "Yuh cudn't bear to see the Sergeant thinkin' he loved yuh--an' yuh knew he cudn't love a rustler."
"I guess I knew I was going to love you, Pete."
He wrapped his arms about her and buried his face in her neck; and she could feel him trembling.
Presently she spoke again softly:
"And there's the Sergeant."
From the moment of his leap through Torrance's window the half breed's mind had been disquieted44. At any risk, until he could go to them with clean hands, he would not let the Police know he was still alive. He knew their relentlessness45 in the chase; and he must be free in order to redeem46 himself.
That very night, straight from eaves-dropping at the bohunks' meeting, he had crept back to Torrance's stable and found it locked. The padlock in itself was nothing, but it implied suspicion--possibly entangling47 precautions. And so he had slunk away.
A night's reflection had warned him how fortunate was the instinct that held his hand. As Mira lay sleeping heavily beside him on their bed of spruce, he had lived again the happy days of his unofficial Police duties with Sergeant Mahon--on the prairie, at the barracks and the Police post, but more vividly48 than all, in the fastnesses of the Cypress Hills. He saw once more the kindly49 eye, felt the friendly hand, heard the soft voice of the one man above his class who had treated him as equal and friend. He saw again the old tobacco pouch50 spilled on Inspector51 Barker's desk in the barracks at Medicine Hat.
He knew why Mahon had come north.
"I can't see him fail, Mira," he groaned. "He's did fer if he does. We got to stay an' see him through."
"Perhaps he's after the horse-thief too."
Blue Pete started. Then his head sank in one arm. "We can't help him thar, Mira. We can't be caught--yet. . . . An' the Sergeant wudn't want to get us--yet."
"It'll be all over soon, Pete," she said more brightly. "Mr. Torrance has promised us the horses when he goes."
"God fergive me fer keepin' yuh waitin', Mira!" he breathed, trying to read in her face the forgiveness that meant more to him.
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收听单词发音
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1
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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irritability
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| n.易怒 | |
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petulant
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| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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wriggle
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| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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12
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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15
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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22
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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23
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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26
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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30
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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32
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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33
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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34
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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35
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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36
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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37
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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38
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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40
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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41
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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42
rustler
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| n.[美口]偷牛贼 | |
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43
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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44
disquieted
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| v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
relentlessness
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46
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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47
entangling
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| v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的现在分词 ) | |
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48
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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49
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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50
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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51
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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52
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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