CHAPTER XV EXPLORING

 There was double excitement at the breakfast table that morning. Not only were the young folk eager to get away on the trip of exploration planned the day before; but old John Dempsey’s find among the discarded papers in the office excited them.

 

The letter written in Lincoln’s angular hand was passed from one to the other. Mrs. White of course agreed with Dorothy that the letter belonged to the Grand Army man.

 

“He shall certainly have it—to keep, or to sell,” she said.

 

“Your protégé is turning out pretty well, Dot,” said Ned. “And if he keeps on finding valuable letters like that, he’ll soon be as rich as the other ‘John D.’ Some collectors would give a round sum for this letter.”

 

“He’s already had one offer,” Dorothy said, hesitatingly.

 

“What!” cried Tavia. “You never offered to buy it?”

 

“Certainly not. And Mr. Dempsey says he wouldn’t sell.” Then she related what the old man had said regarding Philo Marsh¹.

 

“‘Snake in the grass!’” exclaimed Tavia. “That’s just what he is.”

 

“Hush,” said Aunt Winnie. “The man is really bothering me a good deal. He has gone off with Mr. Ledger² to breakfast. I did not care to invite him in here——”

 

“I should hope not!” exclaimed Ned.

 

“Well, I am free to confess,” said his mother, thoughtfully, “that I do not know just how to treat Mr. Marsh. He tried to have me invite him to ride with us to-day; but I do not want him.”

 

“You say the word, mother,” said Nat, belligerently⁴, “and Ned and I will send him to the right-about-face.”

 

Mrs. White laughed. “Oh, I fancy he is not very dangerous, my boy.”

 

“Then, if that’s the case,” added Nat, grinning, “why not sick Tavia onto him?”

 

“Nathaniel!”

 

“You horrid⁵ thing!” exclaimed Tavia, perfectly⁶ able to fight her own battles with the boys. “You talk as though I might be a bulldog.”

 

“You’re a sight more dangerous,” chuckled⁷ Nat. “If you once rolled those big eyes of yours at Philo—as you did at that cowboy, Lance, for instance——”

 

“Nathaniel!” exclaimed his mother again. “I am ashamed of you.”

 

“You’d have been ashamed of Tavia if you’d seen her,” grunted⁹ the young fellow.

 

That was the beginning of a tiff¹⁰ between Tavia and Nat. “You wait, Mr. Smartie!” she whispered, giving him a vicious pinch as he passed her chair. “I’ll get square with you for saying that.”

 

But afterward¹¹, when she and Dorothy were together, the latter spoke¹² seriously to her chum.

 

“You must have a care, my dear. Aunt Winnie would be horrified¹³ if she knew you were in the least flirtatious¹⁴ with these men——”

 

“What men?” demanded Tavia, with some anger.

 

“Lance Petterby, we’ll say. If he comes here with his mother, you behave.”

 

“Oh, you’re a regular Grandmother Grunt⁸. And I’ll fix Nat for saying that to his mother, see if I don’t.”

 

Tavia was, indeed, quite vexed¹⁵, and they were several miles from the ranch¹⁶ house that forenoon before she became her jolly irresponsible self.

 

Before noon the exploring party had seen much of the range and pasturage. Hank Ledger said even after this drouth the pasture could well support ten thousand steers¹⁷.

 

“But we ain’t had that many critters on the ranch for ten year. Cattle ain’t what they was—no144 sir! We’ve got a couple of thousand, and that’s full and plenty. I reckon, Miz White, you won’t want to increase the number much?”

 

“We shall talk about that later,” said the lady. “At present I want to see about this water privilege.”

 

“All right, Ma’am. I’ll take you right up there, and we can eat our snack beside Lost River.”

 

“That sounds very romantic,” said Tavia.

 

“Especially the eating part,” laughed Dorothy. “Riding does give one such an appetite.”

 

Ledger escorted them into the low hills. Soon they were riding up a sharply inclined gully, and reached higher land. The woods grew denser¹⁸. Ahead the murmur¹⁹ of falling water soon rose to a steady volume of sound which, although it did not deafen²⁰ them, made a background for all other noises.

 

Huge boulders²¹ cropped out of the thin soil. The trees were not tall, but were standing²³ in very thick groups. In some places the ponies²⁴ pushed through thickets²⁵ that seemed to be almost impassable.

 

At last a plateau was reached—several hundred feet higher than the knoll²⁶ upon which the ranch-house stood—and at once, when they came into the clear, Dorothy and Tavia broke into a simultaneous cry of surprise and delight.

 

 Sweeping across this level plain, directly toward them, came a broad, silver stream. Small groves²⁷ of soft-barked trees fringed its banks. Here and there a boulder²² intruded²⁸, around the base of which the otherwise peaceful river boiled and sprayed the rock with foam²⁹.

 

All the surface of the stream was sparkling as though the banks actually brimmed with molten silver. Such a refreshing³⁰ looking mountain stream Dorothy had never before seen—or one-half so beautiful.

 

Just in front of the cavalcade³¹ a veil of mist rose some twenty feet into the air. In this mist the sunshine played delightfully³², lending itself to a dozen different rainbows.

 

The almost impalpable moisture drifted across a stretch of grass, as green as it could be—a veritable fairy lawn. The curtain of mist hid from them what appeared to be the abrupt³³ ending of the river.

 

“What a marvel³⁴!” gasped³⁵ Dorothy. “Why! Mr. Ledger! where does the water go?”

 

Ledger grinned and wheeled his horse aside, following a distinct path which approached the nearer bank of the stream. The spray swept over them for a moment, and then they came out above it, and upon the steep bank.

 

Right beside them was a narrow chasm³⁶ in the rock—a yawning gulf³⁷ the full width of the stream which was here all of twenty yards across. Into this opening in the earth the river plunged³⁸.

 

“Lost River, indeed!” cried Dorothy, looking back at the others, with shining eyes. “Did you ever see anything so wonderful, Aunt Winnie?”

 

A deep, thunderous murmur, like the bass³⁹ notes of a great organ, came up from the depths. The perfectly clear water advanced to the lip of rock over which it flowed, falling into the chasm with scarcely a ripple⁴⁰. But the spray rising in so thick a cloud showed that the volume of water must strike some ledge³ not far below the surface of the plain, from which it caromed against the wall of the crevice⁴¹.

 

“Say! this is some river,” said Nat, in awe⁴².

 

“How beautiful!” repeated Dorothy.

 

The foreman told them that the stream was fed above by numberless mountain springs, and had never been known to go dry.

 

“Such a waste of good water!” exclaimed Tavia. “No wonder those people in the desert want it. Why, it ought to make the desert blossom like the rose! That’s poetry, I want you to notice. But goodness! I won’t do a thing to those sandwiches and the coffee—when Mr. Ledger gets it made.”

1 marsh   

n.沼泽，湿地

参考例句：

• There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
• I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。

2 ledger   

n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿

参考例句：

• The young man bowed his head and bent over his ledger again.那个年轻人点头应诺，然后又埋头写起分类帐。
• She is a real accountant who even keeps a detailed household ledger.她不愧是搞财务的，家庭分类账记得清楚详细。

3 ledge   

n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁

参考例句：

• They paid out the line to lower him to the ledge.他们放出绳子使他降到那块岩石的突出部分。
• Suddenly he struck his toe on a rocky ledge and fell.突然他的脚趾绊在一块突出的岩石上，摔倒了。

4 belligerently   

参考例句：

• Cars zoomed helter-skelter, honking belligerently. 大街上来往车辆穿梭不停，喇叭声刺耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Harass, threaten, insult, or behave belligerently towards others. 向其它交战地折磨，威胁，侮辱，或表现。 来自互联网

5 horrid   

adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的

参考例句：

• I'm not going to the horrid dinner party.我不打算去参加这次讨厌的宴会。
• The medicine is horrid and she couldn't get it down.这种药很难吃，她咽不下去。

6 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

7 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

8 grunt   

v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝

参考例句：

• He lifted the heavy suitcase with a grunt.他咕噜着把沉重的提箱拎了起来。
• I ask him what he think,but he just grunt.我问他在想什麽，他只哼了一声。

9 grunted   

（猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说

参考例句：

• She just grunted, not deigning to look up from the page. 她只咕哝了一声，继续看书，不屑抬起头来看一眼。
• She grunted some incomprehensible reply. 她咕噜着回答了些令人费解的话。

10 tiff   

n.小争吵，生气

参考例句：

• They patched up their tiff again.他们平息了争执，又和好如初了。
• There was a new tiff between the two girls.那两个女孩之间有一场新的吵嘴。

11 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

12 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

13 horrified   

a.(表现出)恐惧的

参考例句：

• The whole country was horrified by the killings. 全国都对这些凶杀案感到大为震惊。
• We were horrified at the conditions prevailing in local prisons. 地方监狱的普遍状况让我们震惊。

14 flirtatious   

adj.爱调情的，调情的，卖俏的

参考例句：

• a flirtatious young woman 卖弄风情的年轻女子
• Her flirtatious manners are intended to attract. 她的轻浮举止是想引人注意。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

16 ranch   

n.大牧场，大农场

参考例句：

• He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
• The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。

17 steers   

n.阉公牛，肉用公牛( steer的名词复数 )v.驾驶( steer的第三人称单数 )；操纵；控制；引导

参考例句：

• This car steers easily. 这部车子易于驾驶。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Good fodder fleshed the steers up. 优质饲料使菜牛长肉。 来自辞典例句

18 denser   

adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的

参考例句：

• The denser population necessitates closer consolidation both for internal and external action. 住得日益稠密的居民，对内和对外都不得不更紧密地团结起来。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源
• As Tito entered the neighbourhood of San Martino, he found the throng rather denser. 蒂托走近圣马丁教堂附近一带时，发现人群相当密集。

19 murmur   

n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言

参考例句：

• They paid the extra taxes without a murmur.他们毫无怨言地交了附加税。
• There was a low murmur of conversation in the hall.大厅里有窃窃私语声。

20 deafen   

vt.震耳欲聋；使听不清楚

参考例句：

• This noise will deafen us all!这种喧闹声将使我们什么也听不见！
• The way you complain all day long would deafen the living buddha!就凭你成天抱怨，活佛耳朵都要聋了！

21 boulders   

n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾

参考例句：

• Seals basked on boulders in a flat calm. 海面风平浪静，海豹在巨石上晒太阳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The river takes a headlong plunge into a maelstrom of rocks and boulders. 河水急流而下，入一个漂砾的漩涡中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 boulder   

n.巨砾；卵石，圆石

参考例句：

• We all heaved together and removed the boulder.大家一齐用劲，把大石头搬开了。
• He stepped clear of the boulder.他从大石头后面走了出来。

23 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

24 ponies   

矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑

参考例句：

• They drove the ponies into a corral. 他们把矮种马赶进了畜栏。
• She has a mania for ponies. 她特别喜欢小马。

25 thickets   

n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物

参考例句：

• Small trees became thinly scattered among less dense thickets. 小树稀稀朗朗地立在树林里。 来自辞典例句
• The entire surface is covered with dense thickets. 所有的地面盖满了密密层层的灌木丛。 来自辞典例句

26 knoll   

n.小山，小丘

参考例句：

• Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll.对于希尔弗来说，爬上那小山丘真不是件容易事。
• He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect.他慢腾腾地登上一个小丘，看了看周围的地形。

27 groves   

树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields. 朝阳宁静地照耀着已经发黄的树丛和还是一片绿色的田地。
• The trees grew more and more in groves and dotted with old yews. 那里的树木越来越多地长成了一簇簇的小丛林，还点缀着几棵老紫杉树。

28 intruded   

n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于

参考例句：

• One could believe that human creatures had never intruded there before. 你简直会以为那是从来没有人到过的地方。 来自辞典例句
• The speaker intruded a thin smile into his seriousness. 演说人严肃的脸上掠过一丝笑影。 来自辞典例句

29 foam   

v./n.泡沫，起泡沫

参考例句：

• The glass of beer was mostly foam.这杯啤酒大部分是泡沫。
• The surface of the water is full of foam.水面都是泡沫。

30 refreshing   

adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的

参考例句：

• I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
• The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼，特别解乏提神。

31 cavalcade   

n.车队等的行列

参考例句：

• A cavalcade processed through town.马车队列队从城里经过。
• The cavalcade drew together in silence.马队在静默中靠拢在一起。

32 delightfully   

大喜，欣然

参考例句：

• The room is delightfully appointed. 这房子的设备令人舒适愉快。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The evening is delightfully cool. 晚间凉爽宜人。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

33 abrupt   

adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

• The river takes an abrupt bend to the west.这河突然向西转弯。
• His abrupt reply hurt our feelings.他粗鲁的回答伤了我们的感情。

34 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

35 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

36 chasm   

n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突

参考例句：

• There's a chasm between rich and poor in that society.那社会中存在着贫富差距。
• A huge chasm gaped before them.他们面前有个巨大的裂痕。

37 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

38 plunged   

v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• The train derailed and plunged into the river. 火车脱轨栽进了河里。
• She lost her balance and plunged 100 feet to her death. 她没有站稳，从100英尺的高处跌下摔死了。

39 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

40 ripple   

n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进

参考例句：

• The pebble made a ripple on the surface of the lake.石子在湖面上激起一个涟漪。
• The small ripple split upon the beach.小小的涟漪卷来，碎在沙滩上。

41 crevice   

n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口

参考例句：

• I saw a plant growing out of a crevice in the wall.我看到墙缝里长出一棵草来。
• He edged the tool into the crevice.他把刀具插进裂缝里。

42 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。