From where they sat they could look out over the world. Like the curve of a skirting blade, the Valley of the Moon stretched before them, dotted with farm-houses and varied3 by pasture-lands, hay-fields, and vineyards. Beyond rose the wall of the valley, every crease4 and wrinkle of which Dede and Daylight knew, and at one place, where the sun struck squarely, the white dump of the abandoned mine burned like a jewel. In the foreground, in the paddock by the barn, was Mab, full of pretty anxieties for the early spring foal that staggered about her on tottery5 legs. The air shimmered6 with heat, and altogether it was a lazy, basking8 day. Quail9 whistled to their young from the thicketed hillside behind the house. There was a gentle cooing of pigeons, and from the green depths of the big canon arose the sobbing10 wood note of a mourning dove. Once, there was a warning chorus from the foraging11 hens and a wild rush for cover, as a hawk12, high in the blue, cast its drifting shadow along the ground.
It was this, perhaps, that aroused old hunting memories in Wolf. At any rate, Dede and Daylight became aware of excitement in the paddock, and saw harmlessly reenacted a grim old tragedy of the Younger World. Curiously13 eager, velvet-footed and silent as a ghost, sliding and gliding14 and crouching15, the dog that was mere7 domesticated16 wolf stalked the enticing17 bit of young life that Mab had brought so recently into the world. And the mare18, her own ancient instincts aroused and quivering, circled ever between the foal and this menace of the wild young days when all her ancestry19 had known fear of him and his hunting brethren. Once, she whirled and tried to kick him, but usually she strove to strike him with her fore-hoofs, or rushed upon him with open mouth and ears laid back in an effort to crunch20 his backbone21 between her teeth. And the wolf-dog, with ears flattened22 down and crouching, would slide silkily away, only to circle up to the foal from the other side and give cause to the mare for new alarm. Then Daylight, urged on by Dede's solicitude23, uttered a low threatening cry; and Wolf, drooping24 and sagging25 in all the body of him in token of his instant return to man's allegiance, slunk off behind the barn.
It was a few minutes later that Daylight, breaking off from his reading to change the streams of irrigation, found that the water had ceased flowing. He shouldered a pick and shovel26, took a hammer and a pipe-wrench from the tool-house, and returned to Dede on the porch.
"I reckon I'll have to go down and dig the pipe out," he told her. "It's that slide that's threatened all winter. I guess she's come down at last."
"Don't you read ahead, now," he warned, as he passed around the house and took the trail that led down the wall of the canon.
Halfway27 down the trail, he came upon the slide. It was a small affair, only a few tons of earth and crumbling28 rock; but, starting from fifty feet above, it had struck the water pipe with force sufficient to break it at a connection. Before proceeding29 to work, he glanced up the path of the slide, and he glanced with the eye of the earth-trained miner. And he saw what made his eyes startle and cease for the moment from questing farther.
"Hello," he communed aloud, "look who's here."
His glance moved on up the steep broken surface, and across it from side to side. Here and there, in places, small twisted manzanitas were rooted precariously30, but in the main, save for weeds and grass, that portion of the canon was bare. There were signs of a surface that had shifted often as the rains poured a flow of rich eroded31 soil from above over the lip of the canon.
And as the old hunting instincts had aroused that day in the wolf-dog, so in him recrudesced all the old hot desire of gold-hunting. Dropping the hammer and pipe-wrench, but retaining pick and shovel, he climbed up the slide to where a vague line of outputting but mostly soil-covered rock could be seen. It was all but indiscernible, but his practised eye had sketched34 the hidden formation which it signified. Here and there, along this wall of the vein, he attacked the crumbling rock with the pick and shoveled35 the encumbering36 soil away. Several times he examined this rock. So soft was some of it that he could break it in his fingers. Shifting a dozen feet higher up, he again attacked with pick and shovel. And this time, when he rubbed the soil from a chunk37 of rock and looked, he straightened up suddenly, gasping38 with delight. And then, like a deer at a drinking pool in fear of its enemies, he flung a quick glance around to see if any eye were gazing upon him. He grinned at his own foolishness and returned to his examination of the chunk. A slant39 of sunlight fell on it, and it was all aglitter with tiny specks40 of unmistakable free gold.
"From the grass roots down," he muttered in an awestricken voice, as he swung his pick into the yielding surface.
He seemed to undergo a transformation41. No quart of cocktails42 had ever put such a flame in his cheeks nor such a fire in his eyes. As he worked, he was caught up in the old passion that had ruled most of his life. A frenzy43 seized him that markedly increased from moment to moment. He worked like a madman, till he panted from his exertions44 and the sweat dripped from his face to the ground. He quested across the face of the slide to the opposite wall of the vein and back again. And, midway, he dug down through the red volcanic45 earth that had washed from the disintegrating46 hill above, until he uncovered quartz47, rotten quartz, that broke and crumbled48 in his hands and showed to be alive with free gold.
Sometimes he started small slides of earth that covered up his work and compelled him to dig again. Once, he was swept fifty feet down the canon-side; but he floundered and scrambled49 up again without pausing for breath. He hit upon quartz that was so rotten that it was almost like clay, and here the gold was richer than ever. It was a veritable treasure chamber50. For a hundred feet up and down he traced the walls of the vein. He even climbed over the canon-lip to look along the brow of the hill for signs of the outcrop. But that could wait, and he hurried back to his find.
He toiled51 on in the same mad haste, until exhaustion52 and an intolerable ache in his back compelled him to pause. He straightened up with even a richer piece of gold-laden quartz. Stooping, the sweat from his forehead had fallen to the ground. It now ran into his eyes, blinding him. He wiped it from him with the back of his hand and returned to a scrutiny53 of the gold.
It would run thirty thousand to the ton, fifty thousand, anything—he knew that. And as he gazed upon the yellow lure54, and panted for air, and wiped the sweat away, his quick vision leaped and set to work. He saw the spur-track that must run up from the valley and across the upland pastures, and he ran the grades and built the bridge that would span the canon, until it was real before his eyes. Across the canon was the place for the mill, and there he erected55 it; and he erected, also, the endless chain of buckets, suspended from a cable and operated by gravity, that would carry the ore across the canon to the quartz-crusher. Likewise, the whole mine grew before him and beneath him-tunnels, shafts56, and galleries, and hoisting57 plants. The blasts of the miners were in his ears, and from across the canon he could hear the roar of the stamps. The hand that held the lump of quartz was trembling, and there was a tired, nervous palpitation apparently58 in the pit of his stomach. It came to him abruptly59 that what he wanted was a drink—whiskey, cocktails, anything, a drink. And even then, with this new hot yearning60 for the alcohol upon him, he heard, faint and far, drifting down the green abyss of the canon, Dede's voice, crying:—
"Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick! Here, chick, chick, chick!"
He was astounded61 at the lapse62 of time. She had left her sewing on the porch and was feeding the chickens preparatory to getting supper. The afternoon was gone. He could not conceive that he had been away that long.
Again came the call: "Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick! Here, chick, chick, chick!"
It was the way she always called—first five, and then three. He had long since noticed it. And from these thoughts of her arose other thoughts that caused a great fear slowly to grow in his face. For it seemed to him that he had almost lost her. Not once had he thought of her in those frenzied63 hours, and for that much, at least, had she truly been lost to him.
He dropped the piece of quartz, slid down the slide, and started up the trail, running heavily. At the edge of the clearing he eased down and almost crept to a point of vantage whence he could peer out, himself unseen. She was feeding the chickens, tossing to them handfuls of grain and laughing at their antics.
The sight of her seemed to relieve the panic fear into which he had been flung, and he turned and ran back down the trail. Again he climbed the slide, but this time he climbed higher, carrying the pick and shovel with him. And again he toiled frenziedly, but this time with a different purpose. He worked artfully, loosing slide after slide of the red soil and sending it streaming down and covering up all he had uncovered, hiding from the light of day the treasure he had discovered. He even went into the woods and scooped64 armfuls of last year's fallen leaves which he scattered65 over the slide. But this he gave up as a vain task; and he sent more slides of soil down upon the scene of his labor66, until no sign remained of the out-jutting walls of the vein.
Next he repaired the broken pipe, gathered his tools together, and started up the trail. He walked slowly, feeling a great weariness, as of a man who had passed through a frightful67 crisis.
He put the tools away, took a great drink of the water that again flowed through the pipes, and sat down on the bench by the open kitchen door. Dede was inside, preparing supper, and the sound of her footsteps gave him a vast content.
He breathed the balmy mountain air in great gulps68, like a diver fresh-risen from the sea. And, as he drank in the air, he gazed with all his eyes at the clouds and sky and valley, as if he were drinking in that, too, along with the air.
Dede did not know he had come back, and at times he turned his head and stole glances in at her—at her efficient hands, at the bronze of her brown hair that smouldered with fire when she crossed the path of sunshine that streamed through the window, at the promise of her figure that shot through him a pang69 most strangely sweet and sweetly dear. He heard her approaching the door, and kept his head turned resolutely70 toward the valley. And next, he thrilled, as he had always thrilled, when he felt the caressing71 gentleness of her fingers through his hair.
"I didn't know you were back," she said. "Was it serious?"
"Pretty bad, that slide," he answered, still gazing away and thrilling to her touch. "More serious than I reckoned. But I've got the plan. Do you know what I'm going to do?—I'm going to plant eucalyptus72 all over it. They'll hold it. I'll plant them thick as grass, so that even a hungry rabbit can't squeeze between them; and when they get their roots agoing, nothing in creation will ever move that dirt again."
"Why, is it as bad as that?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing exciting. But I'd sure like to see any blamed old slide get the best of me, that's all. I'm going to seal that slide down so that it'll stay there for a million years. And when the last trump73 sounds, and Sonoma Mountain and all the other mountains pass into nothingness, that old slide will be still a-standing there, held up by the roots."
He passed his arm around her and pulled her down on his knees.
"Say, little woman, you sure miss a lot by living here on the ranch—music, and theatres, and such things. Don't you ever have a hankering to drop it all and go back?"
So great was his anxiety that he dared not look at her, and when she laughed and shook her head he was aware of a great relief. Also, he noted74 the undiminished youth that rang through that same old-time boyish laugh of hers.
"Say," he said, with sudden fierceness, "don't you go fooling around that slide until after I get the trees in and rooted. It's mighty75 dangerous, and I sure can't afford to lose you now."
He drew her lips to his and kissed her hungrily and passionately76.
"What a lover!" she said; and pride in him and in her own womanhood was in her voice.
"Look at that, Dede." He removed one encircling arm and swept it in a wide gesture over the valley and the mountains beyond. "The Valley of the Moon—a good name, a good name. Do you know, when I look out over it all, and think of you and of all it means, it kind of makes me ache in the throat, and I have things in my heart I can't find the words to say, and I have a feeling that I can almost understand Browning and those other high-flying poet-fellows. Look at Hood77 Mountain there, just where the sun's striking. It was down in that crease that we found the spring."
"And that was the night you didn't milk the cows till ten o'clock," she laughed. "And if you keep me here much longer, supper won't be any earlier than it was that night."
Both arose from the bench, and Daylight caught up the milk-pail from the nail by the door. He paused a moment longer to look out over the valley.
"It's sure grand," he said.
"It's sure grand," she echoed, laughing joyously78 at him and with him and herself and all the world, as she passed in through the door.
And Daylight, like the old man he once had met, himself went down the hill through the fires of sunset with a milk pail on his arm.
该作者的其它作品
《The Sea-Wolf海狼》
《白牙 White Fang》
《The Son of the Wolf狼孩儿》
该作者的其它作品
《The Sea-Wolf海狼》
《白牙 White Fang》
《The Son of the Wolf狼孩儿》
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1
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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rosily
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| adv.带玫瑰色地，乐观地 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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crease
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| n.折缝，褶痕，皱褶；v.(使)起皱 | |
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tottery
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| adj.蹒跚的，摇摇欲倒 | |
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shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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basking
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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quail
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| n.鹌鹑；vi.畏惧，颤抖 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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11
foraging
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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13
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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enticing
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| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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crunch
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| n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声 | |
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backbone
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| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
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flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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24
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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precariously
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| adv.不安全地；危险地；碰机会地；不稳定地 | |
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31
eroded
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| adj. 被侵蚀的，有蚀痕的 动词erode的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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fissure
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| n.裂缝；裂伤 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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34
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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shoveled
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| vt.铲，铲出（shovel的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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encumbering
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的现在分词 ) | |
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chunk
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| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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41
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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42
cocktails
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| n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物 | |
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43
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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45
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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46
disintegrating
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
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47
quartz
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| n.石英 | |
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48
crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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49
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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50
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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51
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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52
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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53
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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54
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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55
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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56
shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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57
hoisting
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| 起重，提升 | |
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58
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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60
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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61
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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62
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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63
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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64
scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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66
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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67
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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68
gulps
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| n.一大口（尤指液体）( gulp的名词复数 )v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的第三人称单数 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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69
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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70
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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71
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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72
eucalyptus
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| n.桉树，桉属植物 | |
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73
trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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74
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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75
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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76
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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77
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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78
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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