“That suits me,” said the second man, turning, as he spoke1, to the Indian that was mending snowshoes in a corner of the cabin. “Here, you Billebedam, take a run down to Oleson’s cabin like a good fellow, and tell him we want to borrow his dice2 box.”
This sudden request in the midst of a council on wages of men, wood, and grub surprised Billebedam. Besides, it was early in the day, and he had never known white men of the calibre of Pentfield and Hutchinson to dice and play till the day’s work was done. But his face was impassive as a Yukon Indian’s should be, as he pulled on his mittens3 and went out the door.
Though eight o’clock, it was still dark outside, and the cabin was lighted by a tallow candle thrust into an empty whisky bottle. It stood on the pine-board table in the middle of a disarray4 of dirty tin dishes. Tallow from innumerable candles had dripped down the long neck of the bottle and hardened into a miniature glacier5. The small room, which composed the entire cabin, was as badly littered as the table; while at one end, against the wall, were two bunks7, one above the other, with the blankets turned down just as the two men had crawled out in the morning.
Lawrence Pentfield and Corry Hutchinson were millionaires, though they did not look it. There seemed nothing unusual about them, while they would have passed muster8 as fair specimens9 of lumbermen in any Michigan camp. But outside, in the darkness, where holes yawned in the ground, were many men engaged in windlassing muck and gravel10 and gold from the bottoms of the holes where other men received fifteen dollars per day for scraping it from off the bedrock. Each day thousands of dollars’ worth of gold were scraped from bedrock and windlassed to the surface, and it all belonged to Pentfield and Hutchinson, who took their rank among the richest kings of Bonanza11.
Pentfield broke the silence that followed on Billebedam’s departure by heaping the dirty plates higher on the table and drumming a tattoo12 on the cleared space with his knuckles13. Hutchinson snuffed the smoky candle and reflectively rubbed the soot14 from the wick between thumb and forefinger15.
Pentfield looked at him darkly.
“If it weren’t for your cursed obstinacy17, it’d be settled anyway. All you have to do is get up and go. I’ll look after things, and next year I can go out.”
“Why should I go? I’ve no one waiting for me—”
“Your people,” Pentfield broke in roughly.
“Like you have,” Hutchinson went on. “A girl, I mean, and you know it.”
“But she’s been waiting two years now.”
“And another won’t age her beyond recognition.”
“That’d be three years. Think of it, old man, three years in this end of the earth, this falling-off place for the damned!” Hutchinson threw up his arm in an almost articulate groan19.
He was several years younger than his partner, not more than twenty-six, and there was a certain wistfulness in his face that comes into the faces of men when they yearn20 vainly for the things they have been long denied. This same wistfulness was in Pentfield’s face, and the groan of it was articulate in the heave of his shoulders.
“I dreamed last night I was in Zinkand’s,” he said. “The music playing, glasses clinking, voices humming, women laughing, and I was ordering eggs—yes, sir, eggs, fried and boiled and poached and scrambled21, and in all sorts of ways, and downing them as fast as they arrived.”
“I’d have ordered salads and green things,” Hutchinson criticized hungrily, “with a big, rare, Porterhouse, and young onions and radishes,—the kind your teeth sink into with a crunch22.”
“I’d have followed the eggs with them, I guess, if I hadn’t awakened,” Pentfield replied.
He picked up a trail-scarred banjo from the floor and began to strum a few wandering notes. Hutchinson winced23 and breathed heavily.
“Quit it!” he burst out with sudden fury, as the other struck into a gaily24 lifting swing. “It drives me mad. I can’t stand it”
I am Memory and Torment—I am Town!
I am all that ever went with evening dress!”
The other man winced where he sat and dropped his head forward on the table. Pentfield resumed the monotonous26 drumming with his knuckles. A loud snap from the door attracted his attention. The frost was creeping up the inside in a white sheet, and he began to hum:-
And oh, my fair, would I somewhere
Might house my heart with thee.”
Silence fell and was not again broken till Billebedam arrived and threw the dice box on the table.
“Um much cold,” he said. “Oleson um speak to me, um say um Yukon freeze last night.”
“Hear that, old man!” Pentfield cried, slapping Hutchinson on the shoulder. “Whoever wins can be hitting the trail for God’s country this time tomorrow morning!”
“What’ll it be?”
Pentfield swept the dishes from the table with a crash and rolled out the five dice. Both looked tragedy. The shake was without a pair and five-spot high.
After much deliberating Pentfield picked up all the five dice and put them in the box.
“I’d shake to the five if I were you,” Hutchinson suggested.
“No, you wouldn’t, not when you see this,” Pentfield replied, shaking out the dice.
Again they were without a pair, running this time in unbroken sequence from two to six.
“A second stiff!” he groaned. “No use your shaking, Corry. You can’t lose.”
The other man gathered up the dice without a word, rattled33 them, rolled them out on the table with a flourish, and saw that he had likewise shaken a six-high stiff.
“Tied you, anyway, but I’ll have to do better than that,” he said, gathering34 in four of them and shaking to the six. “And here’s what beats you!”
But they rolled out deuce, tray, four, and five—a stiff still and no better nor worse than Pentfield’s throw.
Hutchinson sighed.
“Couldn’t happen once in a million times,” said.
“Nor in a million lives,” Pentfield added, catching35 up the dice and quickly throwing them out. Three fives appeared, and, after much delay, he was rewarded by a fourth five on the second shake. Hutchinson seemed to have lost his last hope.
But three sixes turned up on his first shake. A great doubt rose in the other’s eyes, and hope returned into his. He had one more shake. Another six and he would go over the ice to salt water and the States.
He rattled the dice in the box, made as though to cast them, hesitated, and continued rattle32 them.
“Go on! Go on! Don’t take all night about it!” Pentfield cried sharply, bending his nails on the table, so tight was the clutch with which he strove to control himself.
The dice rolled forth36, an upturned six meeting their eyes. Both men sat staring at it. There was a long silence. Hutchinson shot a covert37 glance at his partner, who, still more covertly38, caught it, and pursed up his lips in an attempt to advertise his unconcern.
Hutchinson laughed as he got up on his feet. It was a nervous, apprehensive39 laugh. It was a case where it was more awkward to win than lose. He walked over to his partner, who whirled upon him fiercely:-
“Now you just shut up, Corry! I know all you’re going to say—that you’d rather stay in and let me go, and all that; so don’t say it. You’ve your own people in Detroit to see, and that’s enough. Besides, you can do for me the very thing I expected to do if I went out.”
“And that is—?”
Pentfield read the full question in his partner’s eyes, and answered:-
“Yes, that very thing. You can bring her in to me. The only difference will be a Dawson wedding instead of a San Franciscan one.”
“But, man alike!” Corry Hutchinson objected “how under the sun can I bring her in? We’re not exactly brother and sister, seeing that I have not even met her, and it wouldn’t be just the proper thing, you know, for us to travel together. Of course, it would be all right—you and I know that; but think of the looks of it, man!”
Pentfield swore under his breath, consigning40 the looks of it to a less frigid41 region than Alaska.
“Now, if you’ll just listen and not get astride that high horse of yours so blamed quick,” his partner went on, “you’ll see that the only fair thing under the circumstances is for me to let you go out this year. Next year is only a year away, and then I can take my fling.”
Pentfield shook his head, though visibly swayed by the temptation.
“It won’t do, Corry, old man. I appreciate your kindness and all that, but it won’t do. I’d be ashamed every time I thought of you slaving away in here in my place.”
A thought seemed suddenly to strike him. Burrowing43 into his bunk and disrupting it in his eagerness, he secured a writing-pad and pencil, and sitting down at the table, began to write with swiftness and certitude.
“Here,” he said, thrusting the scrawled44 letter into his partner’s hand. “You just deliver that and everything’ll be all right.”
Hutchinson ran his eye over it and laid it down.
“How do you know the brother will be willing to make that beastly trip in here?” he demanded.
“Oh, he’ll do it for me—and for his sister,” Pentfield replied. “You see, he’s tenderfoot, and I wouldn’t trust her with him alone. But with you along it will be an easy trip and a safe one. As soon as you get out, you’ll go to her and prepare her. Then you can take your run east to your own people, and in the spring she and her brother’ll be ready to start with you. You’ll like her, I know, right from the jump; and from that, you’ll know her as soon as you lay eyes on her.”
So saying he opened the back of his watch and exposed a girl’s photograph pasted on the inside of the case. Corry Hutchinson gazed at it with admiration45 welling up in his eyes.
“Mabel is her name,” Pentfield went on. “And it’s just as well you should know how to find the house. Soon as you strike ’Frisco, take a cab, and just say, ‘Holmes’s place, Myrdon Avenue’—I doubt if the Myrdon Avenue is necessary. The cabby’ll know where Judge Holmes lives.
“And say,” Pentfield continued, after a pause, “it won’t be a bad idea for you to get me a few little things which a—er—”
Pentfield grinned back.
“Sure, napkins and tablecloths47 and sheets and pillowslips, and such things. And you might get a good set of china. You know it’ll come hard for her to settle down to this sort of thing. You can freight them in by steamer around by Bering Sea. And, I say, what’s the matter with a piano?”
Hutchinson seconded the idea heartily48. His reluctance49 had vanished, and he was warming up to his mission.
“By Jove! Lawrence,” he said at the conclusion of the council, as they both rose to their feet, “I’ll bring back that girl of yours in style. I’ll do the cooking and take care of the dogs, and all that brother’ll have to do will be to see to her comfort and do for her whatever I’ve forgotten. And I’ll forget damn little, I can tell you.”
The next day Lawrence Pentfield shook hands with him for the last time and watched him, running with his dogs, disappear up the frozen Yukon on his way to salt water and the world. Pentfield went back to his Bonanza mine, which was many times more dreary50 than before, and faced resolutely51 into the long winter. There was work to be done, men to superintend, and operations to direct in burrowing after the erratic52 pay streak53; but his heart was not in the work. Nor was his heart in any work till the tiered logs of a new cabin began to rise on the hill behind the mine. It was a grand cabin, warmly built and divided into three comfortable rooms. Each log was hand-hewed and squared—an expensive whim54 when the axemen received a daily wage of fifteen dollars; but to him nothing could be too costly55 for the home in which Mabel Holmes was to live.
So he went about with the building of the cabin, singing, “And oh, my fair, would I somewhere might house my heart with thee!” Also, he had a calendar pinned on the wall above the table, and his first act each morning was to check off the day and to count the days that were left ere his partner would come booming down the Yukon ice in the spring. Another whim of his was to permit no one to sleep in the new cabin on the hill. It must be as fresh for her occupancy as the square-hewed wood was fresh; and when it stood complete, he put a padlock on the door. No one entered save himself, and he was wont56 to spend long hours there, and to come forth with his face strangely radiant and in his eyes a glad, warm light.
In December he received a letter from Corry Hutchinson. He had just seen Mabel Holmes. She was all she ought to be, to be Lawrence Pentfield’s wife, he wrote. He was enthusiastic, and his letter sent the blood tingling57 through Pentfield’s veins58. Other letters followed, one on the heels of another, and sometimes two or three together when the mail lumped up. And they were all in the same tenor59. Corry had just come from Myrdon Avenue; Corry was just going to Myrdon Avenue; or Corry was at Myrdon Avenue. And he lingered on and on in San Francisco, nor even mentioned his trip to Detroit.
Lawrence Pentfield began to think that his partner was a great deal in the company of Mabel Holmes for a fellow who was going east to see his people. He even caught himself worrying about it at times, though he would have worried more had he not known Mabel and Corry so well. Mabel’s letters, on the other hand, had a great deal to say about Corry. Also, a thread of timidity that was near to disinclination ran through them concerning the trip in over the ice and the Dawson marriage. Pentfield wrote back heartily, laughing at her fears, which he took to be the mere60 physical ones of danger and hardship rather than those bred of maidenly61 reserve.
But the long winter and tedious wait, following upon the two previous long winters, were telling upon him. The superintendence of the men and the pursuit of the pay streak could not break the irk of the daily round, and the end of January found him making occasional trips to Dawson, where he could forget his identity for a space at the gambling62 tables. Because he could afford to lose, he won, and “Pentfield’s luck” became a stock phrase among the faro players.
His luck ran with him till the second week in February. How much farther it might have run is conjectural63; for, after one big game, he never played again.
It was in the Opera House that it occurred, and for an hour it had seemed that he could not place his money on a card without making the card a winner. In the lull64 at the end of a deal, while the game-keeper was shuffling65 the deck, Nick Inwood the owner of the game, remarked, apropos66 of nothing:-
“I say, Pentfield, I see that partner of yours has been cutting up monkey-shines on the outside.”
“Trust Corry to have a good time,” Pentfield had answered; “especially when he has earned it.”
“Every man to his taste,” Nick Inwood laughed; “but I should scarcely call getting married a good time.”
“Corry married!” Pentfield cried, incredulous and yet surprised out of himself for the moment.
“Sure,” Inwood said. “I saw it in the ’Frisco paper that came in over the ice this morning.”
“Well, and who’s the girl?” Pentfield demanded, somewhat with the air of patient fortitude67 with which one takes the bait of a catch and is aware at the time of the large laugh bound to follow at his expense.
Nick Inwood pulled the newspaper from his pocket and began looking it over, saying:-
“I haven’t a remarkable68 memory for names, but it seems to me it’s something like Mabel—Mabel—oh yes, here it—‘Mabel Holmes, daughter of Judge Holmes,’—whoever he is.”
Lawrence Pentfield never turned a hair, though he wondered how any man in the North could know her name. He glanced coolly from face to face to note any vagrant69 signs of the game that was being played upon him, but beyond a healthy curiosity the faces betrayed nothing. Then he turned to the gambler and said in cold, even tones:-
“Inwood, I’ve got an even five hundred here that says the print of what you have just said is not in that paper.”
The gambler looked at him in quizzical surprise. “Go ’way, child. I don’t want your money.”
Nick Inwood’s face flushed, and, as though doubting his senses, he ran careful eyes over the print of a quarter of a column. Then be turned on Lawrence Pentfield.
“Look here, Pentfield,” he said, in a quiet, nervous manner; “I can’t allow that, you know.”
“You implied that I lied.”
“Nothing of the sort,” came the reply. “I merely implied that you were trying to be clumsily witty72.”
“But I tell you it’s true,” Nick Inwood insisted.
“And I have told you I’ve five hundred that says it’s not in that paper,” Pentfield answered, at the same time throwing a heavy sack of dust on the table.
“I am sorry to take your money,” was the retort, as Inwood thrust the newspaper into Pentfield’s hand.
Pentfield saw, though he could not quite bring himself to believe. Glancing through the headline, “Young Lochinvar came out of the North,” and skimming the article until the names of Mabel Holmes and Corry Hutchinson, coupled together, leaped squarely before his eyes, he turned to the top of the page. It was a San Francisco paper.
“The money’s yours, Inwood,” he remarked, with a short laugh. “There’s no telling what that partner of mine will do when he gets started.”
Then he returned to the article and read it word for word, very slowly and very carefully. He could no longer doubt. Beyond dispute, Corry Hutchinson had married Mabel Holmes. “One of the Bonanza kings,” it described him, “a partner with Lawrence Pentfield (whom San Francisco society has not yet forgotten), and interested with that gentleman in other rich, Klondike properties.” Further, and at the end, he read, “It is whispered that Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson will, after a brief trip east to Detroit, make their real honeymoon74 journey into the fascinating Klondike country.”
“I’ll be back again; keep my place for me,” Pentfield said, rising to his feet and taking his sack, which meantime had hit the blower and came back lighter75 by five hundred dollars.
He went down the street and bought a Seattle paper. It contained the same facts, though somewhat condensed. Corry and Mabel were indubitably married. Pentfield returned to the Opera House and resumed his seat in the game. He asked to have the limit removed.
“Trying to get action,” Nick Inwood laughed, as he nodded assent76 to the dealer. “I was going down to the A. C. store, but now I guess I’ll stay and watch you do your worst.”
This Lawrence Pentfield did at the end of two hours’ plunging77, when the dealer bit the end off a fresh cigar and struck a match as he announced that the bank was broken. Pentfield cashed in for forty thousand, shook hands with Nick Inwood, and stated that it was the last time he would ever play at his game or at anybody’s else’s.
No one knew nor guessed that he had been hit, much less hit hard. There was no apparent change in his manner. For a week he went about his work much as he had always done, when he read an account of the marriage in a Portland paper. Then he called in a friend to take charge of his mine and departed up the Yukon behind his dogs. He held to the Salt Water trail till White River was reached, into which he turned. Five days later he came upon a hunting camp of the White River Indians. In the evening there was a feast, and he sat in honour beside the chief; and next morning he headed his dogs back toward the Yukon. But he no longer travelled alone. A young squaw fed his dogs for him that night and helped to pitch camp. She had been mauled by a bear in her childhood and suffered from a slight limp. Her name was Lashka, and she was diffident at first with the strange white man that had come out of the Unknown, married her with scarcely a look or word, and now was carrying her back with him into the Unknown.
But Lashka’s was better fortune than falls to most Indian girls that mate with white men in the Northland. No sooner was Dawson reached than the barbaric marriage that had joined them was re-solemnized, in the white man’s fashion, before a priest. From Dawson, which to her was all a marvel78 and a dream, she was taken directly to the Bonanza claim and installed in the square-hewed cabin on the hill.
The nine days’ wonder that followed arose not so much out of the fact of the squaw whom Lawrence Pentfield had taken to bed and board as out of the ceremony that had legalized the tie. The properly sanctioned marriage was the one thing that passed the community’s comprehension. But no one bothered Pentfield about it. So long as a man’s vagaries79 did no special hurt to the community, the community let the man alone, nor was Pentfield barred from the cabins of men who possessed80 white wives. The marriage ceremony removed him from the status of squaw-man and placed him beyond moral reproach, though there were men that challenged his taste where women were concerned.
No more letters arrived from the outside. Six sledloads of mails had been lost at the Big Salmon. Besides, Pentfield knew that Corry and his bride must by that time have started in over the trail. They were even then on their honeymoon trip—the honeymoon trip he had dreamed of for himself through two dreary years. His lip curled with bitterness at the thought; but beyond being kinder to Lashka he gave no sign.
March had passed and April was nearing its end, when, one spring morning, Lashka asked permission to go down the creek81 several miles to Siwash Pete’s cabin. Pete’s wife, a Stewart River woman, had sent up word that something was wrong with her baby, and Lashka, who was pre-eminently a mother-woman and who held herself to be truly wise in the matter of infantile troubles, missed no opportunity of nursing the children of other women as yet more fortunate than she.
Pentfield harnessed his dogs, and with Lashka behind took the trail down the creek bed of Bonanza. Spring was in the air. The sharpness had gone out of the bite of the frost and though snow still covered the land, the murmur82 and trickling83 of water told that the iron grip of winter was relaxing. The bottom was dropping out of the trail, and here and there a new trail had been broken around open holes. At such a place, where there was not room for two sleds to pass, Pentfield heard the jingle84 of approaching bells and stopped his dogs.
A team of tired-looking dogs appeared around the narrow bend, followed by a heavily-loaded sled. At the gee-pole was a man who steered85 in a manner familiar to Pentfield, and behind the sled walked two women. His glance returned to the man at the gee-pole. It was Corry. Pentfield got on his feet and waited. He was glad that Lashka was with him. The meeting could not have come about better had it been planned, he thought. And as he waited he wondered what they would say, what they would be able to say. As for himself there was no need to say anything. The explaining was all on their side, and he was ready to listen to them.
As they drew in abreast86, Corry recognized him and halted the dogs. With a “Hello, old man,” he held out his hand.
Pentfield shook it, but without warmth or speech. By this time the two women had come up, and he noticed that the second one was Dora Holmes. He doffed87 his fur cap, the flaps of which were flying, shook hands with her, and turned toward Mabel. She swayed forward, splendid and radiant, but faltered88 before his outstretched hand. He had intended to say, “How do you do, Mrs. Hutchinson?”—but somehow, the Mrs. Hutchinson had choked him, and all he had managed to articulate was the “How do you do?”
There was all the constraint89 and awkwardness in the situation he could have wished. Mabel betrayed the agitation90 appropriate to her position, while Dora, evidently brought along as some sort of peacemaker, was saying:-
“Why, what is the matter, Lawrence?”
Before he could answer, Corry plucked him by the sleeve and drew him aside.
“See here, old man, what’s this mean?” Corry demanded in a low tone, indicating Lashka with his eyes.
“I can hardly see, Corry, where you can have any concern in the matter,” Pentfield answered mockingly.
But Corry drove straight to the point.
“What is that squaw doing on your sled? A nasty job you’ve given me to explain all this away. I only hope it can be explained away. Who is she? Whose squaw is she?”
Then Lawrence Pentfield delivered his stroke, and he delivered it with a certain calm elation91 of spirit that seemed somewhat to compensate92 for the wrong that had been done him.
“She is my squaw,” he said; “Mrs. Pentfield, if you please.”
Corry Hutchinson gasped93, and Pentfield left him and returned to the two women. Mabel, with a worried expression on her face, seemed holding herself aloof94. He turned to Dora and asked, quite genially95, as though all the world was sunshine:- “How did you stand the trip, anyway? Have any trouble to sleep warm?”
“And, how did Mrs. Hutchinson stand it?” he asked next, his eyes on Mabel.
“Oh, you dear ninny!” Dora cried, throwing her arms around him and hugging him. “Then you saw it, too! I thought something was the matter, you were acting96 so strangely.”
“It was corrected in next day’s paper,” Dora chattered98 on. “We did not dream you would see it. All the other papers had it correctly, and of course that one miserable99 paper was the very one you saw!”
“Wait a moment! What do you mean?” Pentfield demanded, a sudden fear at his heart, for he felt himself on the verge100 of a great gulf101.
But Dora swept volubly on.
“Why, when it became known that Mabel and I were going to Klondike, Every Other Week said that when we were gone, it would be lovely on Myrdon Avenue, meaning, of course, lonely.”
“Then—”
“I am Mrs. Hutchinson,” Dora answered. “And you thought it was Mabel all the time—”
“Precisely the way of it,” Pentfield replied slowly. “But I can see now. The reporter got the names mixed. The Seattle and Portland paper copied.”
He stood silently for a minute. Mabel’s face was turned toward him again, and he could see the glow of expectancy102 in it. Corry was deeply interested in the ragged103 toe of one of his moccasins, while Dora was stealing sidelong glances at the immobile face of Lashka sitting on the sled. Lawrence Pentfield stared straight out before him into a dreary future, through the grey vistas104 of which he saw himself riding on a sled behind running dogs with lame42 Lashka by his side.
Then he spoke, quite simply, looking Mabel in the eyes.
“I am very sorry. I did not dream it. I thought you had married Corry. That is Mrs. Pentfield sitting on the sled over there.”
Mabel Holmes turned weakly toward her sister, as though all the fatigue105 of her great journey had suddenly descended106 on her. Dora caught her around the waist. Corry Hutchinson was still occupied with his moccasins. Pentfield glanced quickly from face to face, then turned to his sled.
“Can’t stop here all day, with Pete’s baby waiting,” he said to Lashka.
The long whip-lash hissed107 out, the dogs sprang against the breast bands, and the sled lurched and jerked ahead.
“Oh, I say, Corry,” Pentfield called back, “you’d better occupy the old cabin. It’s not been used for some time. I’ve built a new one on the hill.”
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1
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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2
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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mittens
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| 不分指手套 | |
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disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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glacier
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| n.冰川，冰河 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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bunks
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| n.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的名词复数 )；空话，废话v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的第三人称单数 )；空话，废话 | |
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8
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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bonanza
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| n.富矿带，幸运，带来好运的事 | |
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tattoo
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| n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于 | |
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knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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19
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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20
yearn
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| v.想念；怀念；渴望 | |
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21
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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22
crunch
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| n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声 | |
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23
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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25
babble
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| v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语 | |
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26
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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27
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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28
salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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29
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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30
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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31
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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32
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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33
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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34
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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35
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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36
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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37
covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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38
covertly
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| adv.偷偷摸摸地 | |
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39
apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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40
consigning
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的现在分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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41
frigid
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| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
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42
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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43
burrowing
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的现在分词 )；翻寻 | |
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44
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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45
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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46
blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
tablecloths
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| n.桌布，台布( tablecloth的名词复数 ) | |
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48
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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49
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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50
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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51
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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52
erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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53
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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54
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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56
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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57
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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58
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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59
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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60
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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61
maidenly
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| adj. 像处女的, 谨慎的, 稳静的 | |
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62
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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63
conjectural
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| adj.推测的 | |
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64
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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65
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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66
apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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67
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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68
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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69
vagrant
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| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
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70
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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72
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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73
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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74
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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75
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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76
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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77
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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78
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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79
vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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80
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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81
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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82
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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83
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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84
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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85
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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86
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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87
doffed
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| v.脱去，（尤指）脱帽( doff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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89
constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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90
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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91
elation
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| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
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92
compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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93
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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94
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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95
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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96
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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97
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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98
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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99
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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100
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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101
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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102
expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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103
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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104
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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105
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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106
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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107
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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