My road to Sunk Creek1 lay in no straight line. By rail I diverged2 northwest to Fort Meade, and thence, after some stay with the kind military people, I made my way on a horse. Up here in the Black Hills it sluiced3 rain most intolerably. The horse and I enjoyed the country and ourselves but little; and when finally I changed from the saddle into a stagecoach4, I caught a thankful expression upon the animal's face, and returned the same.
"Six legs inside this jerky to-night?" said somebody, as I climbed the wheel. "Well, we'll give thanks for not havin' eight," he added cheerfully. "Clamp your mind on to that, Shorty." And he slapped the shoulder of his neighbor. Naturally I took these two for old companions. But we were all total strangers. They told me of the new gold excitement at Rawhide5, and supposed it would bring up the Northern Pacific; and when I explained the millions owed to this road's German bondholders, they were of opinion that a German would strike it richer at Rawhide. We spoke6 of all sorts of things, and in our silence I gloated on the autumn holiday promised me by Judge Henry. His last letter had said that an outfit7 would be starting for his ranch8 from Billings on the seventh, and he would have a horse for me. This was the fifth. So we six legs in the jerky travelled harmoniously9 on over the rain-gutted road, getting no deeper knowledge of each other than what our outsides might imply.
Not that we concealed10 anything. The man who had slapped Shorty introduced himself early. "Scipio le Moyne, from Gallipolice, Ohio," he said. "The eldest11 of us always gets called Scipio. It's French. But us folks have been white for a hundred years." He was limber and light-muscled, and fell skilfully12 about, evading13 bruises14 when the jerky reeled or rose on end. He had a strange, long, jocular nose, very wary-looking, and a bleached15 blue eye. Cattle was his business, as a rule, but of late he had been "looking around some," and Rawhide seemed much on his brain. Shorty struck me as "looking around" also. He was quite short, indeed, and the jerky hurt him almost every time. He was light-haired and mild. Think of a yellow dog that is lost, and fancies each newcomer in sight is going to turn out his master, and you will have Shorty.
It was the Northern Pacific that surprised us into intimacy16. We were nearing Medora. We had made a last arrangement of our legs. I lay stretched in silence, placid17 in the knowledge it was soon to end. So I drowsed. I felt something sudden, and, waking, saw Scipio passing through the air. As Shorty next shot from the jerky, I beheld18 smoke and the locomotive. The Northern Pacific had changed its schedule. A valise is a poor companion for catching19 a train with. There was rutted sand and lumpy, knee-high grease wood in our short cut. A piece of stray wire sprang from some hole and hung caracoling about my ankle. Tin cans spun20 from my stride. But we made a conspicuous21 race. Two of us waved hats, and there was no moment that some one of us was not screeching22. It meant twenty-four hours to us.
Perhaps we failed to catch the train's attention, though the theory seems monstrous23. As it moved off in our faces, smooth and easy and insulting, Scipio dropped instantly to a walk, and we two others outstripped24 him and came desperately25 to the empty track. There went the train. Even still its puffs26 were the separated puffs of starting, that bitten-off, snorty kind, and sweat and our true natures broke freely forth27.
I kicked my valise, and then sat on it, dumb.
Shorty yielded himself up aloud. All his humble28 secrets came out of him. He walked aimlessly round, lamenting29. He had lost his job, and he mentioned the ranch. He had played cards, and he mentioned the man. He had sold his horse and saddle to catch a friend on this train, and he mentioned what the friend had been going to do for him. He told a string of griefs and names to the air, as if the air knew.
Meanwhile Scipio arrived with extreme leisure at the rails. He stuck his hands into his pockets and his head out at the very small train. His bleached blue eyes shut to slits30 as he watched the rear car in its smoke-blur ooze31 away westward32 among the mounded bluffs33. "Lucky it's out of range," I thought. But now Scipio spoke to it.
"Why, you seem to think you've left me behind," he began easily, in fawning34 tones. "You're too much of a kid to have such thoughts. Age some." His next remark grew less wheedling35. "I wouldn't be a bit proud to meet yu'. Why, if I was seen travellin' with yu', I'd have to explain it to my friends! Think you've got me left, do yu'? Just because yu' ride through this country on a rail, do yu' claim yu' can find your way around? I could take yu' out ten yards in the brush and lose yu' in ten seconds, you spangle-roofed hobo! Leave ME behind? you recent blanket-mortgage yearlin'! You plush-lined, nickel-plated, whistlin' wash room, d' yu' figure I can't go east just as soon as west? Or I'll stay right here if it suits me, yu' dude-inhabited hot-box! Why, yu' coon-bossed face-towel--" But from here he rose in flights of novelty that appalled36 and held me spellbound, and which are not for me to say to you. Then he came down easily again, and finished with expressions of sympathy for it because it could never have known a mother.
"Do you expaict it could show a male parent offhand37?" inquired a slow voice behind us. I jumped round, and there was the Virginian.
"Male parent!" scoffed38 the prompt Scipio. "Ain't you heard about THEM yet?"
"Them? Was there two?"
"Two? The blamed thing was sired by a whole doggone Dutch syndicate."
"Why, the piebald son of a gun!" responded the Virginian, sweetly. "I got them steers39 through all right," he added to me. "Sorry to see yu' get so out o' breath afteh the train. Is your valise sufferin' any?"
"Who's he?" inquired Scipio, curiously40, turning to me.
The Southerner sat with a newspaper on the rear platform of a caboose. The caboose stood hitched41 behind a mile or so of freight train, and the train was headed west. So here was the deputy foreman, his steers delivered in Chicago, his men (I could hear them) safe in the caboose, his paper in his lap, and his legs dangling42 at ease over the railing. He wore the look of a man for whom things are going smooth. And for me the way to Billings was smooth now, also.
"Who's he?" Scipio repeated.
But from inside the caboose loud laughter and noise broke on us. Some one was reciting "And it's my night to howl."
"We'll all howl when we get to Rawhide," said some other one; and they howled now.
"These hyeh steam cyars," said the Virginian to Scipio, "make a man's language mighty43 nigh as speedy as his travel." Of Shorty he took no notice whatever--no more than of the manifestations44 in the caboose.
"So yu' heard me speakin' to the express," said Scipio. "Well, I guess, sometimes I--See here," he exclaimed, for the Virginian was gravely considering him, "I may have talked some, but I walked a whole lot. You didn't catch ME squandering45 no speed. Soon as--"
"I noticed," said the Virginian, "thinkin' came quicker to yu' than runnin'."
I was glad I was not Shorty, to have my measure taken merely by my way of missing a train. And of course I was sorry that I had kicked my valise.
"Oh, I could tell yu'd been enjoyin' us!" said Scipio. "Observin' somebody else's scrape always kind o' rests me too. Maybe you're a philosopher, but maybe there's a pair of us drawd in this deal."
Approval now grew plain upon the face of the Virginian. "By your laigs," said he, "you are used to the saddle."
"I'd be called used to it, I expect."
"By your hands," said the Southerner, again, "you ain't roped many steers lately. Been cookin' or something?"
"Say," retorted Scipio, "tell my future some now. Draw a conclusion from my mouth."
"I'm right distressed," unsevered the gentle Southerner, "we've not a drop in the outfit."
"Oh, drink with me uptown!" cried Scipio "I'm pleased to death with yu'."
The Virginian glanced where the saloons stood just behind the station, and shook his head.
"Why, it ain't a bit far to whiskey from here!" urged the other, plaintively46. "Step down, now. Scipio le Moyne's my name. Yes, you're lookin' for my brass47 ear-rings. But there ain't no ear-rings on me. I've been white for a hundred years. Step down. I've a forty-dollar thirst."
"You're certainly white," began the Virginian. "But--"
Here the caboose resumed:
"I'm wild, and woolly, and full of peas;
I'm hard to curry48 above the knees;
I'm a she-wolf from Bitter Creek, and
It's my night to ho-o-wl--"
And as they howled and stamped, the wheels of the caboose began to turn gently and to murmur49.
The Virginian rose suddenly. "Will yu' save that thirst and take a forty-dollar job?"
"Missin' trains, profanity, or what?" said Scipio.
"I'll tell yu' soon as I'm sure."
At this Scipio looked hard at the Virginian. "Why, you're talkin' business!" said he, and leaped on the caboose, where I was already. "I WAS thinkin' of Rawhide," he added, "but I ain't any more."
"Well, good luck!" said Shorty, on the track behind us.
"Oh, say!" said Scipio, "he wanted to go on that train, just like me."
"Get on," called the Virginian. "But as to getting a job, he ain't just like you." So Shorty came, like a lost dog when you whistle to him.
Our wheels clucked over the main-line switch. A train-hand threw it shut after us, jumped aboard, and returned forward over the roofs. Inside the caboose they had reached the third howling of the she-wolf.
"Friends of yourn?" said Scipio.
"My outfit," drawled the Virginian.
"Do yu' always travel outside?" inquired Scipio.
"It's lonesome in there," returned the deputy foreman. And here one of them came out, slamming the door.
"Hell!" he said, at sight of the distant town. Then, truculently50, to the Virginian, "I told you I was going to get a bottle here."
"Have your bottle, then," said the deputy foreman, and kicked him off into Dakota. (It was not North Dakota yet; they had not divided it.) The Virginian had aimed his pistol at about the same time with his boot. Therefore the man sat in Dakota quietly, watching us go away into Montana, and offering no objections. Just before he became too small to make out, we saw him rise and remove himself back toward the saloons.
收听单词发音 |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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diverged
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| 分开( diverge的过去式和过去分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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sluiced
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| v.冲洗( sluice的过去式和过去分词 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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stagecoach
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| n.公共马车 | |
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rawhide
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| n.生牛皮 | |
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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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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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harmoniously
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| 和谐地，调和地 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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bruises
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| n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 ) | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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screeching
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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outstripped
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| v.做得比…更好，（在赛跑等中）超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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ooze
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| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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bluffs
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| 恐吓( bluff的名词复数 )； 悬崖； 峭壁 | |
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fawning
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| adj.乞怜的，奉承的v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的现在分词 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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wheedling
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的现在分词 ) | |
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appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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steers
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| 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 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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42
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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squandering
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的现在分词 ) | |
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plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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48
curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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truculently
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