They stood with the wind taking them with its teeth and pressing them heavily back. They could hear the fire flare1 and flutter in the stove; then the wind screamed again, and the wail2 came down to them.
"Uncle Bill!" repeated Bull and, lowering his head, strode into the storm.
The others exchanged frightened glances and then followed, but not outside of the shaft3 of light from the door. In the first place it was probably not their father. Who could imagine Bill shouting for help? Such a thing had never been dreamed of by his worst enemies, and they knew that their father's were legion. Besides it was cold, and this was a wild-goose chase which meant a chilled hide and no gain.
But, presently, through the darkness they made out the form of a horseman and the great bulk of Bull coming back beside him. Then they ran out into the night.
They recognized the hatless, squat4 figure of their father at once, even in the dark, with the wind twitching5 his beard sideways. When they called to him he did not speak. Then they saw that Bull was leading the horse.
Plainly something was wrong, and presently they discovered that Bill Campbell was actually tied upon his horse. He gave no orders, and they cut the ropes in silence. Still he did not dismount.
"Bull," he commanded, "lift me off the hoss!"
The giant plucked him out of the saddle and placed him on the ground, but his legs buckled6 under him, and he fell forward on his face. Any of the three could have saved him, but the spectacle of the terrible old man's helplessness benumbed their senses and their muscles.
"Carry me in!" said Bill at last.
Bull lifted him and bore him gingerly through the door and placed him on the bunk8. The light revealed a grisly spectacle. Crimson9 stains and dirt literally10 covered him; his left leg was bandaged below the knee; his right shoulder was roughly splinted with small twigs11 and swathed in cloth.
The long ride, with his legs tied in place, had apparently12 paralyzed his nerves below the hips13. He remained crushed against the wall, his legs falling in the odd position in which they were put down by Bull. It was illustrative of his character that, even in this crisis, not one of the three dared venture an expression of sympathy, a question, a suggestion.
Crumpled14 against the wall, his head bowed forward and cramped15, the stern old man still controlled them with the upward glance of his eyes through the shag of eyebrows16.
"Gimme my pipe," he commanded.
Three hands reached for it—pipe, tobacco, matches were proffered17 to him. Before he accepted the articles he swept their faces with a glance of satisfaction. Without attempting to change the position which must have been torturing him, he filled the pipe bowl, his fingers moving as if he had partially18 lost control of them. He filled it raggedly19, shreds20 of tobacco hanging down around the bowl. He bent21 his head to meet the left hand which he raised with difficulty, then he tried to light a match. But he seemed incapable22 of moving the sulphur head fast enough to bring it to a light with friction23. Match after match crumbled24 as he continued his efforts.
"Here, lemme light a match for you, Dad!"
Harry25's offer was received with a silent curling of the lips and a glint of the yellow teeth beneath that made him step back. The old man continued his work. There were a dozen wrecked27 matches before the blood began to stir in his numbed7 arm and he was able to light the match and the pipe. He drew several breaths of the smoke deep into his lungs. For the moment the savage28, hungry satisfaction changed his face; they could tell by that alteration29 what agonies he had been suffering before.
Presently he frowned and set about changing his position with infinite labor30. The left leg was helpless, and so was the right arm. Yet, after much labor, he managed to stuff a roll of the blankets into the corner and then shift himself until his back rested against this support. But his strength deserted31 him again. His pipe was dropped down in the left hand, his head sagged32 back.
Still they dared not approach him. His two sons stood about, shifting from one foot to another, as if they expected a blow to descend33 upon them at any moment, as if each labored34 movement of terrible old Bill Campbell caused them the agony which he must be suffering.
As for Bull Hunter, he sat again on the floor, his chin dropped upon his great fist, and wondered for a time at his uncle. It was the second great event to him, all in one day. First he had discovered that by fighting a thing, one can actually conquer. Second, he discovered that great fighter, his uncle, had been beaten. The impossible had happened twice between one sunrise and sunset.
But men and the affairs of men could not hold his eye overlong. Presently he dropped his head again and was deep in the pages of his book. At length Bill Campbell heaved up his head. It was to glare into the scared faces of his sons.
"How long are you goin' to keep me waiting for food?"
The order snapped them into action. They sprang here and there, and presently the thick slices of bacon were hissing35 on the pan, and the clouds of bacon smoke wafted36 through the cabin. When they reached Bill Campbell he blinked. Pain had given him a maddening appetite, yet he puffed37 steadily38 on his pipe and said nothing.
The tin plate of potatoes and bacon was shoved before him, and the big tin cup of coffee. The three younger men sat in silence and devoured39 their own meal; the two sons swiftly, but Bull Hunter fell into musings, and part of his food remained uneaten. Then his glance wandered to his uncle and saw a thing to wonder at—a horrible thing in its own way.
The nerveless left hand of the mountaineer, which had barely possessed40 steadiness to light a match, was far too inaccurate41 to handle a fork; and Bull saw his uncle stuffing his mouth with his fingers and daring the others to watch him.
Something like pity came to Bull. It was so rare an emotion to connect with human beings that he hardly recognized it, for men and women, as he knew them, were brilliant, clever creatures, perfectly42 at home in the midst of difficulties that appalled43 him. But, as he watched the old man feed himself like an animal, the emotion that rose in Bull was the sadness he felt when he watched old Maggie stumbling among the rocks. There was something wrong with the forelegs of Maggie, and she was only half a horse when it came to going downhill on broken ground. He had always thought of the great strength that once must have been hers, and he pitied her for the change. He found himself pitying Uncle Bill Campbell in much the same way.
When Bill raised his tin cup he spilled scalding coffee on his breast. The old man merely set his teeth and continued to glare his challenge at the three. But not one of the three dared speak a word, dared make an offer of assistance.
What baffled the slow mind of Bull Hunter was the effort to imagine a force so great that battle with it had reduced the invincible45 Campbell to this shaken wreck26 of his old self. Mere44 bullets could tear wounds in flesh and break bones; but mere bullets could not wreck the nerves of a man so that his hand trembled as if he were drunk or hysterical46 with weariness.
He tried to work out this problem. He conceived a man of gigantic size, vast muscles, inexhaustible strength. The power of a bear and the swift cunning of a wild cat—such must have been the man who struck down Uncle Bill and sent him home a shattered remnant of his old self.
There was another mystery. Why did the destroyer not finish his task? Why did he take pity on Uncle Bill Campbell and bind47 up the wounds he had himself made? Here the mind of Bull Hunter paused. He could not pass the mysterious idea of another than himself pitying Uncle Bill. It was pitying a hawk48 in the sky.
Harry was taking away the dishes and throwing them in the little tub of lukewarm water where the grease would be carelessly soused off them.
There was a familiar ring in his voice. Woe50 to them if they had not carried out his orders! All three of the young men quaked, and Bull laid aside his book.
"We done it," answered Joe in a quavering voice.
"You done it?" asked Bill.
"We—we dug her pretty well clear, then Bull pulled her up."
Some of the wrath51 ebbed52 out of the face of Bill as he glanced at the huge form of Bull. "Stand up!" he ordered.
Bull arose.
The keen eye of the old man went over him from head to foot slowly.
"Someday—maybe!"
What he expected from Bull "someday" remained unknown. The dishwashing was swiftly finished. Then Uncle Bill made a feeble effort to get off his boots, but his strength had been ebbing54 for some time. His sons dared not interfere55 as the old man leaned slowly over and strove to tug56 the boot from his wounded leg; but Bull remembered, all in a flood of tenderness, some half-dozen small, kind things that his uncle had said to him.
That was long, long ago, when the orphan57 came into the Campbell family. In those days his stupidity had been attributed largely to the speed with which he had grown, and he was expected to become normally bright later on; and in those days Bill Campbell occasionally let fall some gentle word to the great boy with his big, frightened eyes. And the half-dozen instances came back to Bull in this moment.
He stepped between his cousins and laid his hand on the foot of his uncle. It brought a snarl58 from the old man, a snarl that made Bull straighten and step back, but he came again and put aside the shaking hand of Uncle Bill. His cousins stood at one side, literally quaking. It was the first time that they had actually seen their father defied. They saw the huge hand of Bull settle around the leg of their father, well below the wound and then the grip closed to avoid the danger of opening the wound when the boot was worked off. After this he pulled the tight riding boot slowly from the swollen59 foot.
Uncle Bill was no longer silent. The moment the big hand of his nephew closed over his leg he launched a stream of curses that chilled the blood and drove his own sons farther back into the shadow of the corner. He demanded that they stand forth60 and tear Bull limb from limb. He disinherited them for cowardice61. He threatened Bull with a vengeance62 compared with which the thunderbolt would be a feeble flare of light. He swore that he was entirely capable of taking care of himself, that he would step down into his grave sooner than be nursed and petted by any living human being.
All the while, the great Bull leaned impassively over the wounded man and finally worked the boot free. That was not all. Uncle Bill had slipped over until he could reach a billet of wood beside his bunk. He struck at Bull's head with it, but the stick was brushed out of his palsied fingers with a single gesture, and, while Uncle Bill groaned63 with fury and impotence, Bull continued the task of preparing him for bed. He straightened the old body of the terrible Campbell; he heated water in the tub and washed away stains and dirt; he took off the stained bandages and replaced them with clean ones.
His cousins helped in the latter part of this work. Weakness had reduced Uncle Bill to speechlessness. Finally the head of Bill Campbell was laid on a double fold of blanket in lieu of a pillow. A pipe had been tamped64 full and lighted by Bull and—crowning insult—set between Bill's teeth. When all this was accomplished65 Bull retired66 to his corner, picked up his book, and was instantly absorbed.
In the hushed atmosphere it seemed that a terrible blow had fallen, and that another was about to fall. Harry and Joe were as men stunned67, but they looked upon their father with a gathering68 complacency. They had found it demonstrated that it was possible to disobey their father without being instantly destroyed. They were taking the lesson to heart. And indeed old Bill Campbell himself seemed to be slowly admitting that he was beaten.
The illusion of absolute self-sufficiency, which he had built up through the years for the sake of imposing69 upon his sons and Bull Hunter, was now destroyed. At a single stroke he had been exposed as an old man, already beaten in battle by a foeman and now requiring as much care as a sick woman. The shame of it burned in him; but the comfort of the smoothed bunk and the filled pipe between his teeth was a blessing70. He found to his own surprise that he was not hating Bull with a tithe71 of his usual vigor72. He began to realize that he had come to the end of his period of command. When he left that sickbed he could only advise.
As a king about to die he looked at his heirs and found them strong and sufficient and pleasing to the eye. Nowhere in the mountains were there two boys as tall, as straight, as deadly with rifle and revolver, as fierce, as relentless73, as these two boys of his. He had sharpened their tempers, and he rejoiced in the sullen74 ferocity with which they looked at him now, unloving, cunning, biding75 their time and finding that it had almost come. But he was not yet done. His body was wrecked; there remained his mind, and they would find it a great power. But he did not talk until the lights had been put out and the three youths were in their separate bunks76. Then, without the light to show them his helpless body, in the darkness, which would give his mind a freer play, he began to tell his story.
It was a long narrative77. Far back in the years he had prospected78 with a youth named Pete Reeve. They had located a claim and they had gone to town together to celebrate. In the celebration he had drunk with Reeve till the boy stupefied. Then he had induced Reeve to gamble for his share of the claim and had won it. Afterward79 Pete swore to be even with him. But the years had gone by without another meeting of the men.
Only today, riding through the mountains, he had come on a dried-up wisp of a man with long, iron-gray hair, a sharp, withered80 face, and hands like the claws of a bird. He rode a fine bay gelding, and had stopped Bill to ask some questions about the region above the timberline because he was drifting south and intended to cross the summits. Bill had described the way, and suddenly, out of their talk, came the revelation of their identities—the one was Bill Campbell, the other was Pete Reeve.
At this point in the story Bull heaved himself slowly, softly up on one arm to listen. He was beginning to get the full sense of the words for the first time. This narrative was like a book done in a commoner language.
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收听单词发音
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1
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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4
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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7
numbed
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| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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10
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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11
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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13
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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14
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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15
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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16
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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17
proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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raggedly
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| 破烂地，粗糙地 | |
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shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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21
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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22
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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24
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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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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26
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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27
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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28
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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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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31
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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32
sagged
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| 下垂的 | |
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33
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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35
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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36
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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38
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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39
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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40
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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41
inaccurate
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| adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的 | |
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42
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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43
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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44
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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45
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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46
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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47
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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48
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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49
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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50
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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51
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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52
ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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53
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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54
ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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55
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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56
tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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57
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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58
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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59
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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60
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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61
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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62
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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63
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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64
tamped
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| v.捣固( tamp的过去式和过去分词 )；填充；（用炮泥）封炮眼口；夯实 | |
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65
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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66
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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67
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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68
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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69
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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70
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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71
tithe
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| n.十分之一税；v.课什一税，缴什一税 | |
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72
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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73
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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74
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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biding
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| v.等待，停留( bide的现在分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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76
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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77
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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78
prospected
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| vi.勘探（prospect的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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79
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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80
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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