Before the gray dawn one Sunday morning Bob, happening to awaken1, heard a strange, rumbling2, distant sound to the west. His first thought was that the power dam had been opened and was discharging its waters, but as his senses came to him, he realized that this could not be so. He stretched himself idly. A mocking bird uttered a phrase outside. No dregs of drowsiness3 remained in him, so he dressed and walked out into the freshness of the new morning. Here the rumbling sound, which he had concluded had been an effect of his half-conscious imagination, came clearer to his ears. He listened for a moment, then walked rapidly to the Lone4 Pine Hill from whose slight elevation5 he could see abroad over the low mountains to the west. The gray light before sunrise was now strengthening every moment. By the time Bob had reached the summit of the knoll6 it had illuminated7 the world.
A wandering suction of air toward the higher peaks brought with it the murmur8 of a multitude. Bob topped the hill and turned his eyes to the west. A great cloud of dust arose from among the chaparral and oaks, drifting slowly but certainly toward the Ranges. Bob could now make out the bawling9, shouting, lowing of great herds10 on the march. In spite of pledges and promises, in spite of California John's reports, of Thorne's recommendations, of Plant's assurances, Simeon Wright's cattle were again coming in!
Bob shook his head sadly, and his clear-cut young face was grave. No one knew better than himself what this must mean to the mountain people, for his late spring and early fall work had brought him much in contact with them. He walked thoughtfully down the hill.
When just on the outskirts11 of the little village he was overtaken by George Pollock on horseback. The mountaineer was jogging along at a foot pace, his spurs jingling12, his bridle13 hand high after the Western fashion. When he saw Bob he reined14 in, nodding a good morning. Bob noticed that he had strapped15 on a blanket and slicker, and wore his six-shooter.
"You look as though you were going on a journey," remarked Bob.
"Thinking of it," said Pollock. Bob glanced up quickly at the tone of his voice, which somehow grated unusually on the young man's ear, but the mountaineer's face was placid16 under the brim of his floppy17 old hat. "Might as well," continued the cattleman after a moment. "Nothin' special to keep me."
"I'm glad Mrs. Pollock is better," ventured Bob.
"She's dead," stated Pollock without emotion. "Died this morning about two o'clock."
Bob cried out at the utterly18 unexpected shock of this statement. Pollock looked down on him as though from a great height.
"I sort of expected it," he answered Bob's exclamation19. "I reckon we won't talk of it. 'Spose you see that Wright's cattle is coming in again? I'm sorry on account of Jim and the other boys. It wipes me out, of course, but it don't matter as far as I'm concerned, because I'm going away, anyway."
Bob laid his hand on the man's stirrup leather and walked alongside, thinking rapidly. He did not know how to take hold of the situation.
"Where are you thinking of going?" he asked.
Pollock looked down at him.
"What's that to you?" he demanded roughly.
"Why--nothing--I was simply interested," gasped20 Bob in astonishment21.
The mountaineer's eyes bored him through and through. Finally the man dropped his gaze.
"I'll tell you," said he at last, "'cause you and Jim are the only square ones I know. I'm going to Mexico. I never been there. I'm going by Vermilion Valley, and Mono Pass. If they ask you, you can tell 'em different. I want you to do something for me."
"Gladly," said Bob. "What is it?"
"Just hold my horse for me," requested Pollock, dismounting. "He stands fine tied to the ground, but there's a few things he's plumb22 afraid of, and I don't want to take chances on his getting away. He goes plumb off the grade for freight teams; he can't stand the crack of their whips. Sounds like a gun to him, I reckon. He won't stand for shooting neither."
While talking the mountaineer handed the end of his hair rope into Bob's keeping.
"Hang on to him," he said, turning away.
George Pollock sauntered easily down the street. At Supervisor24 Plant's front gate, he turned and passed within. Bob saw him walk rapidly up the front walk, and pound on Plant's bedroom door. This, as usual in the mountains, opened directly out on the verandah. With an exclamation Bob sprang forward, dropping the hair rope. He was in time to see the bedroom door snatched open from within, and Plant's huge figure, white-robed, appear in the doorway25. The Supervisor was evidently angry.
"What in hell do you want?" he demanded.
"You," said the mountaineer.
He dropped his hand quite deliberately26 to his holster, flipped27 the forty-five out to the level of his hip23, and fired twice, without looking at the weapon. Plant's expression changed; turned blank. For an appreciable28 instant he tottered29 upright, then his knees gave out beneath him and he fell forward with a crash. George Pollock leaned over him. Apparently30 satisfied after a moment's inspection31, the mountaineer straightened, dropped his weapon into the holster, and turned away.
All this took place in so short a space of time that Bob had not moved five feet from the moment he guessed Pollock's intention to the end of the tragedy. As the first shot rang out, Bob turned and seized again the hair rope attached to Pollock's horse. His habit of rapid decision and cool judgment32 showed him in a flash that he was too late to interfere33, and revealed to him what he must do.
Pollock, looking neither to the right nor the left, took the rope Bob handed him and swung into the saddle. His calm had fallen from him. His eyes burned and his face worked. With a muffled34 cry of pain he struck spurs to his horse and disappeared.
Considerably35 shaken, Bob stood still, considering what he must do. It was manifestly his duty to raise the alarm. If he did so, however, he would have to bear witness to what he knew; and this, for George Pollock's sake, he desired to avoid. He was the only one who could know positively36 and directly and immediately how Plant had died. The sound of the shots had not aroused the village. If they had been heard, no one would have paid any attention to them; the discharge of firearms was too common an occurrence to attract special notice. It was better to let the discovery come in the natural course of events.
However, Bob was neither a coward nor a fool. He wanted to save George Pollock if he could, but he had no intention of abandoning another plain duty in the matter. Without the slightest hesitation37 he opened Plant's gate and walked to the verandah where the huge, unlovely hulk huddled38 in the doorway. There, with some loathing39, he determined40 the fact that the man was indeed dead. Convinced as to this point, he returned to the street, and looked carefully up and down it. It was still quite deserted41.
His mind in a whirl of horror, pity, and an unconfessed, hidden satisfaction, he returned to Auntie Belle's. The customary daylight breakfast for the teamsters had been omitted on account of the Sabbath. A thin curl of smoke was just beginning to rise straight up from the kitchen stovepipe. Bob, his mouth suddenly dry and sticky, went around to the back porch, where a huge _olla_ hung always full of spring water. He rounded the corner to run plump against Oldham, tilted42 back in a chair smoking the butt43 of a cigar.
In his agitation44 of mind, Bob had no stomach for casual conversation. By an effort he smoothed out his manner and collected his thoughts.
"How are you, Mr. Oldham?" he greeted the older man; "when did you get in?"
"About an hour ago," replied Oldham. His spare figure in the gray business suit did not stir from its lazy posture45, nor did the expression of his thin sardonic46 face change, but somehow, after swallowing his drink, Bob decided47 to revise his first intention of escaping to his room.
"An hour ago," he repeated, when the import of the words finally filtered through his mental turmoil48. "You travelled up at night then?"
"Yes. It's getting hot on the plains."
"Got in just before daylight, then?"
"Just before. I'd have made it sooner, but I had to work my way through the cattle."
"Where's your team?"
"I left it down at the Company's stables; thought you wouldn't mind."
"Sure not," said Bob.
The Company's stables were at the other end of the village. Oldham must have walked the length of the street. He had said it was before daylight; but the look of the man's eyes was quizzical and cold behind the glasses. Still, it was always quizzical and cold. Bob called himself a panicky fool. Just the same, he wished now he had looked for footprints in the dust of the street. While his brain was thus busy with swift conjecture49 and the weighing of probabilities, his tongue was making random50 conversation, and his vacant eye was taking in and reporting to his intelligence the most trivial things. Generally speaking, his intelligence did not catch the significance of what his eyes reported until after an appreciable interval51. Thus he noted52 that Oldham had smoked his cigar down to a short butt. This unimportant fact meant nothing, until his belated mind told him that never before had he seen the man actually smoking. Oldham always held a cigar between his lips, but he contented53 himself with merely chewing it or rolling it about. And this was very early, before breakfast.
"Never saw you smoke before," he remarked abruptly54, as this bubble of irrelevant55 thought came to the surface.
"No?" said Oldham, politely.
"It would make me woozy all day to smoke before I ate," said Bob, his voice trailing away, as his inner ear once more took up its listening for the hubbub56 that must soon break.
As the moments went by, the suspense57 of this waiting became almost unbearable58. A small portion of him kept up its semblance59 of conversation with Oldham; another small portion of him made minute and careful notes of trivial things; all the rest of him, body and soul, was listening, in the hope that soon, very soon, a scream would break the suspense. From time to time he felt that Oldham was looking at him queerly, and he rallied his faculties60 to the task of seeming natural.
"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the older man at last. "You're mighty61 pale. You want to watch out where you drink water around some of these places."
Bob came to with a snap.
"Didn't sleep well," said he, once more himself.
"Well, that wouldn't trouble me," yawned Oldham; "if it hadn't been for cigars I'd have dropped asleep in this chair an hour ago. You said you couldn't smoke before breakfast; neither can I ordinarily. This isn't before breakfast for me, it's after supper; and I've smoked two just to keep awake."
"Why keep awake?" asked Bob.
"When I pass away, it'll be for all day. I want to eat first."
There, at last, it had come! A man down the street shouted. There followed a pounding at doors, and then the murmur of exclamations62, questions and replies.
"It sounds like some excitement," yawned Oldham, bringing his chair down with a thump63. "They haven't even rung the first bell yet; let's wander out and stretch our legs."
He sauntered off the wide back porch toward the front of the house. Bob followed. When near the gate Bob's mind grasped the significance of one of the trivial details that his eyes had reported to it some moments before. He uttered an exclamation, and returned hurriedly to the back porch to verify his impressions. They had been correct. Oldham had stated definitely that he had arrived before daylight, that he had been sitting in his chair for over an hour; that during that time he had smoked two cigars through.
_Neither on the broad porch, nor on the ground near it, nor in any possible receptacle were there any cigar ashes.
收听单词发音 |
1
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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drowsiness
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| n.睡意；嗜睡 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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knoll
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| n.小山，小丘 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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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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bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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reined
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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15
strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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floppy
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| adj.松软的，衰弱的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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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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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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supervisor
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| n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师 | |
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25
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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27
flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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28
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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tottered
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| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的过去式和过去分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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30
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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31
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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33
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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34
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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35
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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38
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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39
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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40
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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41
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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42
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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43
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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44
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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45
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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46
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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47
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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48
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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49
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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50
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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51
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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52
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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53
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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54
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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55
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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56
hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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57
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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58
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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59
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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60
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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61
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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62
exclamations
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| n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词 | |
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63
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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