Part 5 Chapter 35

"Good heavens!" cried Amy. "What an awful thing!"

"Yes, ma'am," said Ware¹; "this is certainly tough. But I can't see but it was a plumb² accident. Who'd have thought he'd be coming along the road just at that minute."

"Of course, you're not to blame," Amy reassured³ him quickly. "We must get help. Of course, he's quite dead."

Ware nodded, gazing down at his victim reflectively.

"I was shootin' a little high," he remarked at last.

Up to this moment Bob had said nothing.

"If it will relieve your mind, any," he told Ware, "it isn't such a case of innocent bystander as you may think. This man is the one who hired Saleratus Bill to abduct⁴ me in the first place; and probably to kill me in the second. I have a suspicion he got what he deserved."

"Oh!" cried Amy, looking at him reproachfully.

"It's a fact," Bob insisted. "I know his connection with all this better than you do, and his being on this road was no accident. It was to see his orders carried out."

Ware was looking at him shrewdly.

"That fits," he declared. "I couldn't figure why my old friend Bill didn't cut loose. But he's got a head on him."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, when he see Oldham dropped, what use was there of going to shooting? It would just make trouble for him and he couldn't hope for no pay. He just faded."

"He's a quick thinker, then," said Bob.

"You bet you!"

The two men laid Oldham's body under the shade. As they disposed it decently, Bob experienced again that haunting sense of having known him elsewhere that had on several occasions assailed⁵ his memory. The man's face was familiar to him with a familiarity that Bob somehow felt antedated⁶ his California acquaintance.

"We must get to the mill and send a wagon⁷ for him," Ware was saying.

But Amy suddenly turned faint, and was unable to proceed.

"It's perfectly⁸ silly of me!" she cried indignantly. "The idea of my feeling faint! It makes me so angry!"

"It's perfectly natural," Bob told her. "I think you've shown a heap of nerve. Most girls would have flopped⁹ over."

The men helped her to a streamlet some hundreds of yards away. Here it was agreed that Ware should proceed in search of a conveyance¹⁰; and that Bob and Amy should there await his return.

1 ware   

n.(常用复数)商品，货物

参考例句：

• The shop sells a great variety of porcelain ware.这家店铺出售品种繁多的瓷器。
• Good ware will never want a chapman.好货不须叫卖。

2 plumb   

adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深

参考例句：

• No one could plumb the mystery.没人能看破这秘密。
• It was unprofitable to plumb that sort of thing.这种事弄个水落石出没有什么好处。

3 reassured   

adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The captain's confidence during the storm reassured the passengers. 在风暴中船长的信念使旅客们恢复了信心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The doctor reassured the old lady. 医生叫那位老妇人放心。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 abduct   

vt.诱拐，拐带，绑架

参考例句：

• The police caught the man who tried to abduct the boy for ransom.警察抓住了那个企图拐走这男孩以便勒索赎金的家伙。
• The news that we see those use network abduct children sometimes filled with apprehension.我们有时看到那些利用网络诱拐儿童的新闻都心惊肉跳。

5 assailed   

v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对

参考例句：

• He was assailed with fierce blows to the head. 他的头遭到猛烈殴打。
• He has been assailed by bad breaks all these years. 这些年来他接二连三地倒霉。 来自《用法词典》

6 antedated   

v.（在历史上）比…为早( antedate的过去式和过去分词 )；先于；早于；（在信、支票等上）填写比实际日期早的日期

参考例句：

• That event antedated World War Ⅱ. 那事件发生在第二次世界大战之前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The hot weather antedated my departure for Beidaihe. 炎热的天气使我提前动身前往北戴河。 来自互联网

7 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

8 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

9 flopped   

v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅

参考例句：

• Exhausted, he flopped down into a chair. 他筋疲力尽，一屁股坐到椅子上。
• It was a surprise to us when his play flopped. 他那出戏一败涂地，出乎我们的预料。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 conveyance   

n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具

参考例句：

• Bicycles have become the most popular conveyance for Chinese people.自行车已成为中国人最流行的代步工具。
• Its another,older,usage is a synonym for conveyance.它的另一个更古老的习惯用法是作为财产转让的同义词使用。