章节正文
probably have killed ourselves with it. I suppose the calabash
was about the best thing for us under the circumstances.
The Mexican went out to hunt up his horse. I called the girl
back.
"How far is it to Mollyhay?" I asked her.
"A league," said she.
So we bad been near our journey's end after all, and Denton was
probably all right.
The Mexican went away horseback. The girl fed us calabash. We
waited.
About one o'clock a group of horsemen rode over the hill. When
they came near enough I recognised Denton at their head. That
man was of tempered steel--
They had followed back along the beach, caught our trail where we
had turned off, and so discovered us. Denton had fortunately
found kind and intelligent people.
We said good-bye to the Mexican girl. I made Schwartz give her
one of his gold pieces.
But Denton could not wait for us to say "hullo" even, he was so
anxious to get back to town, so we mounted the horses he had
brought us, and rode off, very wobbly.
We lived three weeks in Mollyhay. It took us that long to get
fed up. The lady I stayed with made a dish of kid meat and
stuffed olives--
Why, an hour after filling myself up to the muzzle I'd be hungry
again, and scouting round to houses looking for more to eat!
We talked things over a good deal, after we had gained a little
strength. I wanted to take a little flyer at Guaymas to see if I
could run across this Handy Solomon person, but Denton pointed
out that Anderson would be expecting just that, and would take
mighty good care to be scarce. His idea was that we'd do better
to get hold of a boat and some water casks, and lug off the
treasure we had stumbled over. Denton told us that the idea of
going back and scooping all that dinero up with a shovel had
kept him going, just as the idea of getting even with Anderson
had kept me going. Schwartz said that after he'd carried that
heavy gold over the first day, he made up his mind he'd get the
spending of it or bust. That's why he hated so to throw it away.
There were lots of fishing boats in the harbour, and we hired
one, and a man to run it for next to nothing a week. We laid a
course north, and in six days anchored in our bay.
I tell you it looked queer. There were the charred sticks of the
fire, and the coffeepot lying on its side. We took off our hats
at poor Billy's grave a minute, and then climbed over the
cholla-covered hill carrying our picks and shovels, and the
canvas sacks to take the treasure away in.
There was no trouble in reaching the sandy flat. But when we got
there we found it torn up from one end to the other. A few
scattered timbers and three empty chests with the covers pried
off alone remained. Handy Solomon had been there before us.
We went back to our boat sick at heart. Nobody said a word. We
went aboard and made our Greaser boatman head for Yuma. It took
us a week to get there. We were all of us glum, but Denton was
the worst of the lot. Even after we'd got back to town and
fallen into our old ways of life, he couldn't seem to get over
it. He seemed plumb possessed of gloom, and moped around like a
chicken with the pip. This surprised me, for I didn't think the
loss of money would hit him so hard. It didn't hit any of us
very hard in those days.
One evening I took him aside and fed him a drink, and
expostulated with him.
"Oh, HELL, Rogers," he burst out, "I don't care about the loot.
But, suffering cats, think how that fellow sized us up for a lot
of pattern-made fools; and how right he was about, it. Why all
he did was to sail out of sight around the next corner. He knew
we'd start across country; and we did. All we had to do was to
lay low, and save our legs. He was BOUND to come back. And we
might have nailed him when he landed."
"That's about all there was to it," concluded Colorado Rogers,
after a pause, "--except that I've been looking for him ever
since, and when I heard you singing that song I naturally thought
I'd landed."
"And you never saw him again?" asked Windy Bill.
"Well," chuckled Rogers, "I did about ten year later. It was in
Tucson. I was in the back of a store, when the door in front
opened and this man came in. He stopped at the little cigar-case
by the door. In about one jump I was on his neck. I jerked him
over backwards before he knew what had struck him, threw him on
his face, got my hands in his back-hair, and began to jump his
features against the floor. Then all at once I noted that this
man had two arms; so of course he was the wrong fellow. "Oh,
excuse me," said I, and ran out the back door."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE HONK-HONK BREED
It was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather bad been
favourable; the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried
up, the beef had lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in
short, there was nothing to do. Sang had given us a baked
bread-pudding with raisins in it. We filled it--in a wash basin
full of it--on top of a few incidental pounds of chile con, baked
beans, soda biscuits, "air tights," and other delicacies. Then
we adjourned with our pipes to the shady side of the blacksmith's
shop where we could watch the ravens on top the adobe wall of the
corral. Somebody told a story about ravens. This led to
road-runners. This suggested rattlesnakes. They started Windy
Bill.
"Speakin' of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the
great-granddaddy of all the bullsnakes up at Lead in the Black
Hills. I was only a kid then. This wasn't no such tur'ble long
a snake, but he was more'n a foot thick. Looked just like a
sahuaro stalk. Man name of Terwilliger Smith catched it. He
named this yere bullsnake Clarence, and got it so plumb gentle it
followed him everywhere. One day old P. T. Barnum come along and
wanted to buy this Clarence snake--offered Terwilliger a thousand
cold--but Smith wouldn't part with the snake nohow. So finally
they fixed up a deal so Smith could go along with the show. They
shoved Clarence in a box in the baggage car, but after a while
Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and starts to crawl back
to find his master. Just as he is half-way between the baggage
car and the smoker, the couplin' give way--right on that heavy
grade between Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence wound
his head 'round one brake wheel and his tail around the other,
and held that train together to the bottom of the grade. But it
stretched him twenty-eight feet and they had to advertise him as
a boa-constrictor."
Windy Bill's story of the faithful bullsnake aroused to
reminiscence the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held forth as
follows:
Wall, I've see things and I've heerd things, some of them ornery,
and some you'd love to believe, they was that gorgeous and
improbable. Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin'
events my special pleasure and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of
the only chanst I ever had to ring in business and pleasure and
hobby all in one grand merry-go-round of joy. It come about like
this:
One day, a few year back, I was sittin' on the beach at Santa
Barbara watchin' the sky stay up, and wonderin' what to do with
my year's wages, when a little squinch-eye round-face with big
bow spectacles came and plumped down beside me.
"Did you ever stop to think," says he, shovin' back his hat,
"that if the horsepower delivered by them waves on this beach in
one single hour could be concentrated behind washin' machines, it
would be enough to wash all the shirts for a city of four hundred
and fifty-one thousand one hundred and thirty-six people?"
"Can't say I ever did," says I, squintin' at him sideways.
"Fact," says he, "and did it ever occur to you that if all the
food a man eats in the course of a natural life could be gathered
together at one time, it would fill a wagon-train twelve miles
long?"
"You make me hungry," says I.
"And ain't it interestin' to reflect," he goes on, "that if all
the finger-nail parin's of the human race for one year was to be
collected and subjected to hydraulic pressure it would equal in
size the pyramid of Cheops?"
"Look yere," says I, sittin' up, "did YOU ever pause to
excogitate that if all the hot air you is dispensin' was to be
collected together it would fill a balloon big enough to waft you
and me over that Bullyvard of Palms to yonder gin mill on the
corner?"
He didn't say nothin' to that--just yanked me to my feet, faced
me towards the gin mill above mentioned, and exerted considerable
pressure on my arm in urgin' of me forward.
"You ain't so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In
important matters you are plumb decisive."
We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a
chicken sandwich.
"Chickens," says he, gazin' at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece
in this country, and plumb scarce. Did you ever pause to ponder
over the returns chickens would give on a small investment? Say
you start with ten hens. Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of
which allow a loss of say six for childish accidents. At the end
of the year you has eighty chickens. At the end of two years
that flock has increased to six hundred and twenty. At the end
of the third year--"
He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was
occupyin' of an old ranch fifty mile from anywhere. When they
run stage-coaches this joint used to be a roadhouse. The outlook
was on about a thousand little brown foothills. A road two miles
four rods two foot eleven inches in sight run by in front of us.
It come over one foothill and disappeared over another. I know
just how long it was, for later in the game I measured it.
Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled
with chickens. We had two kinds. That was the doin's of
Tuscarora. My pardner called himself Tuscarora Maxillary. I
asked him once if that was his real name.
"It's the realest little old name you ever heerd tell of," says
he. "I know, for I made it myself--liked the sound of her.
Parents ain't got no rights to name their children. Parents
don't have to be called them names."
Well, these chickens, as I said, was of two kinds. The first was
these low-set, heavyweight propositions with feathers on their
laigs, and not much laigs at that, called Cochin Chinys. The
other was a tall ridiculousoutfit made up entire of bulgin'
breast and gangle laigs. They stood about two foot and a half
tall, and when they went to peck the ground their tail feathers
stuck straight up to the sky. Tusky called 'em Japanese Games.
"Which the chief advantage of them chickens is," says he, "that
in weight about ninety per cent of 'em is breast meat. Now my
idee is, that if we can cross 'em with these Cochin Chiny fowls
we'll have a low-hung, heavyweight chicken runnin' strong on
breast meat. These Jap Games is too small, but if we can bring
'em up in size and shorten their laigs, we'll shore have a
winner."
That looked good to me, so we started in on that idee. The
theery was bully, but she didn't work out. The first broods we
hatched growed up with big husky Cochin Chiny bodies and little
short necks, perched up on laigs three foot long. Them chickens
couldn't reach ground nohow. We had to build a table for 'em to
eat off, and when they went out rustlin' for themselves they had
to confine themselves to sidehills or flyin' insects. Their
breasts was all right, though--"And think of them drumsticks for
was about the best thing for us under the circumstances.
The Mexican went out to hunt up his horse. I called the girl
back.
"How far is it to Mollyhay?" I asked her.
"A league," said she.
So we bad been near our journey's end after all, and Denton was
probably all right.
The Mexican went away horseback. The girl fed us calabash. We
waited.
About one o'clock a group of horsemen rode over the hill. When
they came near enough I recognised Denton at their head. That
man was of tempered steel--
They had followed back along the beach, caught our trail where we
had turned off, and so discovered us. Denton had fortunately
found kind and intelligent people.
We said good-bye to the Mexican girl. I made Schwartz give her
one of his gold pieces.
But Denton could not wait for us to say "hullo" even, he was so
anxious to get back to town, so we mounted the horses he had
brought us, and rode off, very wobbly.
We lived three weeks in Mollyhay. It took us that long to get
fed up. The lady I stayed with made a dish of kid meat and
stuffed olives--
Why, an hour after filling myself up to the muzzle I'd be hungry
again, and scouting round to houses looking for more to eat!
We talked things over a good deal, after we had gained a little
strength. I wanted to take a little flyer at Guaymas to see if I
could run across this Handy Solomon person, but Denton pointed
out that Anderson would be expecting just that, and would take
mighty good care to be scarce. His idea was that we'd do better
to get hold of a boat and some water casks, and lug off the
treasure we had stumbled over. Denton told us that the idea of
going back and scooping all that dinero up with a shovel had
kept him going, just as the idea of getting even with Anderson
had kept me going. Schwartz said that after he'd carried that
heavy gold over the first day, he made up his mind he'd get the
spending of it or bust. That's why he hated so to throw it away.
There were lots of fishing boats in the harbour, and we hired
one, and a man to run it for next to nothing a week. We laid a
course north, and in six days anchored in our bay.
I tell you it looked queer. There were the charred sticks of the
fire, and the coffeepot lying on its side. We took off our hats
at poor Billy's grave a minute, and then climbed over the
cholla-covered hill carrying our picks and shovels, and the
canvas sacks to take the treasure away in.
There was no trouble in reaching the sandy flat. But when we got
there we found it torn up from one end to the other. A few
scattered timbers and three empty chests with the covers pried
off alone remained. Handy Solomon had been there before us.
We went back to our boat sick at heart. Nobody said a word. We
went aboard and made our Greaser boatman head for Yuma. It took
us a week to get there. We were all of us glum, but Denton was
the worst of the lot. Even after we'd got back to town and
fallen into our old ways of life, he couldn't seem to get over
it. He seemed plumb possessed of gloom, and moped around like a
chicken with the pip. This surprised me, for I didn't think the
loss of money would hit him so hard. It didn't hit any of us
very hard in those days.
One evening I took him aside and fed him a drink, and
expostulated with him.
"Oh, HELL, Rogers," he burst out, "I don't care about the loot.
But, suffering cats, think how that fellow sized us up for a lot
of pattern-made fools; and how right he was about, it. Why all
he did was to sail out of sight around the next corner. He knew
we'd start across country; and we did. All we had to do was to
lay low, and save our legs. He was BOUND to come back. And we
might have nailed him when he landed."
"That's about all there was to it," concluded Colorado Rogers,
after a pause, "--except that I've been looking for him ever
since, and when I heard you singing that song I naturally thought
I'd landed."
"And you never saw him again?" asked Windy Bill.
"Well," chuckled Rogers, "I did about ten year later. It was in
Tucson. I was in the back of a store, when the door in front
opened and this man came in. He stopped at the little cigar-case
by the door. In about one jump I was on his neck. I jerked him
over backwards before he knew what had struck him, threw him on
his face, got my hands in his back-hair, and began to jump his
features against the floor. Then all at once I noted that this
man had two arms; so of course he was the wrong fellow. "Oh,
excuse me," said I, and ran out the back door."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE HONK-HONK BREED
It was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather bad been
favourable; the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried
up, the beef had lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in
short, there was nothing to do. Sang had given us a baked
bread-pudding with raisins in it. We filled it--in a wash basin
full of it--on top of a few incidental pounds of chile con, baked
beans, soda biscuits, "air tights," and other delicacies. Then
we adjourned with our pipes to the shady side of the blacksmith's
shop where we could watch the ravens on top the adobe wall of the
corral. Somebody told a story about ravens. This led to
road-runners. This suggested rattlesnakes. They started Windy
Bill.
"Speakin' of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the
great-granddaddy of all the bullsnakes up at Lead in the Black
Hills. I was only a kid then. This wasn't no such tur'ble long
a snake, but he was more'n a foot thick. Looked just like a
sahuaro stalk. Man name of Terwilliger Smith catched it. He
named this yere bullsnake Clarence, and got it so plumb gentle it
followed him everywhere. One day old P. T. Barnum come along and
wanted to buy this Clarence snake--offered Terwilliger a thousand
cold--but Smith wouldn't part with the snake nohow. So finally
they fixed up a deal so Smith could go along with the show. They
shoved Clarence in a box in the baggage car, but after a while
Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and starts to crawl back
to find his master. Just as he is half-way between the baggage
car and the smoker, the couplin' give way--right on that heavy
grade between Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence wound
his head 'round one brake wheel and his tail around the other,
and held that train together to the bottom of the grade. But it
stretched him twenty-eight feet and they had to advertise him as
a boa-constrictor."
Windy Bill's story of the faithful bullsnake aroused to
reminiscence the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held forth as
follows:
Wall, I've see things and I've heerd things, some of them ornery,
and some you'd love to believe, they was that gorgeous and
improbable. Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin'
events my special pleasure and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of
the only chanst I ever had to ring in business and pleasure and
hobby all in one grand merry-go-round of joy. It come about like
this:
One day, a few year back, I was sittin' on the beach at Santa
Barbara watchin' the sky stay up, and wonderin' what to do with
my year's wages, when a little squinch-eye round-face with big
bow spectacles came and plumped down beside me.
"Did you ever stop to think," says he, shovin' back his hat,
"that if the horsepower delivered by them waves on this beach in
one single hour could be concentrated behind washin' machines, it
would be enough to wash all the shirts for a city of four hundred
and fifty-one thousand one hundred and thirty-six people?"
"Can't say I ever did," says I, squintin' at him sideways.
"Fact," says he, "and did it ever occur to you that if all the
food a man eats in the course of a natural life could be gathered
together at one time, it would fill a wagon-train twelve miles
long?"
"You make me hungry," says I.
"And ain't it interestin' to reflect," he goes on, "that if all
the finger-nail parin's of the human race for one year was to be
collected and subjected to hydraulic pressure it would equal in
size the pyramid of Cheops?"
"Look yere," says I, sittin' up, "did YOU ever pause to
excogitate that if all the hot air you is dispensin' was to be
collected together it would fill a balloon big enough to waft you
and me over that Bullyvard of Palms to yonder gin mill on the
corner?"
He didn't say nothin' to that--just yanked me to my feet, faced
me towards the gin mill above mentioned, and exerted considerable
pressure on my arm in urgin' of me forward.
"You ain't so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In
important matters you are plumb decisive."
We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a
chicken sandwich.
"Chickens," says he, gazin' at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece
in this country, and plumb scarce. Did you ever pause to ponder
over the returns chickens would give on a small investment? Say
you start with ten hens. Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of
which allow a loss of say six for childish accidents. At the end
of the year you has eighty chickens. At the end of two years
that flock has increased to six hundred and twenty. At the end
of the third year--"
He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was
occupyin' of an old ranch fifty mile from anywhere. When they
run stage-coaches this joint used to be a roadhouse. The outlook
was on about a thousand little brown foothills. A road two miles
four rods two foot eleven inches in sight run by in front of us.
It come over one foothill and disappeared over another. I know
just how long it was, for later in the game I measured it.
Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled
with chickens. We had two kinds. That was the doin's of
Tuscarora. My pardner called himself Tuscarora Maxillary. I
asked him once if that was his real name.
"It's the realest little old name you ever heerd tell of," says
he. "I know, for I made it myself--liked the sound of her.
Parents ain't got no rights to name their children. Parents
don't have to be called them names."
Well, these chickens, as I said, was of two kinds. The first was
these low-set, heavyweight propositions with feathers on their
laigs, and not much laigs at that, called Cochin Chinys. The
other was a tall ridiculousoutfit made up entire of bulgin'
breast and gangle laigs. They stood about two foot and a half
tall, and when they went to peck the ground their tail feathers
stuck straight up to the sky. Tusky called 'em Japanese Games.
"Which the chief advantage of them chickens is," says he, "that
in weight about ninety per cent of 'em is breast meat. Now my
idee is, that if we can cross 'em with these Cochin Chiny fowls
we'll have a low-hung, heavyweight chicken runnin' strong on
breast meat. These Jap Games is too small, but if we can bring
'em up in size and shorten their laigs, we'll shore have a
winner."
That looked good to me, so we started in on that idee. The
theery was bully, but she didn't work out. The first broods we
hatched growed up with big husky Cochin Chiny bodies and little
short necks, perched up on laigs three foot long. Them chickens
couldn't reach ground nohow. We had to build a table for 'em to
eat off, and when they went out rustlin' for themselves they had
to confine themselves to sidehills or flyin' insects. Their
breasts was all right, though--"And think of them drumsticks for
- mexican [´meksikən]
n.&a.墨西哥人(语)的 (初中英语单词) - intelligent [in´telidʒənt] a.聪明的；理智的 (初中英语单词)
- scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
- aboard [ə´bɔ:d] ad.&prep.在...上 (初中英语单词)
- suffering [´sʌfəriŋ] n.痛苦；灾害 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- faithful [´feiθfəl] a.忠实的；可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- thereupon [,ðeərə´pɔn] ad.因此；于是 (初中英语单词)
- pressure [´preʃə] n.压榨 vt.对...施压力 (初中英语单词)
- sandwich [´sænwidʒ, ´sændwitʃ] n.三明治，夹心面包片 (初中英语单词)
- investment [in´vestmənt] n.投资；(时间等)投入 (初中英语单词)
- childish [´tʃaildiʃ] a.孩子的；幼稚的 (初中英语单词)
- anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- advantage [əd´vɑ:ntidʒ] n.优势；利益 (初中英语单词)
- confine [kən´fain] vt.限制 n.边界；境界 (初中英语单词)
- horseback [´hɔ:sbæk] n.马背 (高中英语单词)
- solomon [´sɔləmən] n.所罗门 (高中英语单词)
- shovel [´ʃʌvəl] n.铲子；铁锹 (高中英语单词)
- colorado [,kɔlə´rɑ:dəu] n.科罗拉多(州) (高中英语单词)
- baggage [´bægidʒ] n.行李 (高中英语单词)
- lonesome [´ləunsəm] a.孤独的；冷清清的 (高中英语单词)
- half-way [´hɑ:fwei] ad.半途；几乎 (高中英语单词)
- advertise [´ædvətaiz] v.登(做)广告；通知 (高中英语单词)
- gorgeous [´gɔ:dʒəs] a.华丽的；宜人的 (高中英语单词)
- balloon [bə´lu:n] n.气球 (高中英语单词)
- ridiculous [ri´dikjuləs] a.荒谬的；可笑的 (高中英语单词)
- outfit [´aut,fit] n.装备 vt.供给；装备 (高中英语单词)
- muzzle [´mʌzəl] n.枪口，炮口 (英语四级单词)
- fishing [´fiʃiŋ] n.钓鱼；捕鱼；渔业 (英语四级单词)
- boatman [´bəutmən] n.船夫；出租游艇者 (英语四级单词)
- shorten [´ʃɔ:tn] v.缩短，变短 (英语四级单词)
- backwards [´bækwədz] ad.向后 a.向后的 (英语六级单词)
- incidental [,insi´dentəl] a.伴随的；易发生的 (英语六级单词)
- horsepower [´hɔ:s,pauə] n.马力 (英语六级单词)
- dreamer [´dri:mə] n.做梦的人；梦想者 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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