章节正文
were concerned. Her riding had all along been a subject
of discord between them. She had learned to ride
very well along the bridle-paths of Golden Gate Park,
but Robert Grant Burns seemed to expect her to ride--
well, like this girl, for instance, which was unjust.
One could not blame her for glaring jealously while
Jean tightened the cinch and remounted, tying her rope
to the saddle horn, all ready to pull; with her muscles
tensed for the coming struggle with the sand,--and
perhaps with her horse as well,--and with every line
of her figure showing how absolutely at home she was
in the saddle, and how sure of herself.
"I've tied my rope, Lite," Jean drawled, with a
little laugh at what might happen.
Lite turned his face toward her. "You better not,"
be warned. "Things are liable to start a-popping
when that engine wakes up."
"Well, then I'll want both hands for Pard. I've
taken a couple of half-hitches, anyway."
"You folks want to be ready at the wheels," Lite
directed, waiving the argument. "When we start, you
all want to heave-ho together. Good team-work will
do it.
"All set?" he called to Jean, when Pete Lowry bent
his back to start the engine. "Business'll be pickin'
up, directly!"
"All set," replied Jean cheerfully.
It seemed then that everything began to start at once,
and to start in different directions. The engine snorted
and pounded so that the whole machine shook with ague.
When Pete jumped in and threw in the clutch, there
was a backfire that sounded like the crack of doom. The
two horses went wild, as their riders had half expected
them to do. They lunged away from the horror behind
them, and the slack ropes tightened with a jerk.
Both were good rope horses, and the strain of the ropes
almost recalled them to sanity and their training; at
least they held the ropes tight for a few seconds, so that
the machine jumped ahead and veered toward the
firmer soil beside the trail, in response to Pete's turn
of the wheel.
Then Pard looked back and saw the thing coming
after him, and tried to bolt. When he found that he
could not, because of the rope, he bucked as he had not
done since he was a half-broken broncho. That started
Lite Avery's horse to pitching; and Pete, absorbed in
watching what would have made a great picture, forgot
to shut off the gas.
Robert Grant Burns picked himself out of the sand
where he had sprawled at the first wild lunge of the
machine, and saw Pete Lowry, humped over the wheel like
any speed demon, go lurching off across the hollow in
the wake of two fear-crazed animals, that threatened at
any instant to bolt off at an angle that would overturn
the car.
Then Lite let his rope slip from the saddle-horn and
spurred his horse to one side, out of the danger zone of
the other, while he felt frantically in his pockets for his
knife.
"Don't you cut my rope," Jean warned, when she
saw him come plunging toward her, knife in hand.
"This is--fine training--for Pard!"
Pete came to himself, then, and killed the engine
before he landed in the bottom of a yawning, water-
washed hole, and Lite rode close and slashed Jean's
rope, in spite of her protest; whereupon Pard went off
up the, slope as though witches were riding him
hard.
At long rifle range, he circled and faced the thing that
had scared him so, and after a little Jean persuaded
him to go back as far as the trail. Nearer he would not
stir, so she waited there for Lite.
"Never even thanked us," Lite grumbled when he
came up, his mouth stretched in a wide smile. "That
girl with the kalsomine on her face made remarks about
folks butting in. And the fat man talked into his
double chin; dunno what all he was saying. Here's
what's left of your rope. I'll get you another one,
Jean. I was afraid that gazabo was going to run over
you, is why I cut it."
"What's the matter over there? Aren't they glad
they're out of the sand?" Jean held her horse quiet
while she studied the buzzing group.
"Something busted. I guess we done some damage."
Lite grinned and watched them over his shoulder.
"You needn't go any further with me, Lite. That
fat man's the one that had the cattle. I am going over
to the ranch for awhile, but don't tell Aunt Ella." She
turned to ride on up the hill toward the Lazy A, but
stopped for another look at the perturbed motorists.
"Well anyway, we snaked them out of the sand, didn't
we, Lite?"
"We sure did," Lite chuckled. "They don't seem
thankful, but I guess they ain't any worse off than they
was before. Anyway, it serves them right. They've
no business here acting fresh."
Lite said that because he was not given the power
to peer into the future, and so could not know that
Fate herself had sent Robert Grant Burns into their
lives; and that, by a somewhat roundabout method, she
was going to use the Great Western Film Company and
Jean and himself for her servants in doing a work
which Fate had set herself to do.
CHAPTER VIII
JEAN SPOILS SOMETHING
Jean found the padlock key where she had hidden
it under a rock ten feet from the door, and let
herself into her room. The peacefulfamiliarity of
its four walls, and the cheerful patch of sunlight lying
warm upon the faded rag carpet, gave her the feeling
of security and of comfort which she seldom felt elsewhere.
She wandered aimlessly around the room, brushing
the dust from her books and straightening a tiny fold
in the cradle quilt. She ran an investigative forefinger
along the seat of her father's saddle, brought the finger
away dusty, pulled one of the stockings from the
overflowing basket and used it for a dust cloth. She
wiped and polished the stamped leather with a painstaking
tenderness that had in it a good deal of yearning,
and finally left it with a gesture of hopelessness.
She went next to her desk and fumbled the quirt that
lay there still. Then she pulled out the old ledger,
picked up a pencil, and began to write, sitting on the
arm of an old, cane-seated chair while she did so. As
I told you before, Jean never wrote anything in that
book except when her moods demanded expression of
some sort; when she did write, she said exactly what
she thought and felt at the time. So if you are
permitted to know what she wrote at this time, you will
have had a peep into Jean's hidden, inner life that
none of her world save Lite knew anything about. She
wrote rapidly, and she did not always take the trouble
to finish her sentences properly,--as if she never could
quite keep pace with her thoughts. So this is what
that page held when finally she slammed the book shut
and slid it back into the desk:
I don't know what's the matter with me lately. I feel
as if I wanted to shoot somebody, or rob a bank or run
away--I guess it's the old trouble nagging at me. I KNOW
dad never did it. I don't know why, but I know it just the
same--and I know Uncle Carl knows it too. I'd like to
take out his brain and put it into some scientific machine
that would squeeze out his thoughts--hope it wouldn't hurt
him--I'd give him ether, maybe. What I want is money
--enough to buy back this place and the stock. I don't
believe Uncle Carl spent as much defending dad as he claims
he did--not enough to take the whole ranch anyway. If
I had money I'd find Art Osgood if I had to hunt from
Alaska to Africa--don't believe he went to Alaska at all.
Uncle Carl thinks so. . . . I'd like the price of that machine I
helped drag out of the sand--some people can
have anything they want but all I want is dad back, and this
place the way it was before. . . .
If I had any brains I could write something wonderful
and be rich and famous and do the things I want to do--
but there's no profit in just feeling wonderful things; if I
could make the world see and feel what I see and feel--
when I'm here, or riding alone. . . .
If I could find Art Osgood I believe I could make him
tell--I know he knows something, even if he didn't do it
himself. I believe he did--But what can you do when
you're a woman and haven't any money and must stay where
you're put and can't even get out and do the little you might
do, because somebody must have you around to lean on and
tell their troubles to. . . . I don't blame Aunt Ella so much
--but thank goodness, I can do without a shoulder to weep
on, anyway. What's life for if you've got to spend your
days hopping round and round in a cage. It wouldn't be
a cage if I could have dad back--I'd be doing things for
him all the time and that would make life worth while.
Poor dad--four more years is--I can't think about it. I'll
go crazy if I do--
It was there that she stopped and slammed the book
shut, and pushed it back out of sight in the desk. She
picked up her hat and gloves, and went out with
blurred eyes, and began to climb the bluff above the
little spring, where a faint, little-used trail led to the
benchland above. By following a rock ledge to where
it was broken, and climbing through the crevice to
where the trail marked faintly the way to the top, one
could in a few minutes leave the Lazy A coulee out of
sight below, and stand on a high level where the winds
blew free from the mountains in the west to the mountains
in the east.
Some day, it was predicted, the benchland would be
cut into squares and farmed,--some day when the government
brought to reality a long-talked-of irrigation
project. But in the meantime, the land lay unfenced
and free. One could look far away to the north, and
at certain times see the smoke of passing trains through
the valley off there. One could look south to the
distant river bluffs, and east and west to the mountains.
Jean often climbed the bluff just for the wide outlook
she gained. The cage did not seem so small when she
could stand up there and tire her eyes with looking.
Life did not seem quite so purposeless, and she could
nearly always find little whispers of hope in the winds
that blew there.
She walked aimlessly and yet with a subconscious
purpose for ten minutes or so, and her face was turned
directly toward the eastern hills. She stopped on the
of discord between them. She had learned to ride
very well along the bridle-paths of Golden Gate Park,
but Robert Grant Burns seemed to expect her to ride--
well, like this girl, for instance, which was unjust.
One could not blame her for glaring jealously while
Jean tightened the cinch and remounted, tying her rope
to the saddle horn, all ready to pull; with her muscles
tensed for the coming struggle with the sand,--and
perhaps with her horse as well,--and with every line
of her figure showing how absolutely at home she was
in the saddle, and how sure of herself.
"I've tied my rope, Lite," Jean drawled, with a
little laugh at what might happen.
Lite turned his face toward her. "You better not,"
be warned. "Things are liable to start a-popping
when that engine wakes up."
"Well, then I'll want both hands for Pard. I've
taken a couple of half-hitches, anyway."
"You folks want to be ready at the wheels," Lite
directed, waiving the argument. "When we start, you
all want to heave-ho together. Good team-work will
do it.
"All set?" he called to Jean, when Pete Lowry bent
his back to start the engine. "Business'll be pickin'
up, directly!"
"All set," replied Jean cheerfully.
It seemed then that everything began to start at once,
and to start in different directions. The engine snorted
and pounded so that the whole machine shook with ague.
When Pete jumped in and threw in the clutch, there
was a backfire that sounded like the crack of doom. The
two horses went wild, as their riders had half expected
them to do. They lunged away from the horror behind
them, and the slack ropes tightened with a jerk.
Both were good rope horses, and the strain of the ropes
almost recalled them to sanity and their training; at
least they held the ropes tight for a few seconds, so that
the machine jumped ahead and veered toward the
firmer soil beside the trail, in response to Pete's turn
of the wheel.
Then Pard looked back and saw the thing coming
after him, and tried to bolt. When he found that he
could not, because of the rope, he bucked as he had not
done since he was a half-broken broncho. That started
Lite Avery's horse to pitching; and Pete, absorbed in
watching what would have made a great picture, forgot
to shut off the gas.
Robert Grant Burns picked himself out of the sand
where he had sprawled at the first wild lunge of the
machine, and saw Pete Lowry, humped over the wheel like
any speed demon, go lurching off across the hollow in
the wake of two fear-crazed animals, that threatened at
any instant to bolt off at an angle that would overturn
the car.
Then Lite let his rope slip from the saddle-horn and
spurred his horse to one side, out of the danger zone of
the other, while he felt frantically in his pockets for his
knife.
"Don't you cut my rope," Jean warned, when she
saw him come plunging toward her, knife in hand.
"This is--fine training--for Pard!"
Pete came to himself, then, and killed the engine
before he landed in the bottom of a yawning, water-
washed hole, and Lite rode close and slashed Jean's
rope, in spite of her protest; whereupon Pard went off
up the, slope as though witches were riding him
hard.
At long rifle range, he circled and faced the thing that
had scared him so, and after a little Jean persuaded
him to go back as far as the trail. Nearer he would not
stir, so she waited there for Lite.
"Never even thanked us," Lite grumbled when he
came up, his mouth stretched in a wide smile. "That
girl with the kalsomine on her face made remarks about
folks butting in. And the fat man talked into his
double chin; dunno what all he was saying. Here's
what's left of your rope. I'll get you another one,
Jean. I was afraid that gazabo was going to run over
you, is why I cut it."
"What's the matter over there? Aren't they glad
they're out of the sand?" Jean held her horse quiet
while she studied the buzzing group.
"Something busted. I guess we done some damage."
Lite grinned and watched them over his shoulder.
"You needn't go any further with me, Lite. That
fat man's the one that had the cattle. I am going over
to the ranch for awhile, but don't tell Aunt Ella." She
turned to ride on up the hill toward the Lazy A, but
stopped for another look at the perturbed motorists.
"Well anyway, we snaked them out of the sand, didn't
we, Lite?"
"We sure did," Lite chuckled. "They don't seem
thankful, but I guess they ain't any worse off than they
was before. Anyway, it serves them right. They've
no business here acting fresh."
Lite said that because he was not given the power
to peer into the future, and so could not know that
Fate herself had sent Robert Grant Burns into their
lives; and that, by a somewhat roundabout method, she
was going to use the Great Western Film Company and
Jean and himself for her servants in doing a work
which Fate had set herself to do.
CHAPTER VIII
JEAN SPOILS SOMETHING
Jean found the padlock key where she had hidden
it under a rock ten feet from the door, and let
herself into her room. The peacefulfamiliarity of
its four walls, and the cheerful patch of sunlight lying
warm upon the faded rag carpet, gave her the feeling
of security and of comfort which she seldom felt elsewhere.
She wandered aimlessly around the room, brushing
the dust from her books and straightening a tiny fold
in the cradle quilt. She ran an investigative forefinger
along the seat of her father's saddle, brought the finger
away dusty, pulled one of the stockings from the
overflowing basket and used it for a dust cloth. She
wiped and polished the stamped leather with a painstaking
tenderness that had in it a good deal of yearning,
and finally left it with a gesture of hopelessness.
She went next to her desk and fumbled the quirt that
lay there still. Then she pulled out the old ledger,
picked up a pencil, and began to write, sitting on the
arm of an old, cane-seated chair while she did so. As
I told you before, Jean never wrote anything in that
book except when her moods demanded expression of
some sort; when she did write, she said exactly what
she thought and felt at the time. So if you are
permitted to know what she wrote at this time, you will
have had a peep into Jean's hidden, inner life that
none of her world save Lite knew anything about. She
wrote rapidly, and she did not always take the trouble
to finish her sentences properly,--as if she never could
quite keep pace with her thoughts. So this is what
that page held when finally she slammed the book shut
and slid it back into the desk:
I don't know what's the matter with me lately. I feel
as if I wanted to shoot somebody, or rob a bank or run
away--I guess it's the old trouble nagging at me. I KNOW
dad never did it. I don't know why, but I know it just the
same--and I know Uncle Carl knows it too. I'd like to
take out his brain and put it into some scientific machine
that would squeeze out his thoughts--hope it wouldn't hurt
him--I'd give him ether, maybe. What I want is money
--enough to buy back this place and the stock. I don't
believe Uncle Carl spent as much defending dad as he claims
he did--not enough to take the whole ranch anyway. If
I had money I'd find Art Osgood if I had to hunt from
Alaska to Africa--don't believe he went to Alaska at all.
Uncle Carl thinks so. . . . I'd like the price of that machine I
helped drag out of the sand--some people can
have anything they want but all I want is dad back, and this
place the way it was before. . . .
If I had any brains I could write something wonderful
and be rich and famous and do the things I want to do--
but there's no profit in just feeling wonderful things; if I
could make the world see and feel what I see and feel--
when I'm here, or riding alone. . . .
If I could find Art Osgood I believe I could make him
tell--I know he knows something, even if he didn't do it
himself. I believe he did--But what can you do when
you're a woman and haven't any money and must stay where
you're put and can't even get out and do the little you might
do, because somebody must have you around to lean on and
tell their troubles to. . . . I don't blame Aunt Ella so much
--but thank goodness, I can do without a shoulder to weep
on, anyway. What's life for if you've got to spend your
days hopping round and round in a cage. It wouldn't be
a cage if I could have dad back--I'd be doing things for
him all the time and that would make life worth while.
Poor dad--four more years is--I can't think about it. I'll
go crazy if I do--
It was there that she stopped and slammed the book
shut, and pushed it back out of sight in the desk. She
picked up her hat and gloves, and went out with
blurred eyes, and began to climb the bluff above the
little spring, where a faint, little-used trail led to the
benchland above. By following a rock ledge to where
it was broken, and climbing through the crevice to
where the trail marked faintly the way to the top, one
could in a few minutes leave the Lazy A coulee out of
sight below, and stand on a high level where the winds
blew free from the mountains in the west to the mountains
in the east.
Some day, it was predicted, the benchland would be
cut into squares and farmed,--some day when the government
brought to reality a long-talked-of irrigation
project. But in the meantime, the land lay unfenced
and free. One could look far away to the north, and
at certain times see the smoke of passing trains through
the valley off there. One could look south to the
distant river bluffs, and east and west to the mountains.
Jean often climbed the bluff just for the wide outlook
she gained. The cage did not seem so small when she
could stand up there and tire her eyes with looking.
Life did not seem quite so purposeless, and she could
nearly always find little whispers of hope in the winds
that blew there.
She walked aimlessly and yet with a subconscious
purpose for ten minutes or so, and her face was turned
directly toward the eastern hills. She stopped on the
- instance [´instəns]
n.例子，实例，例证 (初中英语单词) - saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- argument [´ɑ:gjumənt] n.辩论；争论；论证 (初中英语单词)
- clutch [klʌtʃ] v.抓住 n.爪子；控制 (初中英语单词)
- horror [´hɔrə] n.恐怖；战栗 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- acting [´æktiŋ] a.代理的 n.演戏 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- peaceful [´pi:sfəl] a.和平的；平静的 (初中英语单词)
- cheerful [´tʃiəful] a.快乐的；高兴的 (初中英语单词)
- sunlight [´sʌnlait] n.日光 (初中英语单词)
- carpet [´kɑ:pit] n.地毯 vt.铺地毯 (初中英语单词)
- security [si´kjuəriti] n.安全；证券；抵押品 (初中英语单词)
- cradle [´kreidl] n.摇篮；发源地 (初中英语单词)
- gesture [´dʒestʃə] n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- lately [´leitli] ad.近来，不久前 (初中英语单词)
- scientific [,saiən´tifik] a.科学(上)的 (初中英语单词)
- goodness [´gudnis] n.优良；美德；精华 (初中英语单词)
- reality [ri´æliti] n.现实(性)；真实；逼真 (初中英语单词)
- meantime [´mi:ntaim] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- liable [´laiəbəl] a.易于...的；有责任的 (高中英语单词)
- strain [strein] vt.拉紧 vi.拖 n.张力 (高中英语单词)
- response [ri´spɔns] n.回答；响应 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- studied [´stʌdid] a.故意的；有计划的 (高中英语单词)
- squeeze [skwi:z] v.&n.压榨，榨取 (高中英语单词)
- alaska [ə´læskə] n.阿拉斯加(州) (高中英语单词)
- faintly [´feintli] ad.微弱地，软弱无力的 (高中英语单词)
- whereupon [,weərə´pɔn] ad.在什么上面；因此 (英语四级单词)
- crevice [´krevis] n.裂缝，罅隙 (英语四级单词)
- discord [´diskɔ:d] n.不一致；不和谐 (英语六级单词)
- frantically [´fræntikəli] ad.狂暴地，疯狂地 (英语六级单词)
- roundabout [´raundəbaut] a.&n.间接的(方式) (英语六级单词)
- familiarity [fə,mili´æriti] n.熟悉；新近；随便 (英语六级单词)
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