章节正文
protected by the canvas "tarp," were reasonably dry. Every once
in a while a spasm of conscience would seize one or the other of
us.
"It seems sort of mean on the other fellows," ruminated Jed
Parker.
"They had their first choice," cried we all.
"Uncle Jim's an old man," the Cattleman pointed out.
But Windy Bill had thought of that. "I told him of this yere
cave first. But he allowed he was plumb satisfied."
We finished laying out our blankets. The result looked good to
us. We all burst out laughing.
"Well, I'm sorry for those fellows," cried the Cattleman. We
hobbled our horses and descended to the gleam of the fire, like
guilty conspirators. There we ate hastily of meat, bread and
coffee, merely for the sake of sustenance. It certainly amounted
to little in the way of pleasure. The water from the direct
rain, the shivering trees, and our hat brims accumulated in our
plates faster than we could bail it out. The dishes were thrust
under a canvas. Rich and Lester decided to remain with their
tent, and so we saw them no more until morning.
We broke off back-loads of mesquite and toiled up the hill,
tasting thickly the high altitude in the severe labour. At the
big cave we dumped down our burdens, transported our fuel
piecemeal to the vicinity of the narrow ledge, built a good fire,
sat in a row, and lit our pipes. In a few moments, the blaze was
burning high, and our bodies had ceased shivering. Fantastically
the firelight revealed the knobs and crevices, the ledges and the
arching walls. Their shadows leaped, following the flames,
receding and advancing like playful beasts. Far above us was a
single tiny opening through which the smoke was sucked as through
a chimney. The glow ruddied the men's features. Outside was
thick darkness, and the swish and rush and roar of rising
waters. Listening, Windy Bill was reminded of a story. We
leaned back comfortably against the sloping walls of the cave,
thrust our feet toward the blaze, smoked, and hearkened to the
tale of Windy Bill.
There's a tur'ble lot of water running loose here, but I've seen
the time and place where even what is in that drip would be
worth a gold mine. That was in the emigrant days. They used
to come over south of here, through what they called Emigrant
Pass, on their way to Californy. I was a kid then, about eighteen
year old, and what I didn't know about Injins and Agency cattle
wasn't a patch of alkali. I had a kid outfit of h'ar bridle,
lots of silver and such, and I used to ride over and be the
handsome boy before such outfits as happened along.
They were queer people, most of 'em from Missoury and
such-like southern seaports, and they were tur'ble sick of
travel by the time they come in sight of Emigrant Pass. Up to
Santa Fe they mostly hiked along any old way, but once there they
herded up together in bunches of twenty wagons or so, 'count of
our old friends, Geronimo and Loco. A good many of 'em had
horned cattle to their wagons, and they crawled along about two
miles an hour, hotter'n hell with the blower on, nothin' to
look at but a mountain a week way, chuck full of alkali, plenty
of sage-brush and rattlesnakes--but mighty little water.
Why, you boys know that country down there. Between the
Chiricahua Mountains and Emigrant Pass it's maybe a three or four
days' journey for these yere bull-slingers.
Mostly they filled up their bellies and their kegs, hoping to
last through, but they sure found it drier than cork legs, and
generally long before they hit the Springs their tongues was
hangin' out a foot. You see, for all their plumb nerve in comin'
so far, the most of them didn't know sic'em. They were plumb
innocent in regard to savin' their water, and Injins, and such;
and the long-haired buckskin fakes they picked up at Santa Fe for
guides wasn't much better.
That was where Texas Pete made his killing.
Texas Pete was a tough citizen from the Lone Star. He was about
as broad as he was long, and wore all sorts of big whiskers and
black eyebrows. His heart was very bad. You never COULD tell
where Texas Pete was goin' to jump next. He was a side-winder
and a diamond-back and a little black rattlesnake all rolled
into one. I believe that Texas Pete person cared about as little
for killin' a man as for takin' a drink--and he shorely drank
without an effort. Peaceable citizens just spoke soft and minded
their own business; onpeaceable citizens Texas Pete used to plant
out in the sagebrush.
Now this Texas Pete happened to discover a water hole right out
in the plumb middle of the desert. He promptly annexed said
water hole, digs her out, timbers her up, and lays for emigrants.
He charged two bits a head--man or beast--and nobody got a
mouthful till he paid up in hard coin.
Think of the wads he raked in! I used to figure it up, just for
the joy of envyin' him, I reckon. An average twenty-wagon
outfit, first and last, would bring him in somewheres about fifty
dollars--and besides he had forty-rod at four bits a glass. And
outfits at that time were thicker'n spatter.
We used all to go down sometimes to watch them come in. When
they see that little canvas shack and that well, they begun to
cheer up and move fast. And when they see that sign, "Water, two
bits a head," their eyes stuck out like two raw oysters.
Then come the kicks. What a howl they did raise, shorely. But
it didn't do no manner of good. Texas Pete didn't do nothin' but
sit there and smoke, with a kind of sulky gleam in one corner of
his eye. He didn't even take the trouble to answer, but his
Winchester lay across his lap. There wasn't no humour in the
situation for him.
"How much is your water for humans?" asks one emigrant.
"Can't you read that sign?" Texas Pete asks him.
"But you don't mean two bits a head for HUMANS!" yells the man.
"Why, you can get whisky for that!"
"You can read the sign, can't you?" insists Texas Pete.
"I can read it all right?" says the man, tryin' a new deal, "but
they tell me not to believe more'n half I read."
But that don't go; and Mr. Emigrant shells out with the rest.
I didn't blame them for raisin' their howl. Why, at that time
the regular water holes was chargin' five cents a head from the
government freighters, and the motto was always "Hold up Uncle
Sam," at that. Once in a while some outfit would get mad and go
chargin' off dry; but it was a long, long way to the Springs, and
mighty hot and dusty. Texas Pete and his one lonesome water hole
shorely did a big business.
Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim was joggin' along above
Texas Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot day--you had to prime
yourself to spit--and we was just gettin' back from drivin' some
beef up to the troops at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the
Emigrant Trail--she's wore in tur'ble deep--you can see the ruts
to-day. When we topped the rise we see a little old outfit just
makin' out to drag along.
It was one little schooner all by herself, drug along by two poor
old cavallos that couldn't have pulled my hat off. Their tongues
was out, and every once in a while they'd stick in a chuck-hole.
Then a man would get down and put his shoulder to the wheel, and
everybody'd take a heave, and up they'd come, all a-trembling and
weak.
Tim and I rode down just to take a look at the curiosity.
A thin-lookin' man was drivin', all humped up.
"Hullo, stranger," says I, "ain't you 'fraid of Injins?"
"Yes," says he.
"Then why are you travellin' through an Injin country all alone?"
"Couldn't keep up," says he. "Can I get water here?"
"I reckon," I answers.
He drove up to the water trough there at Texas Pete's, me and
Gentleman Tim followin' along because our trail led that way.
But he hadn't more'n stopped before Texas Pete was out.
"Cost you four bits to water them hosses," says he.
The man looked up kind of bewildered.
"I'm sorry," says he, "I ain't got no four bits. I got my roll
lifted off'n me."
"No water, then," growls Texas Pete back at him.
The man looked about him helpless.
"How far is it to the next water?" he asks me.
"Twenty mile," I tells him.
"My God!" he says, to himself-like.
Then he shrugged his shoulders very tired.
"All right. It's gettin' the cool of the evenin'; we'll make
it." He turns into the inside of that old schooner.
"Gi' me the cup, Sue."
A white-faced woman who looked mighty good to us alkalis opened
the flaps and gave out a tin cup, which the man pointed out to
fill.
"How many of you is they?" asks Texas Pete.
"Three," replies the man, wondering.
"Well, six bits, then," says Texas Pete, "cash down."
At that the man straightens up a little.
"I ain't askin' for no water for my stock," says he, "but my wife
and baby has been out in this sun all day without a drop of
water. Our cask slipped a hoop and bust just this side of Dos
Cabesas. The poor kid is plumb dry."
"Two bits a head," says Texas Pete.
At that the woman comes out, a little bit of a baby in her arms.
The kid had fuzzy yellow hair, and its face was flushed red and
shiny.
"Shorely you won't refuse a sick child a drink of water, sir,"
says she.
But Texas Pete had some sort of a special grouch; I guess he was
just beginning to get his snowshoes off after a fight with his
own forty-rod.
"What the hell are you-all doin' on the trail without no money at
all?" he growls, "and how do you expect to get along? Such plumb
tenderfeet drive me weary."
"Well," says the man, still reasonable, "I ain't got no money,
but I'll give you six bits' worth of flour or trade or an'thin' I
got."
"I don't run no truck-store," snaps Texas Pete, and turns square
on his heel and goes back to his chair.
"Got six bits about you?" whispers Gentleman Tim to me.
"Not a red," I answers.
Gentleman Tim turns to Texas Pete.
"Let 'em have a drink, Pete. I'll pay you next time I come
down."
"Cash down," growls Pete.
"You're the meanest man I ever see," observes Tim. "I wouldn't
speak to you if I met you in hell carryin' a lump of ice in your
hand."
"You're the softest _I_ ever see," sneers Pete. "Don't they have
any genooine Texans down your way?"
"Not enough to make it disagreeable," says Tim.
"That lets you out," growls Pete, gettin' hostile and handlin' of
his rifle.
Which the man had been standin' there bewildered, the cup hangin'
from his finger. At last, lookin' pretty desperate, he stooped
down to dig up a little of the wet from an overflow puddle lyin'
at his feet. At the same time the hosses, left sort of to
themselves and bein' drier than a covered bridge, drug forward
and stuck their noses in the trough.
Gentleman Tim and me was sittin' there on our hosses, a little to
one side. We saw Texas Pete jump up from his chair, take a quick
aim, and cut loose with his rifle. It was plumb unexpected to
us. We hadn't thought of any shootin', and our six-shooters was
tied in, 'count of the jumpy country we'd been drivin' the steers
in a while a spasm of conscience would seize one or the other of
us.
"It seems sort of mean on the other fellows," ruminated Jed
Parker.
"They had their first choice," cried we all.
"Uncle Jim's an old man," the Cattleman pointed out.
But Windy Bill had thought of that. "I told him of this yere
cave first. But he allowed he was plumb satisfied."
We finished laying out our blankets. The result looked good to
us. We all burst out laughing.
"Well, I'm sorry for those fellows," cried the Cattleman. We
hobbled our horses and descended to the gleam of the fire, like
guilty conspirators. There we ate hastily of meat, bread and
coffee, merely for the sake of sustenance. It certainly amounted
to little in the way of pleasure. The water from the direct
rain, the shivering trees, and our hat brims accumulated in our
plates faster than we could bail it out. The dishes were thrust
under a canvas. Rich and Lester decided to remain with their
tent, and so we saw them no more until morning.
We broke off back-loads of mesquite and toiled up the hill,
tasting thickly the high altitude in the severe labour. At the
big cave we dumped down our burdens, transported our fuel
piecemeal to the vicinity of the narrow ledge, built a good fire,
sat in a row, and lit our pipes. In a few moments, the blaze was
burning high, and our bodies had ceased shivering. Fantastically
the firelight revealed the knobs and crevices, the ledges and the
arching walls. Their shadows leaped, following the flames,
receding and advancing like playful beasts. Far above us was a
single tiny opening through which the smoke was sucked as through
a chimney. The glow ruddied the men's features. Outside was
thick darkness, and the swish and rush and roar of rising
waters. Listening, Windy Bill was reminded of a story. We
leaned back comfortably against the sloping walls of the cave,
thrust our feet toward the blaze, smoked, and hearkened to the
tale of Windy Bill.
There's a tur'ble lot of water running loose here, but I've seen
the time and place where even what is in that drip would be
worth a gold mine. That was in the emigrant days. They used
to come over south of here, through what they called Emigrant
Pass, on their way to Californy. I was a kid then, about eighteen
year old, and what I didn't know about Injins and Agency cattle
wasn't a patch of alkali. I had a kid outfit of h'ar bridle,
lots of silver and such, and I used to ride over and be the
handsome boy before such outfits as happened along.
They were queer people, most of 'em from Missoury and
such-like southern seaports, and they were tur'ble sick of
travel by the time they come in sight of Emigrant Pass. Up to
Santa Fe they mostly hiked along any old way, but once there they
herded up together in bunches of twenty wagons or so, 'count of
our old friends, Geronimo and Loco. A good many of 'em had
horned cattle to their wagons, and they crawled along about two
miles an hour, hotter'n hell with the blower on, nothin' to
look at but a mountain a week way, chuck full of alkali, plenty
of sage-brush and rattlesnakes--but mighty little water.
Why, you boys know that country down there. Between the
Chiricahua Mountains and Emigrant Pass it's maybe a three or four
days' journey for these yere bull-slingers.
Mostly they filled up their bellies and their kegs, hoping to
last through, but they sure found it drier than cork legs, and
generally long before they hit the Springs their tongues was
hangin' out a foot. You see, for all their plumb nerve in comin'
so far, the most of them didn't know sic'em. They were plumb
innocent in regard to savin' their water, and Injins, and such;
and the long-haired buckskin fakes they picked up at Santa Fe for
guides wasn't much better.
That was where Texas Pete made his killing.
Texas Pete was a tough citizen from the Lone Star. He was about
as broad as he was long, and wore all sorts of big whiskers and
black eyebrows. His heart was very bad. You never COULD tell
where Texas Pete was goin' to jump next. He was a side-winder
and a diamond-back and a little black rattlesnake all rolled
into one. I believe that Texas Pete person cared about as little
for killin' a man as for takin' a drink--and he shorely drank
without an effort. Peaceable citizens just spoke soft and minded
their own business; onpeaceable citizens Texas Pete used to plant
out in the sagebrush.
Now this Texas Pete happened to discover a water hole right out
in the plumb middle of the desert. He promptly annexed said
water hole, digs her out, timbers her up, and lays for emigrants.
He charged two bits a head--man or beast--and nobody got a
mouthful till he paid up in hard coin.
Think of the wads he raked in! I used to figure it up, just for
the joy of envyin' him, I reckon. An average twenty-wagon
outfit, first and last, would bring him in somewheres about fifty
dollars--and besides he had forty-rod at four bits a glass. And
outfits at that time were thicker'n spatter.
We used all to go down sometimes to watch them come in. When
they see that little canvas shack and that well, they begun to
cheer up and move fast. And when they see that sign, "Water, two
bits a head," their eyes stuck out like two raw oysters.
Then come the kicks. What a howl they did raise, shorely. But
it didn't do no manner of good. Texas Pete didn't do nothin' but
sit there and smoke, with a kind of sulky gleam in one corner of
his eye. He didn't even take the trouble to answer, but his
Winchester lay across his lap. There wasn't no humour in the
situation for him.
"How much is your water for humans?" asks one emigrant.
"Can't you read that sign?" Texas Pete asks him.
"But you don't mean two bits a head for HUMANS!" yells the man.
"Why, you can get whisky for that!"
"You can read the sign, can't you?" insists Texas Pete.
"I can read it all right?" says the man, tryin' a new deal, "but
they tell me not to believe more'n half I read."
But that don't go; and Mr. Emigrant shells out with the rest.
I didn't blame them for raisin' their howl. Why, at that time
the regular water holes was chargin' five cents a head from the
government freighters, and the motto was always "Hold up Uncle
Sam," at that. Once in a while some outfit would get mad and go
chargin' off dry; but it was a long, long way to the Springs, and
mighty hot and dusty. Texas Pete and his one lonesome water hole
shorely did a big business.
Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim was joggin' along above
Texas Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot day--you had to prime
yourself to spit--and we was just gettin' back from drivin' some
beef up to the troops at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the
Emigrant Trail--she's wore in tur'ble deep--you can see the ruts
to-day. When we topped the rise we see a little old outfit just
makin' out to drag along.
It was one little schooner all by herself, drug along by two poor
old cavallos that couldn't have pulled my hat off. Their tongues
was out, and every once in a while they'd stick in a chuck-hole.
Then a man would get down and put his shoulder to the wheel, and
everybody'd take a heave, and up they'd come, all a-trembling and
weak.
Tim and I rode down just to take a look at the curiosity.
A thin-lookin' man was drivin', all humped up.
"Hullo, stranger," says I, "ain't you 'fraid of Injins?"
"Yes," says he.
"Then why are you travellin' through an Injin country all alone?"
"Couldn't keep up," says he. "Can I get water here?"
"I reckon," I answers.
He drove up to the water trough there at Texas Pete's, me and
Gentleman Tim followin' along because our trail led that way.
But he hadn't more'n stopped before Texas Pete was out.
"Cost you four bits to water them hosses," says he.
The man looked up kind of bewildered.
"I'm sorry," says he, "I ain't got no four bits. I got my roll
lifted off'n me."
"No water, then," growls Texas Pete back at him.
The man looked about him helpless.
"How far is it to the next water?" he asks me.
"Twenty mile," I tells him.
"My God!" he says, to himself-like.
Then he shrugged his shoulders very tired.
"All right. It's gettin' the cool of the evenin'; we'll make
it." He turns into the inside of that old schooner.
"Gi' me the cup, Sue."
A white-faced woman who looked mighty good to us alkalis opened
the flaps and gave out a tin cup, which the man pointed out to
fill.
"How many of you is they?" asks Texas Pete.
"Three," replies the man, wondering.
"Well, six bits, then," says Texas Pete, "cash down."
At that the man straightens up a little.
"I ain't askin' for no water for my stock," says he, "but my wife
and baby has been out in this sun all day without a drop of
water. Our cask slipped a hoop and bust just this side of Dos
Cabesas. The poor kid is plumb dry."
"Two bits a head," says Texas Pete.
At that the woman comes out, a little bit of a baby in her arms.
The kid had fuzzy yellow hair, and its face was flushed red and
shiny.
"Shorely you won't refuse a sick child a drink of water, sir,"
says she.
But Texas Pete had some sort of a special grouch; I guess he was
just beginning to get his snowshoes off after a fight with his
own forty-rod.
"What the hell are you-all doin' on the trail without no money at
all?" he growls, "and how do you expect to get along? Such plumb
tenderfeet drive me weary."
"Well," says the man, still reasonable, "I ain't got no money,
but I'll give you six bits' worth of flour or trade or an'thin' I
got."
"I don't run no truck-store," snaps Texas Pete, and turns square
on his heel and goes back to his chair.
"Got six bits about you?" whispers Gentleman Tim to me.
"Not a red," I answers.
Gentleman Tim turns to Texas Pete.
"Let 'em have a drink, Pete. I'll pay you next time I come
down."
"Cash down," growls Pete.
"You're the meanest man I ever see," observes Tim. "I wouldn't
speak to you if I met you in hell carryin' a lump of ice in your
hand."
"You're the softest _I_ ever see," sneers Pete. "Don't they have
any genooine Texans down your way?"
"Not enough to make it disagreeable," says Tim.
"That lets you out," growls Pete, gettin' hostile and handlin' of
his rifle.
Which the man had been standin' there bewildered, the cup hangin'
from his finger. At last, lookin' pretty desperate, he stooped
down to dig up a little of the wet from an overflow puddle lyin'
at his feet. At the same time the hosses, left sort of to
themselves and bein' drier than a covered bridge, drug forward
and stuck their noses in the trough.
Gentleman Tim and me was sittin' there on our hosses, a little to
one side. We saw Texas Pete jump up from his chair, take a quick
aim, and cut loose with his rifle. It was plumb unexpected to
us. We hadn't thought of any shootin', and our six-shooters was
tied in, 'count of the jumpy country we'd been drivin' the steers
- canvas [´kænvəs]
n.帆布；油画(布) (初中英语单词) - conscience [´kɔnʃəns] n.良心；道德心 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- altitude [´æltitju:d] n.高度；海拨 (初中英语单词)
- severe [si´viə] a.严厉的；苛刻的 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- agency [´eidʒənsi] n.代理商；机构；代理 (初中英语单词)
- mostly [´məustli] ad.主要地；多半；通常 (初中英语单词)
- promptly [´prɔmptli] ad.敏捷地；即时地 (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- humour [´hju:mə] n.幽默，诙谐 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- reasonable [´rizənəbəl] a.合理的；有理智的 (初中英语单词)
- hostile [´hɔstail] a.敌方的，敌意的 (初中英语单词)
- desperate [´despərit] a.拼死的；绝望的 (初中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- thickly [´θikli] ad.厚厚地；密密地 (高中英语单词)
- comfortably [´kʌmfətəbli] ad.舒适地 (高中英语单词)
- outfit [´aut,fit] n.装备 vt.供给；装备 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- peaceable [´pi:səbl] a.和平的；安静的 (高中英语单词)
- lonesome [´ləunsəm] a.孤独的；冷清清的 (高中英语单词)
- schooner [´sku:nə] n.纵帆船 (高中英语单词)
- overflow [´əuvəfləu] v.(使)泛滥 n.泛滥 (高中英语单词)
- unexpected [ʌniks´pektid] a.突然的；意外的 (高中英语单词)
- reasonably [´ri:zənəbli] ad.有理地；合理地 (英语四级单词)
- vicinity [vi´siniti] n.邻近，附近，接近 (英语四级单词)
- emigrant [´emigrənt] n.&a.移(侨)民的 (英语四级单词)
- trough [trɔf] n.槽；水槽；饲料槽 (英语四级单词)
- bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
- playful [´pleifəl] a.爱玩耍的；幽默的 (英语六级单词)
- alkali [´ælkəlai] n.(化学)碱 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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