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Options-Part16_O.Henry(1862-1910)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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account.

"Well, I'd been holding a napkin over my arm at Chubb's about long



enough then, so I wired High Jack 'Yes'; and he sent me a ticket, and

I met him in Washington, and he had a lot of news to tell me. First



of all, was that Florence Blue Feather had suddenly disappeared from

her home and environments.



"'Run away?' I asked.

"'Vanished,' says High Jack. 'Disappeared like your shadow when the



sun goes under a cloud. She was seen on the street, and then she

turned a corner and nobody ever seen her afterward. The whole



community turned out to look for her, but we never found a clew.'

"'That's bad--that's bad,' says I. 'She was a mighty nice girl, and



as smart as you find em.

"High Jack seemed to take it hard. I guess he must have esteemed Miss



Blue Feather quite highly. I could see that he'd referred the matter

to the whiskey-jug. That was his weak point--and many another man's.



I've noticed that when a man loses a girl he generally takes to drink

either just before or just after it happens.



"From Washington we railroaded it to New Orleans, and there took a

tramp steamer bound for Belize. And a gale pounded us all down the



Caribbean, and nearly wrecked us on the Yucatan coast opposite a

little town without a harbor called Boca de Coacoyula. Suppose the



ship had run against that name in the dark!

"'Better fifty years of Europe than a cyclone in the bay,' says High



Jack Snakefeeder. So we get the captain to send us ashore in a dory

when the squall seemed to cease from squalling.



"'We will find ruins here or make 'em,' says High. 'The Government

doesn't care which we do. An appropriation is an appropriation.'



"Boca de Coacoyula was a dead town. Them biblical towns we read

about--Tired and Siphon--after they was destroyed, they must have



looked like Forty-second Street and Broadway compared to this Boca

place. It still claimed 1300 inhabitants as estimated and engraved on



the stone court-house by the census-taker in 1597. The citizens were

a mixture of Indians and other Indians; but some of 'em was light-



colored, which I was surprised to see. The town was huddled up on the

shore, with woods so thick around it that a subpoena-server couldn't



have reached a monkey ten yards away with the papers. We wondered

what kept it from being annexed to Kansas; but we soon found out that



it was Major Bing.

"Major Bing was the ointment around the fly. He had the cochineal,



sarsaparilla, log-wood, annatto, hemp, and all other dye-woods and

pure food adulteration concessions cornered. He had five-sixths of



the Boca de Thingama jiggers working for him on shares. It was a

beautiful graft. We used to brag about Morgan and E. H. and others



of our wisest when I was in the provinces--but now no more. That

peninsula has got our little country turned into a submarine without



even the observation tower showing.

"Major Bing's idea was this. He had the population go forth into the



forest and gather these products. When they brought 'em in he gave

'em one-fifth for their trouble. Sometimes they'd strike and demand a



sixth. The Major always gave in to 'em.

"The Major had a bungalow so close on the sea that the nine-inch tide



seeped through the cracks in the kitchen floor. Me and him and High

Jack Snakefeeder sat on the porch and drank rum from noon till



midnight. He said he had piled up $300,000 in New Orleans banks, and

High and me could stay with him forever if we would. But High Jack



happened to think of the United States, and began to talk ethnology.

"'Ruins!' says Major Bing. 'The woods are full of 'em. I don't know



how far they date back, but they was here before I came.'

"High Jack asks what form of worship the citizens of that locality are



addicted to.

"'Why,' says the Major, rubbing his nose, 'I can't hardly say. I



imagine it's infidel or Aztec or Nonconformist or something like that.

There's a church here--a Methodist or some other kind--with a parson



named Skidder. He claims to have converted the people to

Christianity. He and me don't assimilate except on state occasions.



I imagine they worship some kind of gods or idols yet. But Skidder

says he has 'em in the fold.'



"A few days later High Jack and me, prowling around, strikes a plain

path into the forest, and follows it a good four miles. Then a branch



turns to the left. We go a mile, maybe, down that, and run up against

the finest ruin you ever saw--solid stone with trees and vines and



under-brush all growing up against it and in it and through it. All

over it was chiselled carvings of funny beasts and people that would



have been arrested if they'd ever come out in vaudeville that way. We




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