章节正文
squar' foot of land that wasn't either street or straight up. It
made me plumb lonesome for a country where you could see a long
ways even if you didn't see much. And this early in the evenin'
they wasn't hardly anybody in the streets at all.
I took a look at them dark, gloomy, old mountains, and a sniff at
a breeze that would have frozen the whiskers of hope, and I made
a dive for the nearest lit winder. They was a sign over it that
just said:
THIS IS A SALOON
I was glad they labelled her. I'd never have known it. They had
a fifteen-year old kid tendin' bar, no games goin', and not a
soul in the place.
"Sorry to disturb your repose, bub," says I, "but see if you can
sort out any rye among them collections of sassapariller of
yours."
I took a drink, and then another to keep it company--I was
beginnin' to sympathise with anythin' lonesome. Then I kind of
sauntered out to the back room where the hurdy-gurdy ought to be.
Sure enough, there was a girl settin' on the pianner stool,
another in a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer danglin' his
feet from a table. They looked up when they see me come in, and
went right on talkin'.
"Hello, girls!" says I.
At that they stopped talkin' complete.
"How's tricks?" says I.
"Who's your woolly friend?" the shiny Jew asks of the girls.
I looked at him a minute, but I see he'd been raised a pet, and
then, too, I was so hungry for sassiety I was willin' to pass a
bet or two.
"Don't you ADMIRE these cow gents?" snickers one of the girls.
"Play somethin', sister," says I to the one at the pianner.
She just grinned at me.
"Interdooce me," says the drummer in a kind of a way that made
them all laugh a heap.
"Give us a tune," I begs, tryin' to be jolly, too.
"She don't know any pieces," says the Jew.
"Don't you?" I asks pretty sharp.
"No," says she.
"Well, I do," says I.
I walked up to her, jerked out my guns, and reached around both
sides of her to the pianner. I run the muzzles up and down the
keyboard two or three times, and then shot out half a dozen keys.
"That's the piece I know," says I.
But the other girl and the Jew drummer had punched the breeze.
The girl at the pianner just grinned, and pointed to the winder
where they was some ragged glass hangin'. She was dead game.
"Say, Susie," says I, "you're all right, but your friends is
tur'ble. I may be rough, and I ain't never been curried below
the knees, but I'm better to tie to than them sons of guns."
"I believe it," says she.
So we had a drink at the bar, and started out to investigate the
wonders of Cyanide.
Say, that night was a wonder. Susie faded after about three
drinks, but I didn't seem to mind that. I hooked up to another
saloon kept by a thin Dutchman. A fat Dutchman is stupid, but a
thin one is all right.
In ten minutes I had more friends in Cyanide than they is
fiddlers in hell. I begun to conclude Cyanide wasn't so
lonesome. About four o'clock in comes a little Irishman about
four foot high, with more upper lip than a muley cow,and enough
red hair to make an artificial aurorer borealis. He had big red
hands with freckles pasted onto them, and stiff red hairs
standin' up separate and lonesome like signal stations. Also his
legs was bowed.
He gets a drink at the bar, and stands back and yells:
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!"
Now, this was none of my town, so I just stepped back of the end
of the bar quick where I wouldn't stop no lead. The shootin'
didn't begin.
"Probably Dutchy didn't take no note of what the locoed little
dogie DID say," thinks I to myself.
The Irishman bellied up to the bar again, and pounded on it with
his fist.
"Look here!" he yells. "Listen to what I'm tellin' ye! God
bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle! Do ye hear me?"
"Sure, I hear ye," says Dutchy, and goes on swabbin' his bar with
a towel.
At that my soul just grew sick. I asked the man next to me why
Dutchy didn't kill the little fellow.
"Kill him! " says this man. "What for?"
"For insultin' of him, of course."
"Oh, he's drunk," says the man, as if that explained anythin'.
That settled it with me. I left that place, and went home,and it
wasn't more than four o'clock, neither. No, I don't call four
o'clock late. It may be a little late for night before last, but
it's just the shank of the evenin' for to-night.
Well, it took me six weeks and two days to go broke. I didn't
know sic em, about minin'; and before long I KNEW that I didn't
'know sic 'em. Most all day I poked around them mountains---not
like our'n--too much timber to be comfortable. At night I got to
droppin' in at Dutchy's. He had a couple of quiet games goin',
and they was one fellow among that lot of grubbin' prairie dogs
that had heerd tell that cows had horns. He was the wisest of
the bunch on the cattle business. So I stowed away my
consolation, and made out to forget comparing Colorado with God's
country.
About three times a week this Irishman I told you of--name
O'Toole--comes bulgin' in. When he was sober he talked minin'
high, wide, and handsome. When he was drunk he pounded both
fists on the bar and yelled for action, tryin' to get Dutchy on
the peck.
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" he yells about
six times. "Say, do you hear?"
"Sure," says Dutchy, calm as a milk cow, "sure, I hears ye!"
I was plumb sorry for O'Toole. I'd like to have given him a run;
but, of course, I couldn't take it up without makin' myself out a
friend of this Dutchy party, and I couldn't stand for that. But
I did tackle Dutchy about it one night when they wasn't nobody
else there.
"Dutchy," says I, "what makes you let that bow-legged cross
between a bulldog and a flamin' red sunset tromp on you so? It
looks to me like you're plumb spiritless."
Dutchy stopped wiping glasses for a minute.
"Just you hold on" says he. "I ain't ready yet. Bimeby I make
him sick; also those others who laugh with him."
He had a little grey flicker in his eye, and I thinks to myself
that maybe they'd get Dutchy on the peck yet.
As I said, I went broke in just six weeks and two days. And I
was broke a plenty. No hold-outs anywhere. It was a heap long
ways to cows; and I'd be teetotally chawed up and spit out if I
was goin' to join these minin' terrapins defacin' the bosom of
nature. It sure looked to me like hard work.
While I was figurin' what next, Dutchy came in. Which I was
tur'ble surprised at that, but I said good-mornin' and would he
rest his poor feet.
"You like to make some money?" he asks.
"That depends," says I, "on how easy it is."
"It is easy," says he. "I want you to buy hosses for me."
"Hosses! Sure!" I yells, jumpin' up. "You bet you! Why, hosses
is where I live! What hosses do you want?"
"All hosses," says he, calm as a faro dealer.
"What?" says I. "Elucidate, my bucko. I don't take no such
blanket order. Spread your cards."
"I mean just that," says he. "I want you to buy all the hosses in
this camp, and in the mountains. Every one."
"Whew!" I whistles. "That's a large order. But I'm your meat."
"Come with me, then," says he. I hadn't but just got up, but I
went with him to his little old poison factory. Of course, I
hadn't had no breakfast; but he staked me to a Kentucky
breakfast. What's a Kentucky breakfast? Why, a Kentucky
breakfast is a three-pound steak, a bottle of whisky, and a
setter dog. What's the dog for? Why, to eat the steak, of
course.
We come to an agreement. I was to get two-fifty a head
commission. So I started out. There wasn't many hosses in that
country, and what there was the owners hadn't much use for unless
it was to work a whim. I picked up about a hundred head quick
enough, and reported to Dutchy.
"How about burros and mules?" I asks Dutchy.
"They goes," says he. "Mules same as hosses; burros four bits a
head to you."
At the end of a week I had a remuda of probably two hundred
animals. We kept them over the hills in some "parks," as these
sots call meadows in that country. I rode into town and told
Dutchy.
"Got them all?" he asks.
"All but a cross-eyed buckskin that's mean, and the bay mare that
Noah bred to."
"Get them," says he.
"The bandits want too much," I explains.
"Get them anyway," says he.
I went away and got them. It was scand'lous; such prices.
When I hit Cyanide again I ran into scenes of wild excitement.
The whole passel of them was on that one street of their'n,
talkin' sixteen ounces to the pound. In the middle was Dutchy,
drunk as a soldier-just plain foolish drunk.
"Good Lord!" thinks I to myself, "he ain't celebratin' gettin'
that bunch of buzzards, is he?"
But I found he wasn't that bad. When he caught sight of me, he
fell on me drivellin'.
"Look there!" he weeps, showin' me a letter.
I was the last to come in; so I kept that letter--here she is.
I'll read her.
Dear Dutchy:--I suppose you thought I'd flew the coop, but I
haven't and this is to prove it. Pack up your outfit and hit the
trail. I've made the biggest free gold strike you ever see. I'm
sending you specimens. There's tons just like it, tons and tons.
I got all the claims I can hold myself; but there's heaps more.
I've writ to Johnny and Ed at Denver to come on. Don't give this
away. Make tracks. Come in to Buck Canon in the Whetstones and
oblige.
Yours truly,
Henry Smith
Somebody showed me a handful of white rock with yeller streaks in
it. His eyes was bulgin' until you could have hung your hat on
them. That O'Toole party was walkin' around, wettin' his lips
with his tongue and swearin' soft.
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" says he. "And
the fool had to get drunk and give it away!"
The excitement was just started, but it didn't last long. The
crowd got the same notion at the same time, and it just melted.
Me and Dutchy was left alone.
I went home. Pretty soon a fellow named Jimmy Tack come around a
little out of breath.
"Say, you know that buckskin you bought off'n me?" says he, "I
want to buy him back."
"Oh, you do," says I.
"Yes," says he. "I've got to leave town for a couple of days,
and I got to have somethin' to pack."
"Wait and I'll see," says I.
Outside the door I met another fellow.
made me plumb lonesome for a country where you could see a long
ways even if you didn't see much. And this early in the evenin'
they wasn't hardly anybody in the streets at all.
I took a look at them dark, gloomy, old mountains, and a sniff at
a breeze that would have frozen the whiskers of hope, and I made
a dive for the nearest lit winder. They was a sign over it that
just said:
THIS IS A SALOON
I was glad they labelled her. I'd never have known it. They had
a fifteen-year old kid tendin' bar, no games goin', and not a
soul in the place.
"Sorry to disturb your repose, bub," says I, "but see if you can
sort out any rye among them collections of sassapariller of
yours."
I took a drink, and then another to keep it company--I was
beginnin' to sympathise with anythin' lonesome. Then I kind of
sauntered out to the back room where the hurdy-gurdy ought to be.
Sure enough, there was a girl settin' on the pianner stool,
another in a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer danglin' his
feet from a table. They looked up when they see me come in, and
went right on talkin'.
"Hello, girls!" says I.
At that they stopped talkin' complete.
"How's tricks?" says I.
"Who's your woolly friend?" the shiny Jew asks of the girls.
I looked at him a minute, but I see he'd been raised a pet, and
then, too, I was so hungry for sassiety I was willin' to pass a
bet or two.
"Don't you ADMIRE these cow gents?" snickers one of the girls.
"Play somethin', sister," says I to the one at the pianner.
She just grinned at me.
"Interdooce me," says the drummer in a kind of a way that made
them all laugh a heap.
"Give us a tune," I begs, tryin' to be jolly, too.
"She don't know any pieces," says the Jew.
"Don't you?" I asks pretty sharp.
"No," says she.
"Well, I do," says I.
I walked up to her, jerked out my guns, and reached around both
sides of her to the pianner. I run the muzzles up and down the
keyboard two or three times, and then shot out half a dozen keys.
"That's the piece I know," says I.
But the other girl and the Jew drummer had punched the breeze.
The girl at the pianner just grinned, and pointed to the winder
where they was some ragged glass hangin'. She was dead game.
"Say, Susie," says I, "you're all right, but your friends is
tur'ble. I may be rough, and I ain't never been curried below
the knees, but I'm better to tie to than them sons of guns."
"I believe it," says she.
So we had a drink at the bar, and started out to investigate the
wonders of Cyanide.
Say, that night was a wonder. Susie faded after about three
drinks, but I didn't seem to mind that. I hooked up to another
saloon kept by a thin Dutchman. A fat Dutchman is stupid, but a
thin one is all right.
In ten minutes I had more friends in Cyanide than they is
fiddlers in hell. I begun to conclude Cyanide wasn't so
lonesome. About four o'clock in comes a little Irishman about
four foot high, with more upper lip than a muley cow,and enough
red hair to make an artificial aurorer borealis. He had big red
hands with freckles pasted onto them, and stiff red hairs
standin' up separate and lonesome like signal stations. Also his
legs was bowed.
He gets a drink at the bar, and stands back and yells:
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!"
Now, this was none of my town, so I just stepped back of the end
of the bar quick where I wouldn't stop no lead. The shootin'
didn't begin.
"Probably Dutchy didn't take no note of what the locoed little
dogie DID say," thinks I to myself.
The Irishman bellied up to the bar again, and pounded on it with
his fist.
"Look here!" he yells. "Listen to what I'm tellin' ye! God
bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle! Do ye hear me?"
"Sure, I hear ye," says Dutchy, and goes on swabbin' his bar with
a towel.
At that my soul just grew sick. I asked the man next to me why
Dutchy didn't kill the little fellow.
"Kill him! " says this man. "What for?"
"For insultin' of him, of course."
"Oh, he's drunk," says the man, as if that explained anythin'.
That settled it with me. I left that place, and went home,and it
wasn't more than four o'clock, neither. No, I don't call four
o'clock late. It may be a little late for night before last, but
it's just the shank of the evenin' for to-night.
Well, it took me six weeks and two days to go broke. I didn't
know sic em, about minin'; and before long I KNEW that I didn't
'know sic 'em. Most all day I poked around them mountains---not
like our'n--too much timber to be comfortable. At night I got to
droppin' in at Dutchy's. He had a couple of quiet games goin',
and they was one fellow among that lot of grubbin' prairie dogs
that had heerd tell that cows had horns. He was the wisest of
the bunch on the cattle business. So I stowed away my
consolation, and made out to forget comparing Colorado with God's
country.
About three times a week this Irishman I told you of--name
O'Toole--comes bulgin' in. When he was sober he talked minin'
high, wide, and handsome. When he was drunk he pounded both
fists on the bar and yelled for action, tryin' to get Dutchy on
the peck.
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" he yells about
six times. "Say, do you hear?"
"Sure," says Dutchy, calm as a milk cow, "sure, I hears ye!"
I was plumb sorry for O'Toole. I'd like to have given him a run;
but, of course, I couldn't take it up without makin' myself out a
friend of this Dutchy party, and I couldn't stand for that. But
I did tackle Dutchy about it one night when they wasn't nobody
else there.
"Dutchy," says I, "what makes you let that bow-legged cross
between a bulldog and a flamin' red sunset tromp on you so? It
looks to me like you're plumb spiritless."
Dutchy stopped wiping glasses for a minute.
"Just you hold on" says he. "I ain't ready yet. Bimeby I make
him sick; also those others who laugh with him."
He had a little grey flicker in his eye, and I thinks to myself
that maybe they'd get Dutchy on the peck yet.
As I said, I went broke in just six weeks and two days. And I
was broke a plenty. No hold-outs anywhere. It was a heap long
ways to cows; and I'd be teetotally chawed up and spit out if I
was goin' to join these minin' terrapins defacin' the bosom of
nature. It sure looked to me like hard work.
While I was figurin' what next, Dutchy came in. Which I was
tur'ble surprised at that, but I said good-mornin' and would he
rest his poor feet.
"You like to make some money?" he asks.
"That depends," says I, "on how easy it is."
"It is easy," says he. "I want you to buy hosses for me."
"Hosses! Sure!" I yells, jumpin' up. "You bet you! Why, hosses
is where I live! What hosses do you want?"
"All hosses," says he, calm as a faro dealer.
"What?" says I. "Elucidate, my bucko. I don't take no such
blanket order. Spread your cards."
"I mean just that," says he. "I want you to buy all the hosses in
this camp, and in the mountains. Every one."
"Whew!" I whistles. "That's a large order. But I'm your meat."
"Come with me, then," says he. I hadn't but just got up, but I
went with him to his little old poison factory. Of course, I
hadn't had no breakfast; but he staked me to a Kentucky
breakfast. What's a Kentucky breakfast? Why, a Kentucky
breakfast is a three-pound steak, a bottle of whisky, and a
setter dog. What's the dog for? Why, to eat the steak, of
course.
We come to an agreement. I was to get two-fifty a head
commission. So I started out. There wasn't many hosses in that
country, and what there was the owners hadn't much use for unless
it was to work a whim. I picked up about a hundred head quick
enough, and reported to Dutchy.
"How about burros and mules?" I asks Dutchy.
"They goes," says he. "Mules same as hosses; burros four bits a
head to you."
At the end of a week I had a remuda of probably two hundred
animals. We kept them over the hills in some "parks," as these
sots call meadows in that country. I rode into town and told
Dutchy.
"Got them all?" he asks.
"All but a cross-eyed buckskin that's mean, and the bay mare that
Noah bred to."
"Get them," says he.
"The bandits want too much," I explains.
"Get them anyway," says he.
I went away and got them. It was scand'lous; such prices.
When I hit Cyanide again I ran into scenes of wild excitement.
The whole passel of them was on that one street of their'n,
talkin' sixteen ounces to the pound. In the middle was Dutchy,
drunk as a soldier-just plain foolish drunk.
"Good Lord!" thinks I to myself, "he ain't celebratin' gettin'
that bunch of buzzards, is he?"
But I found he wasn't that bad. When he caught sight of me, he
fell on me drivellin'.
"Look there!" he weeps, showin' me a letter.
I was the last to come in; so I kept that letter--here she is.
I'll read her.
Dear Dutchy:--I suppose you thought I'd flew the coop, but I
haven't and this is to prove it. Pack up your outfit and hit the
trail. I've made the biggest free gold strike you ever see. I'm
sending you specimens. There's tons just like it, tons and tons.
I got all the claims I can hold myself; but there's heaps more.
I've writ to Johnny and Ed at Denver to come on. Don't give this
away. Make tracks. Come in to Buck Canon in the Whetstones and
oblige.
Yours truly,
Henry Smith
Somebody showed me a handful of white rock with yeller streaks in
it. His eyes was bulgin' until you could have hung your hat on
them. That O'Toole party was walkin' around, wettin' his lips
with his tongue and swearin' soft.
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" says he. "And
the fool had to get drunk and give it away!"
The excitement was just started, but it didn't last long. The
crowd got the same notion at the same time, and it just melted.
Me and Dutchy was left alone.
I went home. Pretty soon a fellow named Jimmy Tack come around a
little out of breath.
"Say, you know that buckskin you bought off'n me?" says he, "I
want to buy him back."
"Oh, you do," says I.
"Yes," says he. "I've got to leave town for a couple of days,
and I got to have somethin' to pack."
"Wait and I'll see," says I.
Outside the door I met another fellow.
- breeze [bri:z]
n.微风；不费力的事 (初中英语单词) - frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- disturb [di´stə:b] vt.扰乱；使不安；打乱 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- hooked [hukt] a.钩状的；上瘾的 (初中英语单词)
- stupid [´stju:pid] a.愚蠢的；糊涂的 (初中英语单词)
- artificial [,ɑ:ti´fiʃəl] a.人工的；模拟的 (初中英语单词)
- timber [´timbə] n.木材；木料；横梁 (初中英语单词)
- prairie [´preəri] n.大草原 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- poison [´pɔizən] n.毒物 v.毒害 a.有毒的 (初中英语单词)
- agreement [ə´gri:mənt] n.同意；一致；协议 (初中英语单词)
- excitement [ik´saitmənt] n.兴奋；骚动；煽动 (初中英语单词)
- lonesome [´ləunsəm] a.孤独的；冷清清的 (高中英语单词)
- gloomy [´glu:mi] a.昏暗的；忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- repose [ri´pəuz] v.&n.(使)休息；安息 (高中英语单词)
- ragged [´rægid] a.衣服破烂的 (高中英语单词)
- investigate [in´vestigeit] v.调查(研究) (高中英语单词)
- colorado [,kɔlə´rɑ:dəu] n.科罗拉多(州) (高中英语单词)
- tackle [´tækəl] n.用具；装置 vt.处理 (高中英语单词)
- flicker [´flikə] n.&v.闪烁；忽隐忽现 (高中英语单词)
- kentucky [kən´tʌki] n.肯塔基 (高中英语单词)
- outfit [´aut,fit] n.装备 vt.供给；装备 (高中英语单词)
- handful [hændful] n.一把，少数，一小撮 (高中英语单词)
- denver [´denvə] n.丹佛(市) (英语四级单词)
- dutchman [´dʌtʃmən] n.荷兰人 (英语六级单词)
- irishman [´aiəriʃmən] n.爱尔兰人 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
