United States or Oman ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And toward that bank, which was the north bank, we drifted rapidly, at the same time going down-stream. This quickly took us out of range of Red-Eye, and the last we saw of him was far out on a point of land, where he was jumping up and down and chanting a paean of victory. Beyond holding the two logs together, Lop-Ear and I did nothing.
We swung down-stream, and taking a long circle came in below the drove as it drifted around in the outer orbit of the eddy. The crowd of cattle swam past, butting each other, and churning the water under their bellies, led by a half-blood Aberdeen-Angus steer with a ring in his nose. Half-way around we met Ump. He was a terrible creature.
These boats cannot sail up the river unless there be a very fresh wind blowing, but are towed from the shore: down-stream however they travel as follows: they have a door-shaped crate made of tamarisk wood and reed mats sewn together, and also a stone of about two talents weight bored with a hole; and of these the boatman lets the crate float on in front of the boat, fastened with a rope, and the stone drags behind by another rope.
It would be easy enough to lose the man and turn down-stream again; and that he intended something of the kind is proved by his taking so much food with him. No doubt, he'd rather have avoided that, in case it looked suspicious, but he's had one hungry march over the same ground, and I dare say it was quite enough. Besides, he could defy us once he'd emptied and obliterated the caches."
Early one morning he carried down his canoe to the water's edge, loaded it with a week's provisions, padlocked his store and set out. As the prow drove forward down-stream, exultation entered into him. He was playing at saying good-bye to his long exile; miles ahead lay the Hudson Bay, and beyond that England.
Other, seeking to escape the poisonous wave, dart down-stream and, when halted by the barrier, pour through the opening into the corral, where they are captured by the thousands. I might add that the tuba does not affect the flesh of the fish, which can be eaten with safety. As a means of obtaining food in wholesale quantities fishing with tuba is perhaps justified.
Without another word the Eskimo pushed off the head of the canoe, which was caught by the current and swept down-stream. Ere long they reached the Greygoose River, and, paddling into the centre of the current, were soon careering towards the sea at a pace which they thought rendered their being overtaken almost impossible.
The top of the flood now poured into the mouth of the newly dug trench, biting huge mouthfuls of earth from its sides in its rush; spreading the reddish water fan-like over the down-stream slope: first into gullies; then a broad sluiceway that sunk out of sight in the soft earth; then crumblings, slidings of tons of sand and gravel, with here and there a bowlder washed clean; the men working like beavers, here to free a rock, there to drive home a plank, the trench all the while deepening, widening now a gulch ten feet across and as deep, now a canon through which surged a solid mass of frenzied water.
Their husbands, but little less excited, offered to help us in every way possible, and, to prove their earnest, turned the prow of the motor-boat down-stream, abandoning the trip up the river in order to be in Vienna in case I should need them for any purpose whatsoever. "You may rest easy so far as I am concerned, Mrs. Titus," said the young diplomat.
Pausing a second, he glanced around, and exclaimed, in terror: "As sure as heaven, they are heading toward this point." Kent commanded, in a whisper: "Get your shootin'-iron ready, and be ready yourself. They're comin' in below us." The savages had landed a few hundred yards down-stream, and seemed to suspect the presence of no one. Suddenly one of them uttered a loud whoop.
Word Of The Day