United States or Georgia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Entering on his stomach, he found himself in a room about sixteen by twenty feet, two-thirds underground, log-walls chinked with moss, a roof of poles sloping upwards, tent-like, but leaving an opening in the middle for a smoke-hole some three feet square, and covered at present by a piece of thin, translucent skin.
Not a muscle was relaxed on the part of the onlookers. Not the weight of a body shifted from one leg to the other. It was a sacred silence. Only could be heard the roaring draft of the huge stove, and from without, muffled by the log-walls, the howling of dogs. It was not every night that high stakes were played on the Yukon, and for that matter, this was the highest in the history of the country.
The moon shone brightly down on the square block-houses and stockaded yard of the lonely little frontier fort; its rays lit up the clearing, and by contrast darkened the black shadow of the surrounding forest. None of the sleepers within the log-walls dreamed of danger. Yet their peril was imminent.
Inside, there is not much to be seen or described. The interior consists of a single room of which the log-walls are the sides, and the clapboard roof the ceiling. In one corner there is a little partition or screen the materials composing it being skins or the black bear and fallow deer. It is pleasant to look upon this little chamber: it is the shrine of modesty and virgin innocence.
We therefore rented for ourselves a little log house overlooking the valley, of the Gizhiga River, furnished it as comfortably as possible with a few plain wooden chairs and tables, hung up our maps and charts on the rough log-walls, displayed our small library of two books Shakespeare and the New Testament as advantageously as possible in one corner, and prepared for at least a month of luxurious idleness.
But dream not, my lad, that we are unobserved; doubtless fifty pair of skulking eyes are even now upon us, marking every move. I venture we travel no more than a hundred yards from the gate before our way is barred. But for the closed gates, one would never dream it the centre of hostile attack. Upon my word, even love-making has not deserted its log-walls!"
They were frank, generous, honourable fellows honest and brave, but perfectly ungodly and reckless of Heaven's displeasure or the life hereafter. After the day's labour, the evening was dissipated in card-playing, swearing, and hard drinking. Many a scene of riot and orgies did those log-walls witness.
Word Of The Day