United States or Bangladesh ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He was gone; the cabin door had slammed shut with a crash. 'Poleon sank to a seat and with a long sigh bowed his head. It was over; he had done his bit. For a long while he remained there inert, his patient, haggard face bent, his eyes fixed upon the floor. He felt very old, very much used up, and the labor of thinking was unbearable.
Having safely landed his craft below the rapids, 'Poleon Doret hurried back to his tent to find the partners sitting knee to knee, face to face, and hurling whispered incoherencies at each other. Both men were in a poisonous mood, both were ripe for violence. They overflowed with wrath.
Each year a tithe remained behind, the toll of the trackless places, but the rest went back again and again, and took new brothers with them. "Did you like the books I sent you with Poleon when he went down to the coast? I borrowed them from Shakespeare George." The girl laughed. "Of course I did that is, all but one of them." "Which one?"
"Great lovely dove!" ejaculated Burrell, fervently, staring at her. "Oh, I I thought you were Poleon. He " In spite of herself she glanced towards her room as if to flee; she writhed at the utter absurdity of her appearance, and knew the Lieutenant must be laughing at her.
"Why, that's the day after to-morrow!" cried Necia. "Oh, won't I be glad to see him!" "You don' get dem kin' of mans on de beeg cities," said Poleon. "I ain' never care for preachin' much, an' dese feller w'at all de tam' pray an' sing t'rough de nose, dey mak' me seeck. But Fader Barnum Ba Gar! She's the swell man." "Do you know," said Necia, wistfully, "I've always wanted him to marry me."
Poleon had been watching Stark's party disappear, but now he turned and addressed the young soldier. "You mak' some enemies to-day, M'sieu." "That's right," agreed Lee. "Ben Stark will never let up on you now." "Very well, that is his privilege." "You don't savvy what it means to get him down on you," insisted Lee. "He'll frame things up to suit himself, then pick a row with you.
Burrell wrenched his arm free and turned on Doret a face that remained long in the Frenchman's memory, a face suffused with fury and convulsed like that of a sprinter at the finish of a race. The two men stared at each other over the fallen figure for a brief moment, until the soldier gained mastery of himself and sheathed his weapon, when Poleon smiled. "I spoil' a quart of good w'iskee on you.
I staked those claims for Miss Gale, and I'll deed them to her when she turns eighteen." Poleon Doret called to Runnion: "M'sieu, you 'member w'at I tol' you yestidday? I'm begin for t'ink it's goin' be you." The man paled in his anger, but said nothing. Necia clapped her hands gleefully.
What difference, then, whether oblivion came from alcohol or from the drug of the poppy? Deliberately he shut his ears to inner warnings; he raised his head defiantly. "I'll go," said he. "We leave at daylight," Best told him. With 'Poleon Doret to be busy was to be contented, and these were busy times for him.
Next, the youthful heir had found a straw hat of strange and wondrous fashion, with a brim like a board and a band of blue, which Poleon had bought from a college man who had retained this emblem of his past to the final moment.
Word Of The Day