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"You do," jerked Shag at his elbow, with a face bloodless and drawn. "You're the best swimmer in the school. Will you come with me?" "Come with you?" yelled Shorty. "Out there? Why, you know as well as I do that I can't swim that far, not nearly that far; neither can you." "I can, and I will," announced Shag in a strangely quiet voice, while with rapid fingers he stripped off his coat and boots.
Kurt, the Knacker, laughed silently under his curtain of black beard, and then stumped over to a bench in the gateway, sheltered from the wind and open to the sun. There he sat him down and proceeded to enjoy the pleasures of social converse with the warders on guard, an occupation pleasingly diversified by an occasional black-jack of ale and innumerable pipefuls of Kinnectikut shag.
Then Shag rested his black-whiskered chin on the soft turf, his tired eyelids, mange-shaved, drooped over the age-blurred eyes, and these two Outcasts, so strangely mated, driven together by adversity, slept in the coulee of Belly Buttes. A cold, weakling gray-light was touching with ghastly fresco the Belly Buttes when A'tim stretched out his paw and scratched impatiently at Shag's leather side.
No Indian's going to be head of this school, and Shag Larocque isn't even a decent Indian, he's a halfbreed, a French halfbreed, he's "
"Shag!" fairly shouted his master. "Yes, sah, Colonel!" "Out of the room this instant, and don't you dare come back until I send for you!" "Yes, sah, Colonel." The old colored man turned slowly to the door. His manner was dejected. Evidently he had given serious offense. Silently he turned the knob, but, before he had stepped over the threshhold, he heard a voice calling softly: "Shag!"
He crushed the paper in his hand, and then spread it out to read again the startling news, while he murmured: "The watch of death!" "Shag!" exclaimed the colonel. "Yes, sah!" "We're going fishing tomorrow!" "Is we, Colonel? Den I s'pects yo'll want t' git " "Get everything ready, yes. We'll go again to that place where Miss Mason found me.
It got colder and colder every day for a considerable time; the food got worse and worse, and we were on short rations; the ship became more and more dirty, smokes ran short only some ancient dusty shag brought from Germany by the Wolf and some virulent native tobacco from New Guinea remained and conditions generally became almost beyond endurance.
It was years since he had been thought worthy of the chase; surely he was becoming of some account in the Buffalo world again. A'tim, sitting on his haunches, watched the departing cavalcade, and industriously absorbed much of the fat pork. "I can carry it better in my stomach," he reasoned philosophically. "But who would have thought old Shag had it in him?" he muttered in admiration.
Even the station agent felt the importance of the occasion, and stood around with all the self-consciousness of an usher at a grand wedding, considering himself master of ceremonies. "Sure! They come from the East last night. Limited dropped 'em! Going down to prospect some mine, I reckon. They ordered horses an' a outfit, and Shag Bunce is goin' with 'em.
French, "Cormoran largup." The Shag almost entirely takes the place, as well as usurps the name, of its big brother, as in the Islands it is invariably called the Cormorant. The local Guernsey-French name "Cormoran" is applicable probably to either the Shag or the Cormorant.
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