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Updated: May 25, 2025
He took up a lengthy document and read the last codicil: "Since the above will was written and acknowledged, leaving The Gaffs to be equally divided between my two grandsons, Thomas and Richard Travis, my country has been precipitated into the horrors of Civil War.
They are already spurred, but the gaffs are not yet unsheathed. Cries of "Al blanco! al blanco!" are heard. Some one else shouts, "Al rojo!" The blanco is the favorite. Civil Guards circulate among the crowd. They are not wearing the uniform of their body, nor do they wear the costume of the native.
There are the greater part of the fighting-cocks tied with cords which are fastened to the ground by means of a piece of bone or hard wood; there are assembled the gamblers, the devotees, those skilled in tying on the gaffs, there they make agreements, they deliberate, they beg for loans, they curse, they swear, they laugh boisterously.
Sometimes a man will take cider with his tea a cup of tea one side and a mug of cider on the other. The German bands, who wander even into these extreme parts of the country, always ask for cider, which they say reminds them of their own wines at home like hock, or Rhenish. Salmon-fishing is preserved, but poachers take them at night with gaffs.
I have aspired to his method, but realize it is impossible for me. He goes out alone. Hence the name Lone Angler. He operates his motor-launch, rigs his tackle and bait and teasers, flies his kite, finds the fish, fights the one he hooks, and gaffs and hauls it aboard or releases it, all by himself.
The sullen, red blaze on the distant vessel was dying down against the horizon. The flames had stripped her to a skeleton. Her hempen running rigging had been consumed; sails, gaffs, and booms lay smoldering on her decks; above the hull only her masts and bowsprit were outlined in fire against the blackness behind. Lacking anything better to do, Jim began counting the men in the dories.
And nothing stood between her and the accomplishment of it all but the foolish romance of her daughter's youth. And so she sat building her castles and thinking: "With The Gaffs, with Richard Travis and his money would come all I wish, both for her and for me. Once more I would hold the social position I once held: once more I would be something in the world.
The skilled attendants carry the two cocks into the arena, a white and a red, already armed but with the gaffs still sheathed. Cries are heard, "On the white!" "On the white!" while some other voice answers, "On the red!" The odds are on the white, he is the favorite; the red is the "outsider," the dejado. Members of the Civil Guard move about in the crowd.
They've been tied up, just like you see 'em now stopped snug and neat between gaffs and booms for, oh, I dunno twenty years now, I reckon. I know I've yet to see 'em hoisted. But when'll I come and get you?" "I'll send word to the yard station by wireless, to Harty or whoever's on watch there, when we get it rigged." "All right. And say, a great thing that wireless, ain't it? Well, good luck."
"I put gaffs on 'em early this mornin' an' kept 'em waitin' for the finish, and when it come it come soon," he said. "Mr. Jucklin, I had hoped to make myself sufficiently clear. I have come, sir, to break the engagement that was foolishly arranged by us to bind your daughter and my son."
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