United States or Chad ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At nine o'clock the twenty-mile drive ended in a long, slow climb up a road so washed out, so full of holes and bowlders, that it was no road at all but simply a weather-beaten hillside. A mile of this, with the liveryman's curses "dod rot it" and "gosh dang it" and similar modifications of profanity for Christian use and for the presence of "the sex" ringing out at every step.
Either I shall acquire the rudiments of this accomplishment from standard works upon the subject, or I shall bide my time until I may avail myself of the services of an animal of a more docile nature than those available at the local liveryman's.
He seated himself on the ground and pulled off his boot from which he extracted a pulpy mass of greenbacks. "Can't fool me!" he said cunningly. "Always save 'nuff for my rig!" He shoved the bills into the liveryman's hands. The latter straightened them out, counted them, thrust a portion into his pocket, and handed the rest back to Darrell. "There you are," said he.
So next morning he drove the liveryman's sorrel mare out to Thompson's Crossing, where the brick school-house stood on one corner and Will Thompson's residence on another. A mile away could be seen the spires of the little church at Hooker's Falls. McNutt hitched his horse to Thompson's post, walked up the neat pebbled path and knocked at the door.
As answer to the liveryman's question as to the whereabouts of the smashed rig, he waved a comprehensive hand toward the suburbs. At insistence, he snapped back like an ugly dog. "Out there somewhere," he snarled. "Go find it! What the hell do I care where it is? It's mine, isn't it? I paid you for it, didn't I? Well, go find it! You can have it!"
Ignoring the door, he stepped to the open window by which he had entered and, springing through it, was gone. Disdaining any further attempt at concealment, Laramie rode angrily over to Kitchen's barn; anyone that wanted a dispute with him just then could have it, and promptly. Kitchen got up his horse and, cutting short the liveryman's attempt to talk, Laramie headed for home.
The intervening space was a mass of heavy green foliage, which the eye, now that the twilight was at hand, could penetrate only a few score yards. A northeast wind off the distant mountain tops was cold and sharp, and Harry, who wore no overcoat, shivered a little. Young though he was, he remembered the liveryman's caution, and he watched the forest on either side, as well as he could.
Whenever Lola went above Jimmy Adkins, the mine boss's boy, and Edith May Jonas, the liveryman's only daughter, every Mexican face recorded a slow smile of triumph.
Also he charged a round commission on the wages of Lon Taft and Ned Long, and doubled the liveryman's bill for hauling the goods over from the Junction. Ethel Thompson had refused to accept any payment for what she had done, but Peggy bravely charged it up at good round figures.
Word Of The Day