Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 24, 2025
I heard those above, Laban Ragget and his sons, asking eagerly if I had found them, and I had to answer mournfully, "No." Still I saw that they could not have gone through the ice into the stream itself, for that everywhere appeared unbroken. Then it struck me that, as the floor was an inclined plane, they had probably slipped down over the smooth surface without meeting anything to stop them.
"The trail, boy; why, that's just gone and lost itself long ago," answered Sam, with a quizzical look on his dried-up countenance. "If the trail has lost itself, don't let us go and follow its example," remarked Elihu Ragget, laughing. "However, I vote we sit down and have some dinner, while we agree what's next to be done." His proposal met with universal assent.
Having run over all the settled parts, of which I got a tolerable bird's-eye view, I took it into my head that I should like to see something of real backwoodsman's life. Soon getting beyond railways, I pushed right through the State of Missouri till I took up my abode on the very outskirts of civilisation, in a log-house, with a rough honest settler, Laban Ragget by name.
The moving our provisions and baggage was our great difficulty. Still, the general opinion was, that it would be better to move on at once. Laban Ragget at last stood up, and gave the casting vote. "You see, friends," said he, "where there's a will there's a way. That's been my notion through life. Where I've had the will to do, mind you, what ought to be done, I've never failed to find the way.
We had a severe struggle with them before we had them all secured; scowling and vindictive glances enough they cast on us when we had them fast. Old White Dog had, we found, saved the life of Laban Ragget by taking that of the chief. Never had a more treacherous plot to murder a whole party been more mercifully counteracted. Still neither the Raggets nor I would consent to kill our captives.
There is a Greek fable I remember reading as a boy at school, of the ground being sown with teeth, and out of it coming armed men. I cannot help thinking that we must have looked very much like those ready-made heroes, as I and my companions struggled up out of the snow. Elihu Ragget was the first who joined me.
He had a wife and several daughters and small children, and five tall sons, Simri, Joab, Othni, Elihu, and Obed, besides two sisters of his wife's and a brother of his own, Edom Ragget by name. I never met a finer set of people, both men and women.
As soon as the wagons could be safely brought to a stop, some of the women threw themselves by the side of the sufferers, and hung over them, and kissed them, and embraced them convulsively, while the bereaved widows cried out for their husbands, and asked what had become of them. This state of things might have continued all day had not Mr Ragget arrived and somewhat restored order.
Then suddenly I became aware that they were only creatures of my imagination, conjured up through weakness and hunger. All was again silent. "If this state of things continues, I shall certainly drop from my hold," I thought. Then suddenly I remembered that I had some tobacco in my pocket. Edom Ragget had handed it to me to cut up for him. I put a piece in my mouth, and chewed away at it.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking