Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
The day was passing, and as the evening approached the train was running through a wilder, heavily-wooded country. Shorty's companions took their seats on the opposite side of the car and peered anxiously out of the window to recognize features of the darkening landscape. They were evidently getting near their destination.
"Colonel," said Shorty's voice out of the darkness, "I've brung you one o' the rebel scouts that was piroutin' out there. I don't know as you kin make much out o' him, though, for the welt I fetched him with my gun bar'l seems to've throwed his thinkery out o' gear, and he can't talk straight."
"Yes," echoed Shorty, "we'll be the only part o' the rijiment at the front, and we want to git a good stiff brace on ourselves, because if we don't some o' these other rijiments may git the grand laugh on us." Shorty's tone was that this was a calamity to which death was preferable, and the boys were correspondingly impressed.
Before the dog lapped the water that he craved, he stared into Shorty's face and saw a kindly smile that told him this man was a friend. Jan's hot tongue touched Shorty's hand before turning to lap the cool liquid. "You'll be all right now," Shorty said as he rubbed the places where the strap had cut deeply. Then when Jan had finished drinking, the man fed him bits of meat.
He grinned, with hideous satire, into Shorty's face as he tried, vainly, to steady himself. "Warden the damned skunk said Lawler would come first!" he said, with horrible pauses. He lurched again, still grinning satirically; and slumped to the floor, where he turned slowly over on his back and lay still.
"There's only one thing. The lake of course freezes first. The rapid current of the river may keep it open for days. This time to- morrow any boat caught in Lake Le Barge remains there until next year." "You mean we got to get out to-night? Now?" Kit nodded. "Tumble out, you sleepers!" was Shorty's answer, couched in a roar, as he began casting off the guy-ropes of the tent.
This confirmed Shorty's opinion as to the place where Doble was to be found. With the certainty of one who knew these hills as a preacher does his Bible, Shorty wound in and out, always moving by the line of least resistance. He was steadily closing the gap of miles that separated him from Dug Doble. Crawford and Sanders rode rapidly toward Malapi.
Smoke saw and heard as he was scrambling to his feet, but before he could make another lunge for the bank a fist dropped him half-stunned into the snow. He staggered up, located the man, half-swung a hook for his jaw, then remembered Shorty's warning and refrained. The next moment, struck below the knees by a hurtling body, he went down again.
Shorty's heart bounded at the thought of any man having the unspeakable happiness of marrying that peerless creature, and then having the meanness not to let her do precisely as she wanted to. Both the boys had been long enough in the field to make that plain farm home seem a luxurious palace of rest.
The speed and manner in which she negotiated the precarious footing, called out Shorty's unqualified approval. "Look at her!" he cried. "She's the real goods an' the red meat. Look at them moccasins swing along. No high-heels there. She uses the legs God gave her. She's the right squaw for any bear-hunter." She flashed back a smile of acknowledgment that included Smoke.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking