Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
To those who gave any thought to the matter it was evident that, save for the unexpected appearance of outside information, the mystery of Slaughter's existence prior to his arrival at the Three-mile would remain unsolved, just as the chilling demeanour with which he surrounded himself would remain unpenetrated.
The leaden slugs snarled as thick as angry wasps when the nest has been disturbed; the crackling of the rifles was as a long roll; little geysers of dust spouted among the rocks; the smoke of black powder arose in a thin blue haze. A bullet clipped away a little portion from John Slaughter's ear.
Pete Slaughter was a harsh master, considering he was working volunteer labor; but then we all felt a common interest in the bridge, for if Slaughter's beeves could cross, ours could, and so could Millet's. All the men dragging brush changed horses during dinner, for there was to be no pause in piling in a good foundation as long as the material was at hand.
How strong must be the destructive propensity, when it leads men to wanton acts of barbarity like this; since, had a hundred fish been killed, there would have been no possibility of getting one on board, and the slaughter must merely have been perpetrated for slaughter's sake! Our remonstrances passed unheeded, and we therefore did not conceal our rejoicing over the disappointment.
After breakfast, the two foremen rode off down the creek together, and within half an hour Slaughter's wagon and remuda pulled up within sight of the regular crossing, and shortly afterwards our foreman returned, and ordered our wagon to pull down to a clump of cotton woods which grew about half a mile below our camp.
He stopped abruptly as he met Slaughter's glance; and the others looked from one to the other from Marmot, disconcerted and uneasy, to Slaughter, whose face was set and hard in an expression that conveyed even to the men of Birralong the fact that they were in the presence of something which over-ruled them and subjugated them into a state of mental inferiority.
John Slaughter's wife was beside him on the driver's seat. She saw the rider bursting out of the gloom, and then her eyes fell on the forty-five which he was in the very act of "throwing down." "That man has a gun in his hand," she cried. Without turning his head her husband answered, "So have I."
"Here, within reach of me, when I " "Hereabouts, I said," the other exclaimed roughly. "Keep your wits, and listen." The interruption checked his words, but could not check the red fury that was surging through Slaughter's overstrung brain.
But the most pathetic figure associated with its history is that of Abraham De Moivre, that French mathematician who became the friend of Newton and Leibnite. Notwithstanding his wonderful abilities he was driven to support himself by the meagre pittances earned by teaching and by solving problems in chess at Slaughter's.
If Slaughter's darky cook had been thereabouts then, and suggested a means of getting that herd to take the bridge, his suggestion would have been welcomed, for the bosses were at their wits' ends. Jacklin swore that he would bed that herd at the entrance, and hold them there until they starved to death or crossed, before he would let an animal turn back.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking