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I marked the encampment as I could in passing through it. The little army was three-fourths made up of Tory militia; and there was drinking and song-singing and a plentiful lack of discipline around the camp-fires of these auxiliaries. But a different air was abroad in the camp of the regulars; you would see a soldierly alertness on the part of the men, and there was no roistering in that quarter.
Up in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming down but not floating leisurely along, in the old-fashioned way, manned with joyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking, breakdown-dancing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly along by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the small crews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a suggestion of romance about them anywhere.
With oyster-feeding, fishing, bathing, tree-climbing, tea-making, song-singing the hours fled with pitiless haste, so that, before we had half emptied the brimming cup of joys proffered us, the slanting rays of the setting sun warned us to return lest we should get "hushed" in the dark.
He contrasted that big-shouldered, song-singing fellow who had given them of his endless store of courage when their own was spent, compelling them to go through the mush ice at Five Fingers, and the drift ice at Fort Selkirk, and had landed them safely at Dawson almost against their will, the last boat through before the Klondike froze up, with this secretive hang-dog individual who slunk through an unpeopled wilderness, twisting his neck from side to side, as though he already felt the halter there like a Seven Dials assassin, fearful of arrest.
Up in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming down but not floating leisurely along, in the old-fashioned way, manned with joyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking, breakdown-dancing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly along by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the small crews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a suggestion of romance about them anywhere.
He found, in the first place, that the song-singing took place under exactly the same circumstances as before the fit, and at no other time or place. Hereupon, he devised experiments to discover whether Archibald was conscious that he was singing, or whether it was an act performed mechanically, while the mind was otherwise engaged.
"Well, come on." At this junction, when it may be readily imagined that Edward Sherman's ardor had somewhat cooled, and the emotions of his fellow traveller were not of the most agreeable nature, alternate snatches of song-singing and whistling were heard, not far distant. The bewildered parties rode hastily forward, and met the musician. "Can you tell how far we are from Chimney Rock, my friend?
It was a hard, wearing, toilsome journey, but it had its bright side; for after each day was done and our wolfish hunger appeased with a hot supper of fried bacon, bread, molasses and black coffee, the pipe-smoking, song-singing and yarn-spinning around the evening camp-fire in the still solitudes of the desert was a happy, care-free sort of recreation that seemed the very summit and culmination of earthly luxury.
But even as he reached this decision the voice of gold came back to him: "And the night for love was given Darling, come to me!" How she could love a man! He recalled her gesture when she said: "I will tell you everything"! The glance through the lashes "I've a fancy for my own way"! the forgetting of his presence for the song-singing and the sunset, coming back to talk with him; a pleading child!
Up in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming down but not floating leisurely along, in the old-fashioned way, manned with joyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking, breakdown-dancing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly along by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the small crews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a suggestion of romance about them anywhere.
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