"And it's my proudest day, too," Fred responded; "for I've been there with you."
The Colonel moved from under the bridge, spurred up the bank, and turned to us with a murderous smile. "Howdy, Gholson." The smile grew. "Had to stay with the hanging-squad to keep his mouth shut, you was going to say, wa'n't you? But you knew Captain Ferry would be delayed waiting for Quinn, too; yes. Does any one know this now besides us three; no! Good, we're well met! Smith and me are going to union Church, and you'd better go with us; I've got a job that God A'mighty just built you two saints and me for; come, never mind Gallatin, Ferry's not there, and when he gets there Heaven ain't a-going to stop that wedding, and hell sha'n't." Gholson had barely caught his breath to demur when old Dismukes, roaring and snarling like a huge dog, whipped out his revolver, clutched the sick man's bosom, and hanging over him and bellowing blasphemies, yelled into his very teeth "Come!"
"To tell the truth," said Arthur, after a moment's consideration, "I thought you came out of the sky."
"Well, in the first place, because woman's instinct helped me. My niece said for some time that you were deeply in love with Dr. Bruce and that she feared for him--item the first. Then I recollected telling you some details of my story plot--item the second. I came to the conclusion you had stolen my plot. And you stole it on the very night that I told you the main incidents."
Third. Machinery for applying power.
In handling a weight with the hands it is carefully raised, and laid down with care, but moved as rapidly as possible throughout the intervening distance; this lesson of nature has not been disregarded. We find that the attention of engineers has been directed to this principle of variable speed to be controlled at will. The hydraulic cranes of Sir William Armstrong, for example, employ this principle in the most effective manner, not only securing rapid transit of loads when lifted, but depositing or adjusting them with a care and precision unknown to mechanism positively geared or even operated by friction brakes.
He showed the most profound indignation, and offered his apologies with lively gestures. He said that my papers proved quite clearly that I was a Netherland journalist. He declined to allow any further examination, and gave the peremptory order that everything that had been taken away from me should be returned at once. When I had put everything in my pockets, he asked:
The boy grinned again. "How Mees Landor?" he repeated. His savage perception had noted that those words had some "medicine" or other that paralyzed[Pg 234] the Ojo-blanco temporarily. Cairness swore at him in good English, and went off abruptly.
If the sea, whipping in huge waves against the fury of a typhoon, were to become on the instant rocks, it would be as this. There are heights and crevasses, hills and gulches, crests and hollows, little caves and crannies, where quail and snakes and cotton-tails and jack-rabbits, lizards and coyotes, creatures of desolation and the barrens, hide and scamper in and out. It is an impregnable stronghold, not for armies, because they could not find shelter, but for savages that can scatter like the quail themselves, and writhe on their bellies into the coyotes' own holes.
He turned from them sharply, and threw himself down on the dead bracken. Then suddenly the hunger passed. The reek of the moist earth rose up in his nostrils; it was the scent of his love, who was sweeter to him than ever Naomi was to Harry. His hand stole over the short, mould-smelling grass, caressing it. He had a love more beautiful than Harry's, whose comeliness would stay unwithered through the years, whose fruitfulness would make him great, whose allure was salted with a hundred dangers.... His fingers dug themselves into the earth, and he embraced Boarzell with wide-flung trembling arms. "My land!" he cried"mine!mine!"