Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. In the Pecos Country by Edward Sylvester Ellis (affordable ebook reader txt) 📖
- Author: Edward Sylvester Ellis
Book online «In the Pecos Country by Edward Sylvester Ellis (affordable ebook reader txt) 📖». Author Edward Sylvester Ellis
There seemed nothing unlikely in this supposition of Mickey's, who picked up his rifle from where he had left it lying on the ground, and stared inquiringly around in the gloom.
“I wonder whether there be any wild animals prowling around?”
“I don't think that could be; for there couldn't many of them fall through that hole that let us in, and if they did, they would soon die.”
“That minds me that you hinted something about feeling the cravings of hunger, and I signified to you that I had something for ye about my clothes; and so I have, if it isn't lost.”
As he spoke, he drew from beneath his waistcoat a package, carefully wrapped about with an ordinary newspaper. Gently drawing the covering aside, he displayed a half-dozen pieces of deer-meat, cooked to a turn.
“Will ye take some?” he asked, handing one to Fred, who could scarcely conceal his craving eagerness, as he began masticating it.
“How comes it that you have that by you?”
“I ginerally goes prepared for the most desprit emargencies, as me mither used to remark when she stowed the whisky-bottle away wid the lunch she was takin' with her. It was about the middle of yisterday afternoon that I fetched down a deer that was browsing on the bank of a small stream that I raiched, and, as a matter of coorse, I made my dinner on him. I tried to lay in enough stock to last me for a week—that is, under my waistband—but I hadn't the room; so I sliced up several pieces, rather overcooked 'em, so as to make 'em handy to carry, and then wrapped 'em up in the paper.”
“It's a common-sense arrangement,” added Mickey. “I had the time and the chance to do it, and it was likely to happen that, when I wanted the next meal, I wouldn't have the same opportunity, remembering which I did as I said, and the result is, I've brought your dinner to you.”
CHAPTER XXVII. A SUBTERRANEAN CAMP-FIRE
There is no sauce like hunger, and after Fred Munson's experience of partial starvation, and nausea from the wild berries which he had eaten, the venison was as luscious as could be. It seemed to him that he had never tasted of anything he could compare to it.
“Fred, me laddy, tell me all that has happened to you since we met—not that, aither, but since Lone Wolf snapped you up on his mustang, and ran away wid you. I wasn't about the city when the Apaches made their call, being off on a hunt, as you will remember, so I didn't see all the sport, but I heard the same from Misther Simpson.”
Thus invited, the boy went over the narration, already known, giving the full particulars of his adventures, from the morning he opened his eyes and found himself in the camp of the Apaches in the mountains; to the hour when he slipped through from the upper earth into the cave below. Mickey listened with great interest, frequently interrupting and expressing his surprise and gratitude at the good fortune which seemed to succeed bad fortune in every case.
“You sometimes read of laddies like you gettin out of the claws of these spalpeens, but you don't often see it, though you've been lucky enough to get out.”
“Now, Mickey, tell me how it was that you came to get on my track.”
“Well, you see, I got back to New Bosting shortly after the rumpus. I would have been in time enough to have had a hand in the wind-up, if it hadn't been that I got into a little circus of my own. Me and a couple of Apaches tried the game of cracking each other's heads, that was spun out longer than we meant, and so, as I was obsarving, when I rode into town, the fun was all over. I found Misther Simpson just gettin' ready to take your trail, and he axed me to do the same, and I was mighty glad to do it. I was desirous of bringing along your horse Hurricane, for you to ride when we should get you, but Soot would n't hear of it. He said the horse would only be a bother, and if we should lay hands onto you, either of our horses was strong enough to take you, so we left the crature behind.”
“Did you have any trouble in following us?”
“Not at first; a hundred red spalpeens riding over the prairie can't any more hide their trail than an Irishman can save himself from cracking a head when he is invited to do so. We galloped along, without ever scarcely looking at the ground. You know I've larned something of the perarie business since we came West, and that was the kind of trail I could have follered wid both eyes shut and me hands handcuffed, and, knowing as we naaded to hurry, we put our mustangs to their best paces.”
“How was it that you didn't overtake us?”
“You had too much of a start; but when we struck the camp in the mountains—that is, where Lone Wolf and his spalpeens took their breakfast—we wasn't a great way behind 'em. We swung along at a good pace, Soot trying to time ourselves so that we'd strike 'em 'bout dark, when he ca'c'lated there'd be a good chance to work in on 'em.”
“How was it you failed?'
“We'd worked that thing as nice as anything you ever heard tell on, if Lone Wolf hadn't played a trick on us. We had n't gone far on the trail among the mountains, when we found that the spalpeens had separated into two parties—three in one, and something like a hundred in the other.”
“And you did not know which had charge of me?”
“There couldn't be any sartinty about it, and the best we could do was to make a guess. Soot got off his mustang and crawled round on his hands and knees, running his fingers over the ground, and looking down as careful like as me mither used to do with my head when she obsarved me scratching it more industrious than usual. He did n't say much, and arter a time he came back to where his mustang was waitin', and, leanin' agin the beast, looked up in my face, and axed me which party I thought you was in. I said the thray, of course, and that was the rason why they had gone off by themselves.”
“You were right, then, of course.”
“Yes, and when I answered, Soot, he just laughed kind o' soft like, and said that that was the very rason why he did not believe you was with the thray. He remarked that Lone Wolf was a mighty sharp old spalpeen. He knowed that Soot would be coming on his trail, and he divided up his party so as to bother him. Anybody would be apt to think just the same as I did—that the boy would be sent to the Injun town in charge of the little party, while the others went on to hatch up some deviltry. Lone Wolf knowed enough to do that, and
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