词汇：mouse

n. 鼠标；老鼠；胆小羞怯的人

相关场景

Before he could stop himself, Newt began to cry. He had lost the Mouse, an unforgivable thing, and all because he thought he had conceived a good plan for watching Lorena. He hated to think what the Captain would say when he had to confess. He ran one way and then the other for a while, thinking there might be two identical boulders—that the horse might still be there. But it wasn’t true. The horse was just gone. He sat down under the tree where Mouse should have been, sure that he was ruined as a cowboy unless a miracle happened. He didn’t think one would.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Finally he had to slow down. His legs refused to keep up the speed and he trotted the last two hundred yards to where he had tied Mouse. But the horse wasn’t there! Newt looked around to be sure he had the right place. He had used a boulder as a landmark, and the boulder was where it should be—but not the horse. Newt knew the stampede might have scared him and caused him to break the rein, but there was no broken rein hanging from the tree where Mouse had been tied.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Newt ran as hard as he could, not because he was afraid of being trampled but because he had to get Mouse and try to be some help. He kept running until he was covered with sweat and could barely get breath into his lungs. He was hoping none of the cowboys saw him afoot. He held onto the gun as he ran.
纽特拼命地跑，不是因为他害怕被践踏，而是因为他必须得到老鼠的帮助。他一直跑，直到浑身是汗，几乎喘不过气来。他希望没有一个牛仔看见他走路。他边跑边握着枪。
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Somehow the daydream had become a night dream, and the night dream was ending. He woke up very frightened, though at first he didn’t know why he was frightened. He just knew that something was wrong. He still sat under the tree, the gun in his hand, only there was a sound that was wrong, a sound like drumming. For a second it confused him—then he realized what it was: the cattle were running. Instantly he was running too, running for Mouse. He wasn’t sure how close the cattle were or whether they were running in his direction, but he didn’t stop to listen. He knew he had to get to Mouse and then ride back to Lorena, to help her in case the cattle swerved her way. He began to hear men yelling to the west, obviously the boys trying to turn the cattle. Then suddenly a bunch of running cattle appeared right in front of him, fifty or sixty of them. They ran right past him and on toward the bluffs.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
But it was such a beautiful, peaceful night, the moon new and high, that Newt decided to chance it. Lorena might already be asleep, it was so peaceful. On such a night it would be little risk to tie Mouse for a few hours. He looped his rein over a tree limb and went walking back toward Lorena’s. He stopped at a little stand of live oak about a hundred yards from the camp, sat down with his back against a tree and drew his pistol. Just holding it made him feel ready for anything.Resting with his back against the tree, Newt let himself drift back into the old familiar daydreams in which he got better and better as a cowboy until even the Captain had to recognize that he was a top hand. His prowess was not lost on Lorena, either. He didn’t exactly dream that they got married, but she did ask him to get off his horse and talk for a while.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
He trotted what he judged to be about a half a mile from Lorena’s camp before stopping and dismounting. His new plan for watching Lorena involved leaving Mouse—if he tried to sneak back on Mouse, Lorena’s mare might nicker. He would have to tie Mouse and sneak back on foot, a violation of a major rule of cowboying. You were never supposed to be separated from your horse. The rule probably had to do with Indian fighting, Newt supposed: you would obviously be done for if the Indians caught you on foot.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Newt’s spirits fell. It was just what he had feared she would say. He had been ordered to come and look after her, and he couldn’t just blithely disobey an order. But neither did he want to disobey Lorena. He sat where he was, on Mouse, in the grip of terrible indecision. He almost wished something would happen—a sudden attack of Mexicans or something. He might be killed, but at least he wouldn’t have to make a choice between disobeying Mr. Gus and disobeying Lorena.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
He slowed Mouse to a walk in hope of thinking up something to say before he had to speak, but for some reason his mind wouldn’t work. He also found that he couldn’t breathe easily.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
It was a great relief to him when Mouse nickered and Lorena’s horse nickered back. At least that disgrace had been avoided. He loped on to the little camp, and at first couldn’t see Lorena at all, just the horse and the mule. Then he finally saw her sitting with her back against a tree.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Seen a few turtles, that’s all,” Deets said. “If they’re there, they’re hid.” “I hope they ain’t there,” Augustus said. “If a mouse snake was to show itself now, half these waddies would climb a tree.” “I’m more worried about Indians,” Pea Eye said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Newt held his reins, still crying, and let Mouse do the work. He remembered Sean’s screams, and how much the snakes had looked like giant wiggly worms. When at last the cattle were started back toward the main herd the Captain put his horse back into the river, which startled Newt. He didn’t see how anybody could just ride back into a river that could suddenly be filled with snakes, but this time no snakes appeared. Newt saw that Mr. Gus and Deets had not moved, and wondered if Sean was dead yet. He kept feeling he ought to leave the cattle and go talk to Sean, even if it was too late for Sean to answer, but he was afraid to. He didn’t know what to do, and he sat on his horse and cried until he started vomiting. He had to lean over and vomit beneath his horse’s neck.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
They both had coiled ropes in their hands as they raced their horses back into the water—Newt wondered what they meant to do with the ropes. Then his eyes found Sean, who was screaming again and again, in a way that made Newt want to cover his ears. He saw that Sean was barely clinging to his horse, and that a lot of brown things were wiggling around him and over him. At first, with the screaming going on, Newt couldn’t figure out what the brown things were—they seemed like giant worms. His mind took a moment to work out what his eyes were seeing. The giant worms were snakes—water moccasins. Even as the realization struck him, Mr. Gus and Deets went into the river behind Pea Eye and the Captain. How they all got there so fast he couldn’t say, for the screams had started just as Mouse and the steer reached the top of the bank, so close that Newt could see the droplets of water on the steer’s horns.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Despite the smoothness, Newt felt a good deal afraid and shut his eyes for a second when his horse went to swimming depth and the water came over the saddle. But he got no wetter, and he opened his eyes to see that he was almost across the river. He struck the far bank almost at the same time as a skinny brown longhorn; Mouse and the steer struggled up the bank side by side.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
herd:
behind it. He was too tired even to feel very relieved. All he wanted was to stretch out and sleep. Several times he dozed off, sitting straight up in the saddle. Mouse was just as tired, and kept to a slow walk.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Good horse,” he said. “If we just keep going maybe it’ll get light.” Mouse swung his head to get his wet forelock out of his eyes, and kept on plodding through the mud.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
All the same, he felt proud of Mouse, for many horses would have fallen, sliding into a gully.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Then Mouse began to move again and Newt heard the splashing of a horse ahead. He didn’t know if it carried a friendly rider, but Mouse seemed to think so, for he was trotting through the hock-high water, trying to locate the other horse. In one of the weakening flashes of lightning Newt saw cattle trotting along, fifty yards to his right. Suddenly, with no warning, Mouse began to slide. His back feet almost went out from under him—they had struck a gully, and Newt felt water rising up his legs. Fortunately it wasn’t a deep gully; Mouse regained his balance and struggled through it, as scared as Newt.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Almost before the last of the sand had stung his eyes, it seemed, the rain began, pelting down in big scattered drops that felt good after all the grit. But the drops got thicker and less scattered and soon the rain fell in sheets, blown this way and that at first by the fitful wind. Then the world simply turned to water. In a bright flash of lightning Newt saw a wet, frightened coyote run across a few feet in front of Mouse. After that he saw nothing. The water beat down more heavily even than the wind and the sand: it pounded him and ran in streams off his hat brim. Once again he gave up and simply sat and let Mouse do what he wanted. As far as he knew, he was completely lost, for he had moved away from the cattle in order to escape the lightning and had no sense that he was anywhere near the herd. The rain was so heavy that at moments he felt it might drown him right on his horse. It blew in his face and poured into his lip from his hat brim. He had always heard that cowboying involved considerable weather, but had never expected so many different kinds to happen in one night. An hour before, he had been so hot he thought he would never be cool again, but the drenching water had already made him cold.Mouse was just as dejected and confused as he was. The ground was covered with water—there was nothing to do but splash along. To make matters worse they hit another thicket and had to back out, for the wet mesquite had become quite impenetrable. When they finally got around it the rain had increased in force. Mouse stopped and Newt let him—there was no use proceeding when they didn’t know where they needed to proceed. The water pouring off his hat brim was an awkward thing—one stream in front, one stream behind. A stream of water poured right in front of his nose while another sluiced down his back.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
But as the lightning came closer thunder came with it—the sound seemed to roll over them like giant boulders. Mouse flinched, and Newt began to flinch too. Then, instead of running across the horizon like snakes’ tongues, the lightning began to drive into the earth, with streaks thick as poles, and with terrible cracks.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
In the short lulls in the wind he could hear the clicking of long horns, as the cattle bumped into one another in the darkness. They were walking slowly, and Newt let Mouse walk along beside them. He had worried as much as he could, and he simply rode, his mind blank. It seemed like he had been riding long enough for the night to be over, but it wasn’t, and the sand still stung his skin. He was surprised suddenly by a flicker of light to the west—so quick and so soon lost that he didn’t at first recognize it as lightning. But it flickered again and soon was almost constant, though still far away. At first Newt welcomed it—it enabled him to see that he was still with the several hundred cattle, and also helped him avoid thickets.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
To his great relief the running cattle soon slowed. The brush was so thick it checked them as a herd, though the same thicket soon divided them into several groups. The bunch Newt was with soon slowed to a trot and then a walk. Mouse’s sides were slick with sweat. Newt felt it was a miracle that he was still alive. Then he heard pistol shots ahead and to his right—a string of cracks, the sound instantly taken by the wind. The wind seemed to be increasing. When he tried to straighten up in the saddle it was like pushing with his back against a heavy door. He tried to turn Mouse, because he still hoped to get back to the rear, where he belonged, but Mouse wouldn’t turn. It angered Newt—he was supposed to be making the decisions, not Mouse. The horse would circle, but he wouldn’t go into the wind, and Newt finally gave up, aware that he probably couldn’t find the wagon or the main herd anyway.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
It was in his first moment of blindness that the cattle began to run, as if pushed into motion by the river of sand. Newt heard Soupy’s horse break into a run, and Mouse instantly was running too, but running where, Newt had no idea. He dug a finger into his eyes, hoping to get the sand out, but it was like grinding them with sandpaper. Tears flowed, but the sand turned them to mud on his lashes. Now and then he could get a blurred glimpse out of one eye, and at the first glimpsewas horrified to discover that he was in among the cattle. A horn nudged his leg, but Mouse swerved and nothing more happened. Newt stopped worrying about seeing and concentrated on keeping his seat. He knew Mouse could leap any bush not higher than his head. He felt a horrible sense of failure, for surely he had not done his job. The Captain had not meant for him to stay near the head of the herd; he was there because he had not moved quick enough, and it was his fault if he was doomed, as he assumed he was. Once he thought he heard a whoop and was encouraged, but the sound was instantly sucked away by the wind—the wind keened like a cry, its tone rising over the lower tone of the pounding hooves. When Newt began to be able to see again, it did him little good, for it was then almost pitch-dark.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Well, we better keep up,” he added nervously—he didn’t want to neglect his responsibilities. Then, to his dismay, he looked back and saw twenty or thirty cattle standing behind them. He had ridden right past them in the dust. He immediately loped back to get them, hoping the Captain hadn’t noticed. When he turned back, two of the wild heifersspooked. Mouse, a good cow horse, twisted and jumped a medium-sized chaparral bush in an effort to gain a step on the cows. Newt had not expected the jump and lost both stirrups, but fortunately diverted the heifers so that they turned back into the main herd. He found his heart was beating fast, partly because he had almost been thrown and partly because he had nearly left thirty cattle behind. With such a start, it seemed to him he would be lucky to get to Montana without disgracing himself.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Once in a while, though, he dropped back a little. His bandana got sweaty, and the dust caked on it so that he felt he was inhaling mud. He had to take it off and beat it against his leg once in a while. He was riding Mouse, who looked like he could use a bandana of his own. The dust seemed to make the heat worse, or else the heat made the dust worse.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Now, in only a few days, he would be going north, a prospect so exciting that for hours at a stretch he was taken away from himself, into imaginings. He continued to do his normal work, although his mind wasn’t really on it. He could imagine himself and Mouse out in a sea of grass, chasing buffalo. He could scare himself to the point where his breath came short, just imagining the great thick bears.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇