词汇：reason

n. 理由；理性；动机

相关场景

“Oh, now, John, I wouldn’t threaten these gentlemen if I was you,” Ned Tym said, appalled at what he was hearing. “This is Captain Call and Captain McCrae.” “Well, what’s that to me?” the man said, whirling on Ned. “I never heard of them and I won’t have these old cowboys coming in here and making this kind of mess.” “They ain’t old cowboys,” Ned said. “They’re Texas Rangers. You’ve heard of them. You’ve just forgot.” “I don’t know why I would have,” the man said. “I just lived here two years, miserable ones at that. I don’t necessarily keep up with every old-timer who ever shot at an Indian. It’s mostly tall tales anyway, just old men bragging on themselves.” “John, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ned said, growing more alarmed. “Captain Call and Captain McCrae would be the last ones to brag.” “Well, that’s your opinion,” John said. “They look like braggarts to me.” Call was beginning to feel annoyed, for the young man was giving them unmannerly looks and talking to them as if they were trash; but then it was partly Gus’s fault. The fact that the bartender had been a little slow and insolent hadn’t necessarily been a reason to break his nose. Gus was touchy about such things though. He enjoyed having been a famous Texas Ranger and was often put out if he didn’t receive all the praise he thought he had coming.>>完整场景

Call felt depressed by the morning’s events. He did not particularly lament the loss of the wagon—an old wired-together wreck at best—but he did lament the loss of Bol. Once he formed a unit of men he didn’t like to lose one of them, for any reason. Someone would have to assume extra work, which seldom sat well with whoever had to do it. Bolivar had been with them ten years and it was trying to lose him suddenly, although Call had not really expected him to come when he first announced the trip. Bolivar was a Mexican, If he didn’t miss his family, he’d miss his country, as the Irishman did.>>完整场景

When he grew bored, he could beat the dinner bell with the broken crowbar. For some reason it gave him great satisfaction to beat the dinner bell. It had little to do with dinner, or anything. It was just something he liked to do. When he stopped he could hear the echoes of his work fading into Mexico.>>完整场景

At first Joe was cheerful and eager, but he was not a particularly strong boy, and he was not used to riding sixteen hours a day. He didn’t complain, but he did grow tired, sleeping so deeply when they stopped that July could barely get him awake when it was time to move on. Often he rode in a doze for miles at a stretch. Once or twice July was tempted to leave him at one of the farms they passed. Joe was a willing worker and could earn his keep until he could come back and get him. But the only reason for doing that would be to travel even harder, and the horses couldn’t stand it. Besides, if he left the boy, it would be a blow to his pride, and Joe didn’t have too much pride as it was.>>完整场景

“Well, I don’t take back nothing I said,” Louisa declared. “You men are a worthless race. You’re good for a bounce now and then, and that’s about it. I doubt you’d make much of a fanner.” For some reason Roscoe felt melancholy. For all her loud talk, Louisa didn’t seem to be as disagreeable to him as he had first thought her to be. It seemed to him she might be persuaded to tone down her farming, maybe even move into a town and settle for putting in a big garden, if it was presented to her right. But he couldn’t, because there was the problem of July, who had given him a job and been good to him. The point was, he owed July. Even if he never found him, he had to make the effort, or know that he had failed a friend. Had it not been for that obligation he would have stayed a“It ain’t that I ain’t obliged,” he said. “I’m obliged. The dern thing about it is July. Even if Elmira ain’t coming back, he’s got to be told. It’s my dern job, too. July’s the only friend I got in that town except Joe. Joe’s Elmira’s boy.” Then a happy thought occurred to him. Maybe July had made a slow start. He might not be too far ahead. Perhaps his jaundice had come back on him, in which case he might have had to hole up for a few days. If he himself was lucky he might strike July in a week or two and break the news. Once that was done, his obligation would be satisfied and there would be nothing to keep him from coming back for another visit with Louisa—provided he could find the farm a second time.>>完整场景

Then, as the sun was falling, he had what seemed like a stroke of luck. He heard someone yelling, and he rode into a little clearing near the trail only to discover that the reason there was a clearing was that a farmer had cut down the trees.>>完整场景

Before he had been gone from Fort Smith much more than three hours, he had the bad luck to run into a bunch of wild pigs. For some reason Memphis, his mount, had an unreasoning fear of pigs, and this particular bunch of pigs had a strong dislike of white horses, or perhaps of deputy sheriffs. Before Roscoe had much more than noticed the pigs he was in a runaway. Fortunately the pines were not too thick, or Roscoe felt he would not have survived. The pigs were led by a big brown boar that was swifter than most pigs; the boar was nearly on them before Memphis got his speed up. Roscoe yanked out his pistol and shot at the boar till the pistol was empty, but he missed every time, and when he tried to reload, racing through the trees with a lot of pigs after him, he just dropped his bullets. He had a rifle but was afraid to get it out for fear he’d drop that too.>>完整场景

For some reason the sound reminded her of July, perhaps because she had never heard him make it. July was reticent about such things and would walk far into the woods when he had to go, to spare her any embarrassment. She found his reticence and shyness strangely irritating—it sometimes made her want to tell him what she had really done before they married. But she held back that truth, and every other truth she knew; she ceased talking to July Johnson at all.>>完整场景

Unable to think of any other warnings, or any reason for his staying that might convince anyone, Roscoe gave Memphis a good kick—he was a steady horse once he hit his stride, but he did start slow—and the big-footed gelding kicked a little dust on Charlie Barnes’s shiny shoes, getting underway. Roscoe took one last look at the river and headed for Texas.>>完整场景

“Well, I hope nobody don’t rob the bank while I’m gone,” he said to the little crowd watching him. He wanted to suggest worse possibilities, such as Indian raids, but, in fact, the Indians had not molested Fort Smith in years, though the main reason he rode white horses was that he had heard somewhere that Indians were afraid of them.>>完整场景

It was just the worst luck. He had worried considerably about the various bad things that might happen while July was gone, but the loss of Elmira had not been among his worries. Men’s wives didn’t usually leave on a whiskey barge. He had heard of cases in which they didn’t like wedded life and went back to their families, but Elmira hadn’t even had a family, and there was no reason for her not to like wedded life, since July had not worked her hard at all.>>完整场景

“Joe, be careful,” Roscoe said. For some reason it affected him to see the boy going. It was a poor saddle he had, too. But the boy still grinned out from under the old hat.>>完整场景

Life in Fort Smith was different, too—so dull that she found little reason to raise herself from her quilts, most days. The women of the town, though they had no reason to suspect her, suspected her anyway and let her alone. Often she was tempted just to walk into a saloon where there was a girl or two she might have talked to, but instead she had given way to apathy, spending whole days sitting on the edge of her sleeping loft, doing nothing.>>完整场景

Ellie just looked at him. It was all right with her if he was gone for a year. The only reason she objected to his going was that she knew Peach was behind it; if somebody was going to tell the man what to do, it ought to be her, not Peach.>>完整场景

July knew that for some reason he irritated Elmira—she reacted crossly to almost everything he said or suggested.>>完整场景

She seldom did eat with them. It bothered July a good deal, though he made no complaint. Since their little table was almost under the loft he could look up and see Elmira’s bare legs as he ate. It didn’t seem normal to him. His mother had died when he was six, yet he could remember that she always ate with the family; she would never have sat with her legs dangling practically over her husband’s head. He had been at supper at many cabins in his life, but in none of them had the wife sat in the loft while the meal was eaten. It was a thing out of the ordinary, and July didn’t like for things to be out of the ordinary in his life. It seemed to him it was better to do as other people did—if society at large did things a certain way it had to be for a good reason, and he looked upon common practices as rules that should be obeyed. After all, his job was to see that common practices were honored—that citizens weren’t shot, or banks robbed.>>完整场景

Peach was picking her way across the main street of Fort Smith, which was less of a quagmire than usual, since it had been dry lately. She was carrying a red rooster for some reason. She was the largest woman in. town, nearly six feet tall, whereas Ben had been the runt of the Johnson family. Also, Peach talked a blue streak and Ben had seldom uttered three words a week, although he had been the mayor of the town. Now Peach still talked a blue streak and Ben was dead.>>完整场景

“I ain’t surprised,” Augustus said gently. It was one thing to make light of a young man’s sorrows in love, but another to do it when the sorrower was Xavier’s age. There were men who didn’t get over women. He himself, fortunately, was not one of them, though he had felt fairly black for a year after Clara married. It was curious, for Xavier had had stuff enough to survive a hellion like Therese, but was devastated by the departure of Lorena, who could hardly, with reason, have been expected to stay in one room over a saloon all her life.>>完整场景

“I never expected to find you to be still in bed at this hour, Jake,” Augustus said. “You’ll have a time keeping up with us if you don’t improve your habits. By the way, Soupy hired on this morning. He inquired about you.” “There goes the easy money,” Jake said. “Soupy will win ever cent you boys can earn in the next ten years. He’s been known to win from me, and that ain’t easy.” “Well, I’m going to town,” Augustus said. “Want me to pick you up a Bible or a few hymnbooks?” “Nope, we’re leaving,” Jake said. “Soon as we pack.” “That won’t be soon,” Augustus said. “You’ve scattered stuff over three acres just making this one little camp.” That was true. They had unpacked in the dark and made a mess of it. Jake was looking for a whiskey bottle that wasn’t where he thought he’d put it. It was plain camping wasn’t a neat way of life. There was no place to wash, and they were carrying very little water, which was the main reason she had refused Jake. She liked a wash and felt he could wait until they camped near a river and could splash a little of the dust off before bedding down.>>完整场景

“Come on, if you’re coming, Bol,” he said. “No reason for you to go north and drown.” Bol was indeed feeling terrible. They only talked of going, not of coming back. It might be he would never see Mexico again, or his lovely daughters, if he left. And yet, when he looked across the river and thought of his village, he just felt tired. He was too tired to deal with a disappointed woman, and much too tired to be a bandit.>>完整场景

“Jake won’t camp with us old cobs,” Augustus said. “He’s traveling with a valet, if you know what that is.” “No, but if it’s traveling with Jake I bet it wears skirts,” Soupy said—a remark which for some reason seemed to catch everybody wrong. Or everybody but Gus, who laughed long and hard. Feeling a little confused, but happy to have been hired, Soupy went off with Pea Eye to get breakfast.“I’m going in and pry up that sign I wrote so we can take it with us,” Augustus said. “I may pry up one of my Dutch ovens and bring it too.” “Bol ain’t said that he’s going,” Call said. It was a mild anxiety. If Bol quit and they had to depend on Gus to do the cooking, the whole trip would be in jeopardy. Apart from biscuits, his cooking was of the sort that caused tempers to flare.>>完整场景

“Where we’re going is a sight farther,” he said.“WELL, I’M GOING TO MISS WANZ,” Augustus said, as he and Call were eating their bacon in the faint morning light. “Plus I already miss my Dutch ovens. You would want to move just as my sourdough got right at its prime.” “I’d like to think there’s a better reason for living in a place than you being able to cook biscuits,” Call said. “Though I admit they’re good biscuits.” “You ought to admit it, you’ve et enough of them,” Augustus said. “I still think we ought to just hire the town and take it with us. Then we’d have a good barkeep and someone to play the pianer.” With Call suddenly determined to leave that very day, Augustus found himself regretful, nostalgic already for things he hadn’t particularly cared for but hated to think of losing.>>完整场景

“I’ll be damned if I’ll do it,” he said. “I ain’t no dern cowpuncher. Call just got it in his head to go, for some reason. Well, let him go.” But she knew that bucking Gus and the Captain was no easy thing for Jake. He looked at her finally, a sadness in his eyes, as if he was asking her to think of a way to help him.>>完整场景

Lorena watched Jake closely for a few minutes to see if she was the cause of his sulk. After all, she had sold Gus the poke that very afternoon—it was not impossible that Jake had found out, some way. She was not one who expected to get away with much in life. If you did a thing hoping a certain person wouldn’t find out, that person always did. When Gus tricked her and she gave him the poke, she was confident the matter would get back to Jake eventually. Lippy was only human, and things that happened to her got told and repeated. She didn’t exactly want Jake to know, but she wasn’t afraid of him, either. He might hit her, or he might shoot Gus: she found she couldn’t easily predict him, which was one reason she didn’t care if he found out. After that, she would know him a lot better, whatever he did.>>完整场景

Though he had laughed about the cow in the house, Deets had not been his usual cheerful self for the last few days. He felt a change coming. They were leaving Lonesome Dove, where life had been quiet and steady, and Deets could not understand the reason for it. The Captain was not prone to rash moves—and yet it seemed rash to Deets to just pick up and go north. Usually when he thought about the Captain’s decisions he agreed with him, but this time he couldn’t. He was going, but he felt uneasy in his mind. He remembered one thing the Captain had drilled into them many times during the rangering years: that a good start made for a good campaign.>>完整场景