词汇:although

conj. 虽然,尽管

相关场景

“I guess who ever picked this one was just planning to ride to church,” Blue Duck said. He untied Lorena and put her on the pack-horse. They rode off and left the mare. The pack-horse lasted only a day, and when he stopped, Blue Duck made her get up behind him on the big sorrel. If it bothered the horse to carry two riders, he didn’t show it. Lorena held to the saddle strings and tried not to touch Blue Duck, although he paid her no mind.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
She knew it was as much her fault as Jake’s, but she soon stopped caring whose fault it was. She knew she was as good as dead, and would never get to see San Francisco, the one thing she had always looked forward to. Soon even that loss and the prospect of death ceased to mean much, she grew so tired. She had never ridden so hard. Before morning, all she could think of was stopping, although for all she knew, when they did stop something bad would happen. But in time it came to seem to be worth it just to stop.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Buenos dias,” Po Campo said to the group at large. “If that donkey ever gets here we’ll have breakfast.” “Why can’t we have it now?” Augustus asked. “You’re here and I see you brought the eggs.” “Yes, but I need my skillet,” Po Campo said. “I’m glad I spotted those plovers. It’s not every day I find this many plover’s eggs.” “It’s not every day I eat them,” Augustus said. “What’d you say your name was?” “Po Campo,” the old man said. “I like this boy here. He helped me gather these eggs, although he’s bunged up from gettin’ throwed.” “Well, I’m Augustus McCrae,” Augustus said. “You’ll have to do the best you can with this rough old crew.” Po Campo whistled at his donkey. “Plover’s eggs are better than quail’s eggs,” he said. “More taste, although quail’s eggs aren’t bad if you boil them and let them cool.” He went around the camp shaking hands with each man in turn. By the time he had finished meeting the crew the donkey had arrived, and in a remarkably short time Po Campo had unpacked a huge skillet, made himself a little grill with a couple of branding irons laid across two chunks of firewood, and had scrambled up sixty or seventy plover’s eggs. He sprinkled in a few spices from his pack and cooked the eggs until they could be cut in slices, like an egg pie. After sampling his own wares and grunting cryptically, he gave each man a slice. Some, like Jasper, were reluctant to sample such exotic fare, but once they had eaten a bite or two their reluctance disappeared.“Dern, this is the best bird-egg pie I ever tasted,” Jasper admitted. “It’s better than hen’s eggs.” “Don’t you even know an omelet when you see one, Jasper?” Augustus said. He was miffed to see the new cook become a hero in five minutes, whereas he had cooked excellent biscuits for years and drawn little praise.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
A few times he almost swayed, almost went back to marry her, though it would have meant disgrace. Maybe the boy was his—maybe it was the proper thing to do, although it would mean leaving the Rangers.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“This is a worrisome situation,” Augustus said. “I probably ought to track that man or send Deets to do it. Deets is a better tracker than me. Jake ain’t back and I ain’t got your faith in him. I best send one of the hands to guard you until we know where that bandit’s headed.” “Don’t send Dish,” Lorena said. “I don’t want Dish coming around.” Augustus chuckled. “You gals are sure hard on the boys that love you,” he said. “Dish Boggett’s got a truer heart than Jake Spoon, although neither one of them has much sense.” “Send me the black man,” she said. “I don’t want none of them others.” “I might,” Augustus said. “Or I might come back myself. How would that suit you?” Lorena didn’t answer. She felt the anger coming back. Because of some woman named Clara she wasn’t getting to San Francisco, when otherwise Gus would have taken her. She sat silently on the rock.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Lorena looked at Gus, half expecting him to shoot the man, but Gus just pushed his hat brim up and watched him ride away. Lorena almost wished Gus would shoot him, for she felt the man was a killer, although she had no basis for the judgment. He had not looked at her and didn’t seem to be interested in her, yet he felt dangerous. Sometimes the minute a man stepped into her room she would know he was dangerous and would hurt her if she gave him the opportunity.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“No, but he got you hoping, at least,” Augustus said. “The trouble is, Jake ain’t a man to support nobody’s hopes but his own.” Lorena shrugged. It hadn’t been Jake’s fault. He hadn’t asked her to turn herself over to him, although he had accepted readily enough when she did.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Suddenly a big bullfrog jumped off the bank. While the frog was in the air, the girl hit it with the stick and knocked it far up the bank. She scrambled up after it, and Roscoe stood up to watch, although he had only one eye to watch with. She had knocked the frog into some weeds, which slowed its hopping some. The frog cleared the weeds once, but it couldn’t jump far, and the girl was soon on it with her stick. A moment later she came down the bank holding the squashed frog by the legs. Its pink tongue was hanging out.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
She stopped twenty feet away, as if not sure how close she was supposed to come. She was rather a pretty girl, Roscoe thought, although her brown hair was dirty and she had bruises on her thin arms from the old man’s rough treatment.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
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.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
In fact they rode so hard that Joe soon stopped missing the talk. Although still curious, he discovered that travel was harder than he had expected it to be. Besides hating to talk, July also seemed to hate to stop. When they came to a creek he would let the horses water, and now and then he got down to relieve himself; otherwise they rode from first light until it was too dark to see. On nights when there was a moon they rode well into the night.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Roscoe, you’ve went to waste long enough,” she said. “Let’s give it a tryout.” “Well, I wouldn’t know how to try,” Roscoe said. “I’ve been a bachelor all my life.” Louisa straightened up. “Men are about as worthless a race of people as I’ve ever encountered,” she said. “Look at the situation a minute. You’re running off to catch a sheriff you probably can’t find, who’s in the most dangerous state in the union, and if you do find him he’ll just go off and try to find a wife that don’t want to live with him anyway. You’ll probably get scalped before it’s all over, or hung, or a Mexican will get you with a pigsticker. And it’ll all be to try and mend something that won’t mend anyway. Now I own a section of land here and I’m a healthy woman. I’m willing to take you, although you’ve got no experience either at farming or matrimony. You’d be useful to me, whereas you won’t be a bit of use to that sheriff or that town you work for either. I’ll teach you how to handle an ax and a mule team, and guarantee you all the corn bread you can eat. We might even have some peas to go with it later in the year. I can cook peas. Plus I’ve got one of the few feather mattresses in this part of the country, so it’d be easy sleeping. And now you’re scared to try. If that ain’t cowardice, I don’t know what is.” Roscoe had never expected to hear such a speech, and he had no idea how to reply to it. Louisa’s approach to marriage didn’t seem to resemble any that he had observed, though it was true he had not spent much time studying the approaches to matrimony. Still, he had only ridden into Louisa’s field an hour before sundown, and it was not yet much more than an hour after dark. Her proposal seemed hasty to him by any standards.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Nonetheless, the next morning he found himself saddling up the big white gelding he had ridden for the last ten years, a horse named Memphis, the town of his origin. Several of the townspeople were there at the jail, watching him pack his bedroll and tie on his rifle scabbard, and none of them seemed worried that he was about to ride off and leave them unprotected. Although Roscoe said little, he felt very pettish toward the citizens of Fort Smith, and toward Peach Johnson and Charlie Barnes in particular. If Peach had just minded her own business, nobody would even have discovered that Elmira was missing until July returned, and then July would have been able to take care of the problem, which rightly was his problem anyway.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“If you ain’t up to getting the woman, then you better go get July,” she said. “He might want his wife back before she gets up there somewhere and gets scalped.” She then marched off, much to Roscoe’s relief. He went in and took a drink or two from a bottle of whiskey he kept under his couch and usually only used as a remedy for toothache. He was careful not to drink too much, since the last thing he needed was for the people in Fort Smith to get the notion he was a drunk. But then, the next thing he knew, despite his care, the whiskey bottle was empty, and he seemed to have drunk it, although it did not feel to him like he was drunk. In the still heat he got drowsy and went to sleep on the couch, only to awake in a sweat to find Peach and Charlie Barnes staring down at him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Maybe she just took a walk,” Roscoe said, although he knew that sounded weak.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“If he wears that he’ll probably ride off a cliff,” July said, although it was true the boy needed a hat.“He can tie it on with some string,” Roscoe said. “It’ll keep that dern sun out of his eyes.” Now that they were ready, July felt strangely unwilling to leave. It was getting good light—far down the street they could see the river shining, and beyond it a faint glow of red on the horizon. In its awakening hour the town seemed peaceful, lovely, calm. A rooster began to crow.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
The only relief he could find was in the knowledge that he was doing his job and earning the thirty dollars a month the town paid him. There were a few tightfisted citizens who didn’t think there was thirty dollars’ worth of sheriffing to do in Fort Smith in a given month. Going after a man who had killed the mayor was the kind of work people seemed to think a sheriff ought to do, although it would probably be less dangerous than having to stop two rivermen from carving one another up with knives.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Yet, for all her bad temper, it was no relief to leave. He felt apprehension so strongly that at one point it seemed to tighten his throat and nearly caused him to choke on a bite of corn bread. He felt he was being carried along through his life as a river might carry a chip. There seemed to be no way he could stop anything that was happening, although it all felt wrong.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“You’ve got that calf broke,” July said. “You could probably saddle him and ride him if you wanted to.” “I milked,” Joe said. He got the pail, and the two walked to the cabin together. It was a fairly good cabin, although it didn’t yet have a wood floor—just well-packed dirt. July felt bad about bringing his bride to a cabin without a wood floor, but being sheriff didn’t pay much and it was the best he could do.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Benny had been the oldest and he himself the youngest of the ten Johnson boys. All but the two of them went away after they grew up, and Benny seemed to feel that July should have gone away too. He was reluctant to give July the sheriffs job when it came open, although there had been no other candidate than Roscoe. July got the job, but Benny remained resentful and had balked at even providing a new lock for the jail’s one cell. In fact, Benny had never done one kind thing for him that July could remember. Once when he pulled a bad tooth of July’s he had charged the full fee.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Why, pretty soon,” he said, although he felt tired at the thought of starting after anybody.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Peach had always found Roscoe an irritating fellow, not as respectful as he might be. He was little better than a criminal himself, in her view, and she was opposed to his being deputy sheriff, although it was true that there was not much to choose from in Fort Smith.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
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.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“I wish you’d turn back white,” she had said that morning, although he was noticeably less jaundiced than he had been two weeks before. Elmira was short, skinny, brunette, and had little patience. They had only been married four months, and one of the surprises, from July’s point of view, was her impatience. She wanted the chores done immediately, whereas he had always proceeded at a methodical pace. The first time she bawled him out about his slowness was only two days after the wedding. Now it seemed she had lost whatever respect she had ever had for him. Once in a while it occurred to him that she had never had any anyway, but if that was so, why had she married him?
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“It won’t hurt ’em,” Call said. “They’re young.” In the clear late afternoon light they could see all the way back to Lonesome Dove and the river and Mexico. Augustus regretted not tying a jug to his saddle—he would have liked to sit on the little hill and drink for an hour. Although Lonesome Dove had not been much of a town, he felt sure that a little whiskey would have made him feel sentimental about it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇