But all of this was rationalization.

He knew who was riding after him -- the men he had known all his life, the men who had worked for him, sworn their loyalty to him.

The Gap looming before him -- the place where had confronted Jack English on that day so many years ago -- was his exit from all that had meaning to him.

What else he said was lost in the rattle of gunfire on all sides.

But her prettiness was what he had noticed first, and all the other things had come afterward: cruelty, meanness, self-will.

The water was there, so much of it that it spread all through the dead orchard.

under the circumstances I was only too willing to confess all.

It was all right to put a bunch of ranchers onto horses, to call them Night Riders, to set out to attack the largest mining combination the country had ever seen if all they wanted was adventure.

Hague, like all who worked near the pits, was partly deafened from the constant assault against his eardrums.

Normally Hague wasted no words, but now he found himself unable to stop their flow although he knew Kodyke was aware of all he said.

Perhaps it was all a vividly conceived dream.

It was not, thought Pamela, such an evil place after all.

Was it not possible, after all, that the forest was in league with her and her child that its sympathy lay with the Culvers that she had erred in failing to understand this??

If, when this was all over, she found the words to tell him about it, she wondered if he would ever understand.

He paused only long enough to ascertain that Jess's buckskin was still missing and that his own gray was all right, then climbed through a back window and dropped to the ground outside.

Seeing them waiting there at the foot of Emigrant Rock was so overwhelming that, for a good minute after they rounded the bend and started down the grade leading toward them, Matilda could not speak at all.

Against all expectation, Carmer was inside, clearly enjoying himself to the hilt and already so tipsy that it seemed unlikely he was bothering to note anything or anyone about him.

There was a feeling that this mission would be canceled like all the others and that this muddy wet dark world of combat would go on forever.

It was all Greg had time to see.

An Ah coudn ansuh him an so Ah said ' Aw right, Ah gay-ess, an his fathuh didn uttuh one wohd an aftuh Huhmun was gone, the majuh laughed an tole me thet he an the bawh had been hevin an occasional drink t'gethuh f'ovuh a yeah, onleh an occasional one, but just the same it was behahn mah back, an Ah doan think thet's nahce at all, d'you ''??

According to one tradition, refuse was stored on the lowest of the ark's three decks, humans and clean beasts on the second, and the unclean animals and birds on the top ; a differing interpretation described the refuse as being stored on the utmost deck, from where it was shoveled into the sea through a trapdoor.

Even when new dirt was shoveled on top, it quickly became just as saturated as the old dirt.

The displaced mud was then placed into a chamber, where it was later shoveled into small cars that hauled it to the surface.

The removed earth was often shoveled onto canvas tarp laid by the grave, so the nearby grounds were undisturbed.

Any lingering suspicion that this was a trick Al Budd had thought up was dispelled.

When the meal was ready, he told Jones to wash up, and going into the front room, woke the girl.

He was too old -- when he passed up and through the corridor of pines that lined the trail he could see ahead, he was passing from life.

A man was standing in the open door of the lighted orderly room a few yards to Mike's left, but he, too, suddenly made up his mind and went racing to join the confused activity at the east end of the stockade.

Then he went on to the Cheyennes and told them that the Sioux was goin' to move up.

Now under me I could see him for what he really was, a boy dressed up in streaks of paint.

She had picked up the quirt and was twirling it around her wrist and smiling at him.

He got up slowly, and she was already on her feet, and he stood facing her.

She brought up her free hand to hit him, but this time he was quicker.

clutched her throat and sucked up the moisture in her mouth so that her tongue was dry and hard and stuck to the roof of her mouth and her teeth were clenched together in the rigid fixture of her jaws.

That was the day that he had practically mopped up the main street of Big Sands with Aaron McBride, field boss for the Highlands Oil & Gas Company.

The Maguire family was setting up a separate camp nearby.

He was puffing on a cigar, and he was turning up his coat collar against the rain.

The wound in his scalp was examined, pronounced healing, and well doctored with simples, before they dished up the victuals.

`` Jackson recruited his critters, and him and me fixed up his wagon while we was waiting for you to catch up.

The Palace was an elaborate establishment, built practically on stilts in front, with long flights of wooden steps running up to the porch.

He knew now what he was up against.

One of Greg's bombs hung up, and he was miles from the target before he could get rid of it.

He had no idea which was up and which was down.

He caught up with me once and grabbed me, but I was all covered with zing -- it's very slippery, you know ''.