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Shoe-Bar Stratton - Chapter 10

When the fact is chronicled that no less than three times in the succeeding eight days Buck 1 Stratton was strongly tempted 2 to put an end to the whole puzzling business by the simple expedient 3 of declaring his identity and taking possession of the Shoe-Bar as his own, something may be guessed of the ingenuity 4 of Tex Lynch in making life unpleasant for the new hand., ,Buck told himself more than once that if he had really been a new hand and nothing more, he wouldn't have lasted forty-eight hours. Any self-respecting cow-man would have promptly 5 demanded his time and betaken himself to another outfit 6, and Stratton sometimes wondered whether his mere 7 acceptance of the persecution 8 might not rouse the foreman's suspicion that he had motives 9 for staying which did not appear on the surface., ,He had to admit that Lynch's whole course of action was rather cleverly worked out. It consisted mainly in giving Stratton the most difficult and arduous 10 work to do, and keeping him at it longer than anyone else, not only on the round-up, but while driving the herd 11 to Paloma Springs and right up to the point where the steers 12 were loaded on cattle-cars and the job was over., , ,Then, after an hour or two of sleep, the victim was more likely than not to be dragged out of bed and ordered to take the place of Peters, Kreeger, or one of the others, who had been sent to the ranch 21 or elsewhere on so-called necessary business. More than once the others got started on a meal ahead of him, and what food remained was cold, unappetizing, and scant 22 in quantity. There were other little things Lynch thought of from time to time to make Buck's life miserable 23, and he quite succeeded, though it must be said that Stratton's hard-won self-control prevented the foreman from enjoying the full measure of his triumph., ,What chiefly influenced Buck in holding back his big card and scoring against them all was the feeling that Mary Thorne would be the one to suffer most. He would be putting an abrupt 24 finish to Lynch's game, whatever that was, but his action would also involve the girl in deep and bitter humiliation 25, if not something worse. Moreover, he was not quite ready to stop Lynch's scheming. He wanted to find out first what it was all about, and he felt he had a better chance of success by continuing to play his present part, hedged in and handicapped though he was, than by coming out suddenly in his own proper person., ,The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿 。,I was sorely tempted to complain, but I didn't. 我极想发牢骚 ,但还是没开口。

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