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White, Stewart Edward, 1873-1946

"The Claim Jumpers"


The next morning it was still raining.
Bennington became very impatient indeed, but he tackled Le Conte
industriously, and did well enough until he tried to get it into his
head why various things happen to glaciers. Then viscosity, the lines
of swiftest motion, relegation, and directions of pressure came forth
from the printed pages and mocked him. He arose in his might and went
forth into the open air.
Before going out he had put on his canvas shooting coat and a pair of
hobnailed leather hunting boots, laced for a little distance at the
front and sides. He visited the horses, standing disconsolate under an
open shed in the corral; he slopped, with constantly accruing masses of
sticky earth at his feet, to the chicken coop, into which he cast an
eye; he even took the kitchen pails and tramped down to the spring and
back. In the gulch he did not see or hear a living thing. A newly-born
and dirty little stream was trickling destructively through all manner
of shivering grasses and flowers. The water from Bennington's sleeves
ran down over the harsh canvas cuffs and turned his hands purple with
the cold.


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