nd afoot in the Bad-lands is one.
"That afternoon I dragged myself up to the edge of a deep coulee and
looked over to see if there was any way of getting down. There was a
bright green streak down there that couldn't mean nothing but water,
at that time of year; this was last fall. And over beyond, I could see
the river that I'd went and lost. I looked and looked, but the walls
looked straight as a Boston's man's pedigree. And then the sun come
out from behind a cloud and lit up a spot that made me forget for a
minute that I was thirsty as a dog and near starved besides.
"I was looking down on the ruins--and yet it was near perfect--of an
old castle. Every stone stood out that clear and distinct I could have
counted 'em. There was a tower at one end, partly fell to pieces but
yet enough left to easy tell what it was. I could see it had kinda
loop-holes in it. There was an open place where I took it the main
entrance had used to be; what I'd call the official entrance. But
there was other entrances besides, and some of 'em was made by time
and hard weather. There was what looked like awhat-you-may-call-'em--
a ditch thing, yuh mind, running around my side of it, and a bridge
business. Uh course, it was all needing repairs bad, and part of it
yuh needed to use your imagination on. I laid there for quite a spell
looking it over and wondering how the dickens it come to be way down
there. It didn't look to me like it ought to be there at all, but in a
school geography or a history where the chapter is on historic and
prehistoric hangouts uh the heathen."
"The deuce! A castle in the Bad-lands!" ejaculated Branciforte.
"That's what it was, all right. I found a trail it would make a
mountain sheep seasick to follow, and I got down into the coulee. It
was lonesome as sin, and spooky; but there was a spring close by, and
a creek running from it; and what is a treat in that part uh the
country, it was good drinking and didn't have neither alkali nor
sulphur nor mineral in it. It was just straight water, and you can
gamble I filled up on it a-plenty. Then I shot a rabbit or two that
was hanging out around the ruins, and camped there till next day, when
I found a pass out, and got my bearings by the river and come on into
camp. So when you throw slurs on our plumb newness and shininess, I've
got the cards to call yuh. That castle wasn't built last summer,
Mister. And whoever did build it was some civilized. So there yuh
are.
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