Slinger

“ The early defenders were men who used the sling for chief weapon of defence, and great numbers of slingers’ platforms—little flat spaces contrived in strategical 80positions along the sloping sides of the hill—remain, like so many primitive artillery emplacements; while quantities of their ammunition—pebble-stones that are not in the course of nature found on the crests of limestone hills—may be picked up. ”

“ The abundance of carefully selected supplies, tools, and traps should last him many years—surely all the years that he would live.
Slingerland did not intend to return to civilization, and he never even looked back at that blotch on the face of the bluff—that hideous Roaring City.
He drove the burros at a good trot, his mind at once busy and absent, happy with the pictures of that last hour, gloomy with the undefined, unsatisfied cravings of his heart. ”

“ How familiar a term it must have been in the common mouth the frequency with which the name is met fully shows.
Our ‘Slingers’ represent an all but forgotten profession, but they seem to have been useful enough in their day and generation. The sling was always attached to a stick, whence the old term ‘staffsling.’ Lydgate describes David as armed ”

“ Slingerland gave her a strange, admiring glance, then turned his quick gray eyes upon Horn. “Anythin’ I can take?”
Horn hesitated. “No. It was jest somethin’ I wanted the girl to hev.”
Slingerland touched his shaggy horse and called over his shoulder: “Rustle out of hyar!” Then he galloped down the trail, leaving the travelers standing aghast.
“Break camp!” thundered Horn.
A scene of confusion followed. In a very short while the prairie-schooners were lumbering down the valley. Twilight came just as the flight got under way. The tired oxen were beaten to make them run. ”

“ Slingerland grasped at straws. “Wal, now, thet ain’t a bad idee. I can use you,” he replied, eagerly. “But it’s hard an’ dangerous work. We git chased by redskins often. An’ you’d hev to ride. I reckon, Neale, you’re good enough on a hoss. But our cowboy friend hyar, he can’t ride, as I recollect your old argyments.”
“My job was hosses,” drawled Larry.
“An’ besides, you’ve got to shoot straight, which Reddy hasn’t hed experience of,” went on Slingerland, with a broader smile. ”

“ When all is ready for business, a sling is passed under the horse’s belly, and also supports his chest and quarters; the ropes attached to this sling meet over the middle of the horse’s back, and are hitched to the chain of the windlass or crane. Two soldiers have each hold of a rein attached to the head-stall on either side of his head, while they soothe and allay his fears by hand and voice, or, if he violently resist, hold him by main force, until he is snatched from the ground and swung over that portion of the sea which intervenes between the beach and the vessel. ”

“ On the right wing the archers and slingers poured their eager javelins without intermission upon the elephants, and by the noise of their slings and stones, so terrified these animals, that turning upon their own men, they trod them down in heaps, and rushed through the half-finished gates of the camp. ”

“ Nearer would it resolve itself into two wearily plodding beasts, tugging, slipping, stumbling, but going on, the creaking straps of their leathern harness pulling a sledge with a heap of skins upon it. Still nearer—a fur-clad, haggard man with hollow blazing eyes glittering through an unkempt shock of golden hair and a gaunt gray dog with drooping tail picking their way with soundless feet through the white reaches, dragging their sledge; like a fantasy passing across the white and silent dream of the cold end of the world. ”

“ When the Esquimaux sees a bird flying so that it will pass tolerably near him, he whirls the sling round his head and flings it at the bird. As it leaves his hand, all the weights fly apart, on account of the rotatory motion which has been communicated to them, so that the weapon covers a space of five feet. Should one of the weights or strings strike the bird, the whole of the sling becomes wrapped round it, and the bird falls helpless to the ground. The reader will doubtless see that this sling is in fact a modification of the Patagonian bolas. ”

“ When the sling is thrown the bone balls are thereby scattered in all directions, and the probability of hitting becomes greater. Every man and boy in summer carries with him such a sling, often bound round his head, and is immediately prepared to cast it at flocks of birds flying past. Common slings are also used, consisting of two thongs and a piece of skin fastened to them. The bird-dart (fig. 5, p. 105) completely resembles that used by the Eskimo. A kind of snare was used by the boys at Yinretlen to catch small birds for our zoologist. ”

“ The sisters-in-law threw open the gate, and the fool, as he sat in the sledge, said—
“At the pike’s command, and at my request, away, sledge, go to the wood.”
At these words the sledge galloped out of the yard at such a rate that the people of the village, when they saw it, were filled with amazement. The sledge went on so very fast, that if a pair of horses had been yoked to it they could not have drawn it at anything like the same rate.
As it was necessary for the fool to go through the town on his way to the wood, he came to it at full speed. Not knowing that he should cry out “Make way!” ”

“ I had taken from the city a large, strong dog with the idea of having a camp guard, as wolves and other wild animals were in the mountains.
We had a few light tools along with us for repairing our sled in case of accident, and Brother Sessions wished to take along a few beaver traps. Our load already being heavy, and the traps awkward to load among our bedding, as our whole load of goods were arranged in convenient shape for a bed, we concluded to make a sled and harness our dog to it to pull the traps. ”

“ As we returned down this inlet, going at a slower rate than usual, a seal was seen ahead. In an instant the dogs, which were very hungry, bounded off at a rate of not less than twelve miles an hour. The seal, frightened, made a plunge down into its hole; the dogs, flying onward so furiously, passed it, but the wind, carrying the smell of the seal to their noses, made them turn sharply round in a second. The consequence was that the sledge-runner caught in the snow-crust, and sent me heels over head off the sledge, to which my Innuit companions clung with all their might. ”

“ And the similitude of Abigail's sling, mentioned before, doth yet further show us the greatness of this abhorrence—'The souls of thine enemies,' said she, 'God shall sling out as out of the middle of a sling.' When a man casts a stone away with a sling, then he casteth it furthest from him, for with a sling he can cast a stone further than by his hand. ”

“ Sometimes flocks of wild birds rose: sometimes, also, prairie wolves in large bands, gaunt, famished, urged on by a ferocious demand of nature, vied with the sledge in swiftness. Then Passepartout, with revolver in hand, held himself ready to fire upon those that came nearest. If any accident had then stopped the sledge, the travelers, attacked by these ferocious carnivorous beasts, would have run the greatest risks. But the sledge kept on in its course, it was not long in getting ahead, and soon the whole howling band was left behind. ”

“ And then, instead of running with all their might for camp, seeking safety with all possible swiftness, here they were loitering along as if there were no such man on earth as a determined sheriff, and now――​
The noise of the advancing men grew louder every moment. It was evident that they were to pass almost over the plebes. There were several of them, tramping heavily, crashing the brush beneath their feet with a sound that to the trembling listeners seemed the advance of a herd of elephants. ”

“ I well remember the first seal I shot. I had landed on the weather-side of a small island. A cautious reconnoitring discovered a good-sized seal ‘lying up’ on a detached rock. Then I commenced the stalking, closely followed by my dog. But ere I could approach within range, one of those seal-sentinels and provoking tormentors of the seal-hunter, a herring gull, set up his wild warning scream. The seal perfectly understood what it meant, at once took the alarm, plunged into the water, and disappeared. ”

“ Just as Stanley had finished loading his gun, a loud roar echoed through the woods, and we saw, coming out from behind the back of the elephant, another large lion. We could almost distinguish the grin on his features as he stood shaking his head, but yet not daring to approach. The ferocious beast, which we concluded from his size was one of the man-eaters, advanced boldly towards us. He seemed about to spring, and might have reached us across the stream with a bound, when Stanley, raising his rifle, fired, and the lion rolled over, shot through the heart. ”

“ I made a great detour, to the wonderment of Clarence, who trailed along in my wake. When he saw he wondered no longer. He has learned now, and thinks snakes are a sort of mania of mine, and that I must be humoured. Great bluebottle flies jumped up in our faces from the red-hot sand, then—buzz—and down again. Oh, for some shade—some air—some water! There was my hartebeest again, with well-groomed coat and flicking tail. The flies were a worry to him too. Now he gets beyond a bunch of aoul—his sentinels. I shall never get within range. I lay my rifle down, myself with it. ”

“ I paid Slingsby five pounds ten shillings for his stock in trade, cart, and pony—purchased sundry provisions of the landlady, also a waggoner’s frock, which had belonged to a certain son of hers, deceased, gave my little animal a feed of corn, and prepared to depart.
“God bless you, young man,” said Slingsby, shaking me by the hand, “you are the best friend I’ve had for many a day: I have but one thing to tell you, Don’t cross that fellow’s path if you can help it; and stay—should the pony refuse to go, just touch him so, and he’ll fly like the wind.” ”

“ We were crouched in a wee burn winding among the bushes; for they grew strongly on either side, and left a little tunnel which one could creep through without much hindrance, and as the riders drove their unwilling beasts among the whins we crawled upwards like cats. While the men on foot beat for us, and the horsemen kept wary eyes for a movement to betray us, we crept from the whins and crawled like adders belly flat up the little stream, over which dry bracken still hung and straggling whin bushes, like soldiers marching away from the main body. ”

“ He did not sit about his camp puzzling about what had happened in the night, but took the .30-.30 and pursued his business along a ridge to the west. But luck was against him as it had been for a week. He failed to catch the wise old buck deer in the open, and he failed also to get a shot at any of those he stirred up in the heavy brush. ”

“ He jerked his thumb in the direction of camp. "If we have sized things up right, they'll make some sort of move, and if we're mistaken there will be no harm done. I'll tell you an idea that popped into my head a minute ago. [Pg 149] We can pretend to locate the stuff. Fix up a couple of dummy sacks, you know, and get them to camp and packed on the horse without letting them see what's inside. If Lyn gave Lessard the right figures, there should be between a hundred and forty or fifty pounds of dust. ”

“ All this is delightful in sensation and description; but he who, like me, has made his first sleigh-ride in the weird power of a murderer, who has sat during it with an open knife in his hand as his only hope of life, knows the power of a first impression to kill for years all enjoyment from such a source. I never entered a sleigh for many winters which did not conduct me in thought to the banks of the Susquehanna. ”

“ Callander was to be hailed with delight after Slinker’s other selection, whose sole recommendation had been a genius for extracting rents, and who had finished an altogether doubtful career in the river, when fishing. The new man, quiet and unassuming, slow to push himself among strangers, found life a little solitary in his house across the park, and by degrees he came to spend many an hour at Kilne, though he had a habit of slipping in unobtrusively, and he never seemed to say very much. ”

“ Sylvan is close behind the leading hound. What sharp, exultant shrilling comes out from the followers’ throats. All the hunt is whooping, yelling, as it streams through dusk of dawn. Up, then down, they go; along a gentle slope from whose sparse flints the hoofs strike fire. A fair world smiles up from either hand, but they have no eye, no thought for it. The thrilling, breathless motion wraps them away from other senses ”

“ She came up close to Lingard, with the wild and stealthy aspect of a lunatic longing to whisper out an insane secret—one of those misshapen, heart-rending, and ludicrous secrets; one of those thoughts that, like monsters—cruel, fantastic, and mournful, wander about terrible and unceasing in the night of madness. Lingard looked at her, astounded but unflinching. She spoke in his face, very low.
"He is all! Everything. He is my breath, my light, my heart. . . . Go away. . . . Forget him. . . . He has no courage and no wisdom any more . ”

“ After sinking down—down—nobody knows how far, they at length reached a door, which, being open, led them into a range of apartments, filled with inhabitants—not people, but seals, who could nevertheless speak and feel like human folk; and how much was the seal-killer surprised to find that he himself had been unconsciously transformed into the like image! If it were not so, he would probably have died, from the want of breath. The nature of the poor fisher’s thoughts may be more easily conceived than described. ”