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"As I say, I came here to prospect. I found plenty of surface evidence of oil and gas but without capital I was helpless. I learned that a thousand-acre tract of woods, rich in oil indications, was owned by Pennsylvania Scroggie. I knew that he was a hog and that if I showed my hand too clearly he would kick me under and go it alone. Through a friend who owned a lake schooner I made Scroggie a proposition. I guaranteed to show him a virgin oil territory and operate his rigs for a certain percentage of the output. This he agreed to. Then he came and when he found that the vein lay on his own land he was furious and tried to break the contract. It is needless, of course, to say that this searching walk was in vain. Whatever lay white in his road he rushed at, and in his gizzard he cursed the vast number of pieces of white paper which did somehow, as though distributed by innumerable malicious Greyquills, attract his eye and retard his progress whilst he turned them over. She spoke like a young wild-eyed prophetess; her tones had a vigorous, dramatic clearness which made her voice new to her father's ears. Her language, which seemed exalted beyond her age, beyond anything one would look for in the lips of so calm, modest, and undemonstrative a girl, she appeared to make peculiarly appropriate to her years and sex, by her delivery, her melodies of accentuation, the easy grasp with which, it was clear, she held a subject that was deep in human nature..
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kez_ h (Kez_h)
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Though Mr Lawrence had communicated the intelligence of the girl being on board and of his holding sealed orders from Captain[Pg 270] Acton in confidence to Mr Eagle, the sensations excited in this plain and acid sailor by the extraordinary, astounding, and unexpected revelations had filled him to bursting point with a fever and passion for giving the news. In short, the man's mind was much too small to retain what had been poured into it, and of course it overflowed. To whom other than Tom Pledge could he speak? Pledge and he had sailed in Captain Acton's employ for two or three voyages; they were friends, and visited each other ashore where each had a little cottage and a wife. So after a careful survey of the skylight, which lay open just above the table, and a cautious look round, Mr Eagle said: "Tom, did you observe me and the Capt'n walkin' up and down this morning in conversation?"I tried logging in using my phone number and I
was supposed to get a verification code text,but didn't
get it. I clicked resend a couple time, tried the "call
me instead" option twice but didn't get a call
either. the trouble shooting had no info on if the call
me instead fails.There was
"'You think you got all of 'em, Bill?" Scraff called.
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Conrad
Lost Man's Swamp, so called because it was said that one straying into its depths never was able to extricate himself from its overpowering mists and treacherous quicksands, was lonely and forsaken. It lay like a festering sore on the breast of the world—black, menacing, hungry to gulp, dumb as to those mysteries and tragedies it had witnessed. It was whispered that the devil made his home in its pitchy ponds, which even in the fiercest cold of winter did not freeze. Maurice shook his head. "No ma'am, that ain't him," he said. "It's too big fer Croaker; it's a wild crow." With broadening day the gale had strengthened. Stanhope felt a few stinging snow-pellets on his face, as he gazed, unseeing, outward and waited with tense nerves for the hail of his young friend. Half an hour passed—it seemed like hours to the man waiting, hoping, fearing—and still Billy did not come. He replenished the fire and, his hand coming in contact with the coat which Billy had discarded, he held it on his knees, close to the little stove. Slowly the minutes dragged past and a cold dread of what might have happened grew in the blind man's heart. Billy had likely reached the boat only in time to see it founder and in striving to save its exhausted occupants——. "That so? Then we'll drive her home.".
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