I knew I was all right now. Nobody else would come ahunting after me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods. I made a tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I caught a catfish and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had supper. When it was dark I sat by my camp fire, feeling pretty satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, so I went and sat on the bank and listened to the current crashing along, and counted the stars and drift logs and rafts that came down, and then went to bed; there was no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, and you soon get it over. And so for three days and nights. No difference—just the same thing. But the next day I went exploring around the island. I was boss of it; it all belonged to me, and I wanted to know all about it; but mainly I wanted to spend the time. I found plenty of strawberries and green summer grapes; and the green blackberries were just beginning to show. Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I wasn't far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I had shot nothing; it was for protection. About this time I almost stepped on a goodsized snake, and it moved quietly and smoothly through the grass and flowers, and I was after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped(疾驰) along, and all of a sudden I bounded(跳) right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking. My heart jumped up among my lungs. I never waited to look further, but unlocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as I could. Every now and then I stopped a second among the thick leaves and listened, but my breath came so hard that I couldn't hear anything else. I moved quietly along another piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so on. If I saw a stump(树桩), I took it for a man; if I stepped on a stick and broke it, it made me feel that a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too. There was no time to be fooling around. When getting to the camp, I got all my traps into my canoe again to have them out of sight. I put out the fire and threw the ashes around to look like an old last year's camp, and then climbed a tree. I suppose I was up for two hours; but I didn’t see or hear anything—I only thought I heard and saw as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn’t stay up there forever, so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast. 小题1:The underlined part “put in time” in the second paragraph probably means _____.
|