In transacting business for O’Hara Brothers, he had visited Augusta, a hundred miles up the Savannah River, and he had traveled inland far enough to visit the old towns westward from that city. He knew that section to be as well settled as the Coast, but from the stranger’s description, his plantation was more than two hundred and fifty miles inland from Savannah to the north and west, and not many miles south of the Chattahoochee River.
他在處理"奧哈拉兄弟公司"業務時訪問過在薩凡納河上游一百英里的奧古斯塔,而且旅行到了離薩凡納的內地,看到了那個城市西面的古老城鎮。他知道,那個地區也像海濱那樣擁有不少居民,但是從陌生人的描繪來看,他的農場是在薩凡納西比250英里以外的內地,在查塔忽奇河以南不遠的地方。
Gerald knew that northward beyond that stream the land was still held by the Cherokees, so it was with amazement that he heard the stranger jeer at suggestions of trouble with the Indians and narrate how thriving towns were growing up and plantations prospering in the new country.
他知道,河那邊往北一帶仍控制在柴羅基人手里,所以他聽到陌生人嘲笑他提起與印第安人的糾紛,并敘述那個新地區有多少新興的城鎮正在成長起來、多少農場經營得很好時,便不由得大吃一驚了。
An hour later when the conversation began to lag, Gerald, with a guile that belied the wide innocence of his bright blue eyes, proposed a game.
談話一小時之后,開始放慢,于是杰拉爾德想出一個詭計,那雙碧藍的眼睛也不由得流露出真情來----他提議玩牌。