The pony was sound asleep now. Its nostrils widened and
narrowed rhythmically and it snored at intervals. Save for this and the
soft crackle of the grass and the aeolian song of the wind the earth was
still; still as death; so still that, indescribably soft as it was
immeasurably distant, the man detected of a sudden against it a new
sound. But he did not stir. The black eyes looked out motionless as at
first. He merely waited a minute, two--and it came again; a bit louder
this time, more distinct, unmistakable.
This time the listener moved. Deftly, swiftly, he unrolled the gaudy
blanket, spread it thin upon the ground, covered it completely with his
body. In lieu of a pillow his arms crossed under his head, and, leaning
back, the hat brim still shading his eyes, he lay gazing up into the
sky, motionless as a prairie boulder.
Again the sound was repeated; not a single note, but a medley, a chorus.
It was still faint, still immeasurable as to distance; but nearer than
before and approaching closer second by second. Not from the earth did
it come, but from the air. Not by any stretch of the imagination was it
an earthly sound, but aerial. It was an alien note and still it was not
alien. There upon the silent earth with its sunshine and its illimitable
distances, it seemed very much a part of the whole. Its keynote was the
keynote of the time and place, its message was their message, the thrill
it bore to the listener the thrill of the whole.
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