Here and there, to the north of prairie boulders,
appeared tufts of green; tufts that, like the preceding brown, grew and
grew and grew until they dominated the whole landscape. Then at last,
the climax, the _finale_ of the play, came life, animal and vegetable,
with a rush. Again at daylight and at dusk swarms of black dots on
whistling wings floated here and there, descended to earth; and,
following, indefinite as to location, weird, lonely, boomed forth in
their mating songs. Transient, shallow, miniature lakes swarmed with
their new-come denizens. Last of all, final assurance of a new season's
advent, by day and by night, swelling, diminishing, unfailingly musical
as distant chiming bells, came the sound of all most typical of prairie
and of spring. From high overhead in the blue it came, often so high
that the eye could not distinguish its makers; yet alway distinctive,
alway hauntingly mysterious. "Honk! honk! honk!" sounded and echoed and
re-echoed that heraldry over the awakened land. "Honk! honk! honk!" it
repeated; and listening humans smiled and commented unnecessarily each
to the other: "Spring is not coming. It is here."
CHAPTER XV
THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
A shaggy grey wolf, a baby no longer but practically full grown, swung
slowly along the beaten trail connecting the house and the barn as the
stranger appeared. He did not run, he did not glance behind, he made no
sound.
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