Near the chickens' shelter the burnished
old gobbler spread his tail and dragged his wings and puffed his
feathers and swelled himself red in the face, to the great admiration
of a demure gray-brown little turkey hen. Overhead wheeled two small
hawks screaming. They clashed, and light feathers came floating down
from the encounter; yet presently they flew away together to a hole in
a dead tree. Three song sparrows dashed almost to his very feet, so
busily fighting that they hardly escaped the pony's hoofs. Everywhere
love songs trilled from the underbrush; and Bennington de Laney, as
young, as full of life, as unmated as they, rode slowly along thinking
of his lady love, and----
"Hullo! Where are you going?" cried she.
He looked up with eager joy, to find that they had met in the middle
of what used to be the road. The gulch had been swept bare by the
flood, not only of every representative of the vegetable world, but
also of the very earth in which it had grown. From the remains of the
roadbed projected sharp flints and rocks, among which the broncos
picked their way.
"Good-morning, Mary," he cried.
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