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"We're making it as fast as we can, Miles," Astro protested. "It ain't fast enough," sneered the spaceman. He reached out with his free hand and slapped Astro across the mouth. "That's just to remind you to watch your tongue, or you might wind up an icicle again." Astro dropped the box and crouched, his big frame ready to be released like a coiled spring.
The big conductor was standing by the rear steps of the Pullman and a medium sized man swung down to the ground by his side. Back from the track, in the gray of the morning, the watchers saw a tiny fire, over which two roughly dressed figures crouched, evidently preparing breakfast, while a team, with a light spring wagon, stood tied to a nearby mesquite tree.
Dropping his butt, without a word, or even a glance to the dogs, he quietly went on to load; nor indeed was it needed: at the first shot they dropped into the grass, and there they lay as motionless as if they had been dead, with their heads crouched between their paws; nor did they stir thence till the tick of the gun-locks announced that we again were ready.
He invariably saw game before I did, and was off his horse and crouched among the sage while I was still getting my left foot clear of the stirrup. I succeeded in killing an antelope, and we rode home with the head and hind quarters. "No," said he. "It's sure the thunder, and not the lonesomeness. How do yu' like the lonesomeness yourself?" I told him that I liked it.
That night, we supped off our last potatoes and off cakes made of canned salmon browned in butter. Breakfast would have to be a repetition minus the potatoes. We were just a little low in our minds. The last thing I saw that night was the cook's shadowy figure as he crouched working over his camp-fire. And we wakened in the morning to catastrophe.
There is a weird solemnity about such a scene which induces contemplative thought even in the most frivolous, while it moves the religious mind to think more definitely, somehow, of the near presence of the Creator. For some time Lawrence, who crouched in profound silence beside Pedro, almost forgot the object for which he was waiting there.
Thus, on the seat of the car, swaying, and clutching at each other, crouched the two sore-wounded brethren; while Lad ravened about the vehicle, springing upward now and, again in futile effort to clear the top of the closed door. Far down the road shone the lights of an approaching motor. Eitel dropped into the driving seat and set the runabout into motion.
"Oh, Edith, why?" murmured Harold; and his thought added, "she knows not, poor child, that in that mockery of kinship the Church sets its ban on our bridals." He turned, and chid his dogs fiercely as they gambolled in rough glee round their fair friend. The hounds crouched at the feet of Edith; and Edith looked in mild wonder at the troubled face of the Earl.
As he uttered the warning words, Bowser turned squarely about and ran back to where his master had halted with the smoking torch, and crouched at his feet, whining and appealing for protection against some enemy.
They crouched lower, breathless with apprehension. A dark form passed by within arm's reach and mounted on a box to the fence. It was Brick himself, resetting the trap. They heard him arrange the slat and stone, then right the barrel and empty into it a couple of buckets of water. As he came down from the box to go after more water, Joe sprang upon him, tripped him up, and held him to the ground.
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