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Here is the scene that happens... The hero and heroine are on the platform of the way-side depot where they are to part... Kate to return to the luxurious home of her aunt, Mrs. van der Kyper of New York, and the Air-and-Grass Man to start for the pampas of Patagonia to hunt the hoopoo. The Air-and-Grass Man is about to say goodbye.

Just where she saw it the ground had crumbled, the line wavered, and was depressed, and though the water was not visible the high lateen sails of the native boats, going southward in the sun, showed themselves to her strangely behind the fretwork of the leaves. At her approach a hoopoo rose and flew away above the trees. Somewhere a lark was singing.

The lush fields of barley, watered by many channels from the brook Kelt, are waving and glistening around us. Quails are running along the edge of the road, appearing and disappearing among the thick grain-stalks. The bulbuls warble from the thorn-bushes, and a crested hoopoo croons in a jujube-tree. Larks are on the wing, scattering music.

"I expect the wandering Englishman is about as scarce up here as the hoopoo, even when he's got a rifle or a rod in his fist; and as I've neither the one nor the other, I must be very much of a rara avis, and quite the sort of animal to shoot on sight.

Wherever lay a patch of white and yellow flowers or of rough grass no bigger than a prayer rug, a lark soared from its nest singing its jewel-song; and here and there a gentle hoopoo reared the crown which rewarded it for guiding lost King Solomon and his starving army to safety.