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There was a hard-beaten zone around the corral and stables, which had kept the fire from spreading toward the house, and the wind had borne the sparks and embers back toward the spring, so that the house stood in a brown oasis of unburned grass and weeds, scanty enough, it is true, but yet a relief from the dead black surroundings. The woodpile had not suffered.
Lew Cawley washed out a plate for him, as a special favor; and Raw Harris, pessimist as he was, and who had a way of displaying the fact in all the little every-day matters of life, cleaned and sharpened a knife for him by prodding it up to the hilt in the hard-beaten earth, and cleaned the prongs of a fork with the edge of his buckskin shirt.
They were standing at the moment in the corner of the library farthest from the doorway. The front windows opened to the north, giving a fine view of the rolling hills rising higher and higher and looking down upon the grass-grown slopes spread out at their feet, criss-crossed and traversed by hard-beaten roads and trails.
The cause of the hard-beaten bare ground of the yard was apparent at once, even to his inexperienced eyes. The old house seemed to be exuding children from a thousand pores children red-haired and black-haired, and tow-headed, boys and girls, little and big, and apparently yelling on a wager about who owned the loudest voice, all dirty-faced, barelegged, and scantily clothed.
On the metalled road the rubbered tyres spun silently, and only the flying hoofs clattered and soon they had left the made road and turned on to the hard-beaten track that led to Billabong, where progress was even smoother. The tongues flew almost as swiftly as the wheels. The hot sun sank gradually, and the evening breeze sprang up. It was a time for quick questions and answers.
As he gave word for the feast to be spread on strips of cloth laid on the hard-beaten ground before the factory that many might sit round at once and partake, there came from the direction of the gate the voices of De Courtenay's men.
So in their eagerness some of the loungers strolled out in front and gazed westward up the long, broad, hard-beaten street on which, in many a spot, the bunch grass of the prairie still lingered. It was a lovely summer night, warm, starlit, but the baby moon had early sunk to rest, and the darkness was intense.
Melissa drew her veil closer and clung more tightly to her brother, for a sound of singing and wild cries, which she had heard behind her for some time, was now coming closer. They were no longer treading the paved street, but the hard-beaten soil of the desert.
His vision was suddenly swept away by a sound which came from somewhere along the trail in the direction of Deadwater. There was a faint, indistinct blur of voices. There was also the rattle of wheels, and the sharp clip of horses' hoofs upon the hard-beaten road. He instinctively turned his head in the direction. And as he did so Steve Allenwood stood up.
To the west, the long, black, hard-beaten trail lay clear; but far up the east side, straight across the path, he could see what was certainly a limp, brown figure. Freckles spun with all his might. Face down, Sarah Duncan lay across the trail. When Freckles turned her over, his blood chilled at the look of horror settled on her face. There was a low humming and something spatted against him.
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