Around him the gophers played
saucily. Teams were moving here and there across the sod, with a
peculiar noiseless, effortless motion that made them seem as calm,
lazy, and unsubstantial as the mist through which they made their
way; even the sound of passing wagons was a sort of low, well-fed,
self-satisfied chuckle.
Seagraves, "holding down a claim" near Rob, had come to see his
neighboring "bach" because of feeling the need of company; but
now that he was near enough to hear him prancing about getting
supper, he was content to lie alone on a slope of the green sod.
The silence of the prairie at night was well-nigh terrible. Many a
night, as Seagraves lay in his bunk against the side of his cabin, he
would strain his ear to hear the slightest sound, and he listening
thus sometimes for minutes before the squeak of a mouse or the
step of a passing fox came as a relief to the aching sense. In the
daytime, however, and especially on a morning, the prairie was
another thing. The pigeons, the larks; the cranes, the multitudinous
voices of the ground birds and snipes and insects, made the air
pulsate with sound-a chorus that died away into an infinite murmur
of music.
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