At times he would draw back and make a strange little clacking noise
down in his throat.
"Ain't he funnee?" said the little girl again. The cat slunk swiftly
away as the children came up. Then the tallest of the little girls swung
the door of the little cloakroom wide open and they all ran in.
CHAPTER 20
The day was very hot, and the silence of high noon lay close and thick
between the steep slopes of the canyons like an invisible, muffling
fluid. At intervals the drone of an insect bored the air and trailed
slowly to silence again. Everywhere were pungent, aromatic smells.
The vast, moveless heat seemed to distil countless odors from the
brush--odors of warm sap, of pine needles, and of tar-weed, and above
all the medicinal odor of witch hazel. As far as one could look,
uncounted multitudes of trees and manzanita bushes were quietly and
motionlessly growing, growing, growing. A tremendous, immeasurable Life
pushed steadily heavenward without a sound, without a motion. At turns
of the road, on the higher points, canyons disclosed themselves far
away, gigantic grooves in the landscape, deep blue in the distance,
opening one into another, ocean-deep, silent, huge, and suggestive of
colossal primeval forces held in reserve.
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