n,
_debris_-covered road by dark. He played cribbage with Old Mizzou and
won.

About half past nine he pushed back his chair and went outside. The
stars had come out by the thousand, and a solitary cricket, which had
in some way escaped the deluge, was chirping in the middle distance.
With a sudden uplift of the heart he realized that he would see "her"
on the morrow. He learned that no matter how philosophically we may
have borne a separation, the prospect of its near end shows us how
strong the repression has been; the lifting of the bonds makes evident
how much they have galled.

CHAPTER X

THE WORLD MADE YOUNG

The morning fulfilled the promise of the night before. Bennington de
Laney awoke to a sun-bright world, fresh with the early breezes. A
multitude of birds outside the window bubbled and warbled and carolled
away with all their little mights, either in joy at the return of
peace, or in sorrow at the loss of their new-built houses. Sorrow and
joy sound much alike as nature tells them. The farther ridges and the
prairies were once more in view, but now, oh, wonder! the great plain
had cast aside its robes of monk brown, and had stepped forth in jolly
green-o'Lincoln. The air was full of tingling life. Altogether a
morning to cry one to leap eagerly from bed, to rush to the window, to
drink in deep draughts of electric balmy ozone, and to thank heaven for
the grace of mere existence.

That at least is what Bennington did. And he did more. He despatched a
hasty breakfast, and went forth and saddled his steed, and rode away
down the gulch, with never a thought of sample tests, and never a care
whether the day's work were done or not. For this was springtime, and
the air was snapping with it. Near the chickens' shelter the burnished
old gobbler spread his tail and dragged his wings and puffed his
feathers and swelled himself red in the face, to the great admiration
of a demure gray-brown little turkey hen. Overhead wheeled two small
hawks screaming. They clashed, and light feathers came floating down
from the encounter; yet presently they flew away together to a hole in
a dead tree. Three song sparrows dashed almost to his very feet, so
busily fighting that they hardly escaped the pony's hoofs. Everywhere
love songs trilled from the underbrush; and Bennington de Laney, as
young, as full of life, as unmated as they, rode slowly along thinking
of his lady love, and----

"Hullo! Where are you going?" c