e blue
of the sky. Annixter turned his horse from the road and rode across the
ranch land to meet this new object of interest. As the spot grew larger,
it resolved itself into constituents, a collection of units; its
shape grew irregular, fragmentary. A disintegrated, nebulous confusion
advanced toward Annixter, preceded, as he discovered on nearer approach,
by a medley of faint sounds. Now it was no longer a spot, but a column,
a column that moved, accompanied by spots. As Annixter lessened the
distance, these spots resolved themselves into buggies or men on
horseback that kept pace with the advancing column. There were horses in
the column itself. At first glance, it appeared as if there were nothing
else, a riderless squadron tramping steadily over the upturned plough
land of the ranch. But it drew nearer. The horses were in lines, six
abreast, harnessed to machines. The noise increased, defined itself.
There was a shout or two; occasionally a horse blew through his nostrils
with a prolonged, vibrating snort. The click and clink of metal work was
incessant, the machines throwing off a continual rattle of wheels and
cogs and clashing springs. The column approached nearer; was close at
hand. The noises mingled to a subdued uproar, a bewildering confusion;
the impact of innumerable hoofs was a veritable rumble. Machine after
machine appeared; and Annixter, drawing to one side, remained for
nearly ten minutes watching and interested, while, like an array of
chariots--clattering, jostling, creaking, clashing, an interminable
procession, machine succeeding machine, six-horse team succeeding
six-horse team--bustling, hurried--Magnus Derrick's thirty-three grain
drills, each with its eight hoes, went clamouring past, like an
advance of military, seeding the ten thousand acres of the great ranch;
fecundating the living soil; implanting deep in the dark womb of the
Earth the germ of life, the sustenance of a whole world, the food of an
entire People.

When the drills had passed, Annixter turned and rode back to the Lower
Road, over the land now thick with seed. He did not wonder that the
seeding on Los Muertos seemed to be hastily conducted. Magnus and Harran
Derrick had not yet been able to make up the time lost at the beginning
of the season, when they had waited so long for the ploughs to arrive.
They had been behindhand all the time. On Annixter's ranch, the land
had not only been harrowed, as well as seeded, but in some c