: The Lone Ranche by Reid Mayne - Animals Juvenile fiction; Birds Juvenile fiction; Sailing Juvenile fiction; Adventure and adventurers Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels Juvenile fiction; Death Juvenile fiction; Mexican War 1846-1848 Juvenile fiction; So

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down

ound, though at times stooping down, and skimming close to the tops of the sage-bushes with which the plain is thickly beset.

These last prevent the huntress from seeing what lies upon the ground; though she knows there must be something to have attracted the concourse of zopilotes. Evidently she has enough knowledge of the desert to understand its signs, and this is one of a significant character. It not only challenges curiosity, but calls for investigation.

The mare wheels round at a slight pressure upon the rein; and then commenced her canter in the direction of the soaring flock.

A mile is passed over, and the birds are brought near; but still the object attracting them cannot be seen. It may be down among the artemisias, or perhaps behind a large yucca, whose dark whorl rises several feet above the sage, and over which the vultures are wheeling.

As the rider of Lolita arrives within gun-shot distance of the yucca-tree she checks the mustang to a slower pace--to a walk in short. In the spectacle of death, in the throes and struggles of an expiring creature, even though it be but a dumb brute, there is something that never fails to excite commiseration, mingled with a feeling of awe. This last has come over the young girl, as she draws near the spot where the birds are seen circling.

It has not occurred to her that the cause of their presence may be a human being, though it is a remembrance of this kind that now prompts her to ride forward reflectively. For once in her life, with others around her who were near and dear, she has been herself an object of like eager solicitude to a flock of zopilotes.

But she has not the slightest suspicion of its being a human creature that causes their gathering now. There, upon the Llano Estacado, so rarely trodden by human feet, and even shunned by almost every species of animal, she could not.

As she draws still nearer, a black disc, dimly outlined against the dark green leaves of the yucca, upon scrutiny, betrays the form of a bird, itself a vulture. It is dead, impaled upon the sharp spikes of the plant, as it came there by falling from above.

A smile curls upon her lips as she sits regarding it.

She continues, again facing towards the dead vulture.

"Now, I wonder if they are only waking it, or if the wakers are cannibals, and intend making a repast on one of their own kind. That would be a curious fact for our natural historian, Don Prospero. Suppose we stay awhile and see?"

For a moment she seems undecided as to staying or going. Only for a moment, when an incident occurs that changes the current of her thoughts from scientific curiosity to something of fear.

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

Login to post a comment!