The mountain soil was still iron-stained; but much of its strength had passed to him—had given him this iron grip upon things and people. Power, iron power ... wherever men were, the iron sinews of the mountain had carried the name of Paul Judson.
"Have we time for that trip to North Adamsville?" Kane at last interrupted.
"Get in. Something's wrong out there; dissatisfaction, that should have been squelched. I'm going to make a change."
Following the northward trail of robin and flicker, the gray limousine whirred away from the smoothed crags and their reddened memories.
The children dawdled back from school. The homing older people returned from office and club, from mill and furnace and store. The artificial lights by night made golden wounds on the darkness. One by one these blended with the black, except for the street-globes reared below the damp green of the leaves.
The sprinkled glitter of city lights below cast a quiet shimmer over the drowsy hillside. Far away, in a giant semicircle, an intermittent surf of furnace glare and coke-oven glow mottled with dusky crimson the low haze of the sky.
Following the sun trail, the silver glitter of the Lyre climbed from the east, the northern cross spread its ungainly form, the soft brightness of Vega poised like a fleck of white light above the somber fringe of Shadow Mountain. The soft glamor of the May night reaffirmed its immemorial sway over the sleeping hulk of the mountain.
Two screech-owls sent their shivery call through the dark. Shreds of cloud drifted lower and lower, until they rested lightly on the foliage above the healed scars of ramp and gulley. The stars sagged westward; after them the clouds, and all the trespassers by night, were quietly driven by a faint breeze rustling its promise of dawn.