The peaceful marsh, and the river with its channel of silver light, would be invaded with dredges. Abbatoirs, tanneries, factories, and blast furnaces might come. The Winding River, with its halo of memories, would flow away with receding years, and a foul stream would carry the stain of desecration and filth out to pollute the crystal depths of the lake.
“Improvements” were contemplated in Duneland, and the spectre of hopeless ugliness hovered along its borders. The altar of Mammon awaited a sacrifice, for “money might be made here” if certain manufacturing interests, to which Bascom vaguely alluded, “could be induced to utilize these now practically worthless wastes of sand.”
In years to come the wild geese may look down from their paths through the soiled skies, to the earth carpet below them, and wonder at the creatures that have changed it from a fabric of beauty to a source of evil odors and terrifying sounds.
The clam-fishing was unsatisfactory. The mollusks seemed to be about exhausted. Sipes and Saunders worked faithfully for several days, but only found a dozen or so, and none of them contained pearls.
“We gotta wait fer a new crop,” declared Saunders, who was disgusted with the whole trip and wanted to go home.
Bascom persuaded the old sailors to remain a few days, to give the Ancient a chance to come back, and to impress the Captain at the village with the idea that he was in no hurry to see him. They had no love for that red-nosed worthy and acquiesced.
The flatboat was restored to its berth on the bank, and in the early morning Sipes and Saunders made a trip to the village in the Crawfish. On their return at lunch time they reported that they had seen nothing of the Captain.
The Troopers of the Sky (From the Author’s Etching)
I spent the afternoon up the river and heard a great many shots echoing through the woods. When I returned to camp I found that Bascom had been out shooting robins. There were thirty-seven of the innocent little redbreasts in his bloody bag, and the game warden was with him when he returned from his shameful expedition.