[The Octopus by Frank Norris]@TWC D-Link bookThe Octopus CHAPTER V 42/125
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.
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