Close over Gregg's head, the wings flirted out--ten feet from tip to tip--beat down with a great washing sound, and the bird shot across the valley in a level flight.

The conqueror screamed a long insult down the hollow.

For a while he balanced, craning his bald head as if he sought applause, then, without visible movement of his wings, sailed away over the peaks.

A feather fluttered slowly down past Vic Gregg.
He looked down to it, and rubbed the ache out of the back of his neck.

All about him the fresh morning was falling; yonder shone a green-mottled face of granite, and there a red iron blow-out streaked with veins of glittering silicate, and in this corner, still misted with the last delicate shades of night, glimmered rhyolite, lavender-pink.
The single-jack dropped from the hand of Gregg, and his frown relaxed.
When he stretched his arms, the cramps of labor unkinked and let the warm blood flow, swiftly, and in the pleasure of it he closed his eyes and drew a luxurious breath.