The wolves clamored from the buttes, which arose on all sides like domes of a sleeping city.

Crickets cried in the grass, drowsily, and out of the dimness and dusk something vast, like a passion too great for words, fell upon the boy.

He turned his face to the unknown West.

There the wild creatures dwelt; there were the beings who knew nothing of books or towns and toil.

There life was governed by the ways of the wind, the curve of the streams, the height of the trees--there--just over the edge of the plain, the mountains dwelt, waiting for him.
Then his heart ached like that of a young eagle looking from his natal rock into the dim valley, miles below.