After they had cleared many miles of foundries and
railroad crossings, and had paralleled for a last half-hour a distant
succession of sandhills, wooded or glistening white, they were set down at
a small group of farmhouses, with a varied walk of five miles before them.
Half a mile through a shaded country lane; another half-mile along a path
that led across low, damp ground through thickets of hazel and brier; a
third half-mile over a light soil, increasingly sandy, beneath oaks and
lindens and pines which cloaked the outlines of the slopes ahead; and
finally a great mound of pure sand that slanted up into a blue sky and made
its own horizon.
"We've taken things easy," said Randolph, who had been that way before,
"and I hope we have enough breath left for our job. There it lies, right in
front of us."
"No favor asked here," declared Cope. He gave a sly, sidewise glance, as if
to ask how the other might stand as to leg-muscles and wind.
"Up we go," said Randolph.
9
_COPE ON THE EDGE OF THINGS_
The adventurer in Duneland hardly knows, as he works his way through one of
the infrequent "blow-outs," whether to thank Nature for her aid or to tax
her with her cruelty.
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