The busted ex-texan and other stories

The rumble of merry conversation mixed with the mumble of a stream; and from time to time a piece of a sweet song broke from melodious lips, short, energetic, melodious like a bobolink, rushing up from clover heads. And before the mighty shadow, gloomily lying on the great plain on the prairies, stretching east for a thousand miles, turned into darkness, active, happy workers gave the bivouac the kind of skillful ordering that a trained group always gives to any place.