He could hear a gathering tumult in the
mountains hidden beyond the wall of blackness, and there came a sudden
glare of lightning that illumined his way. It helped him. He saw a white
reach of sand ahead and quickened his steps. And out of the sea he heard
more distinctly an increasing sound. It was as if he walked between two
great armies that were setting earth and sea atremble as they advanced
to deadly combat.
The lightning came again, and after it followed a discharge of thunder
that gave to the ground under his feet a shuddering tremor. It rolled
away, echo upon echo, through the mountains, like the booming of
signal-guns, each more distant than the other. A cold breath of air
struck Alan in the face, and something inside him rose up to meet the
thrill of storm.
He had always loved the rolling echoes of thunder in the mountains and
the fire of lightning among their peaks. On such a night, with the crash
of the elements about his father's cabin and the roaring voices of the
ranges filling the darkness with tumult, his mother had brought him into
the world. Love of it was in his blood, a part of his soul, and there
were times when he yearned for this "talk of the mountains" as others
yearn for the coming of spring. He welcomed it now as his eyes sought
through the darkness for a glimmer of the light that always burned from
dusk until dawn in Olaf Ericksen's cabin.
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