When a little bird skittered over the dry leaves behind him, his head jerked up and he strained toward the sound with eyes and ears until he saw the bird, and then he dropped his head and drank again. He knelt down and drank, barely touching his lips to the water. The little snake slid in among the reeds at the pool's side. The heron pounded the air with its wings, jacked itself clear of the water and flew off down river. Suddenly Lennie appeared out of the brush, and he came as silently as a creeping bear moves. Another little water snake swam up the pool, turning its periscope head from side to side. The heron stood in the shallows, motionless and waiting. As quickly as it had come, the wind died, and the clearing was quiet again. And row on row of tiny wind waves flowed up the pool's green surface. The sycamore leaves turned up their silver sides, the brown, dry leaves on the ground scudded a few feet. A far rush of wind sounded and a gust drove through the tops of the trees like a wave. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically. A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shallows. But by the pool among the mottled sycamores, a pleasant shade had fallen.
Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gabilan Mountains, and the hilltops were rosy in the sun. SIX The deep green pool of the Salinas River was still in the late afternoon.
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