CHAPTER ELEVEN 



BEYOND THE HILLS 



ON a stifling hot day we started our trek to follow 

 the locust swarm. The cool breeze caused by 

 the moving truck was a welcome reUef from the oppres- 

 sive temperature of the camp, but just as we were 

 beginning to feel comfortable, a broken front spring 

 halted our pilgrimage out of this inferno. We were 

 forced to stop at a point where sizzling blasts swirled 

 through a deep depression, and what we said concern- 

 ing springs in general, and tliis spring in particular, 

 added much to the heat of the surrounding atmosphere. 

 Toward evening we ran into a section of the locust 

 swarm, and as these insects rained down from the 

 black cloud sweeping overhead to settle on the trees 

 and vegetation along the roadside, I realized for the 

 first time what a real menace they were. Soon they 

 had covered the trees in a soHd mass, breaking and 

 bending limbs under their weight. We stopped to 

 make some photographs, and as I w^atched them chew- 

 ing the green leaves, I could visualize from past expe- 

 rience the scene of devastation which would be left 

 behind. We drove for several miles through this 

 swarm while it was descending to earth for a night of 

 rest and incessant feeding, the insects pelting us Hke 

 hailstones as we moved along at thirty miles an hour. 

 When we had passed beyond tliis hving cloud, we 

 stopped to shake them out of our clothes, and old 



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