He'd started a fire and put coffee on, and now was busy at the work board of his chuck wagon.

Hank had gathered wood for a cookfire, and his wife was busy at it now.

Her heart, her maternal feeling, in fact her being was too busy expressing itself, as quietly thrilled by this sight of her Nicolas curled asleep under a blanket, in a park like a scene from Poussin.

Mrs. Sandburg received a Phi Beta Kappa key from the University of Chicago and she was busy writing and teaching when she met Sandburg.

He was busy, he said, in having someone submit to a monkey-gland operation.

And Anthony was busy most of the time courting this girl and that.

There have been cooing doves, chattering magpies, thieving jackdaws, a proud peacock, a silly goose, and a harpy eagle -- whom I was silly enough to mate with and who is now busy tearing at my vitals ''.

But he was too busy to hear what she was saying.

It was a busy street, conveniently near the shopping center, and unattended horses and wagons were often left at the curbside.

This day was `` Open House for Parents '' day, and the girls were busy preparing exhibits and arranging tea tables.

I waited until the parking attendant was busy with a customer, then slipped around the back of the car with license number JYM 114, attached the electronic bug to the rear bumper and walked out.

The place wasn't particularly busy at that time of night, and the girl who was waiting on me, who was clothed in the tightest-fitting pair of slacks I had ever seen on a woman and a sweater that showed everything there was -- and there was lots of it -- wanted to be sociable.

The man was busy doing something to the inside of the door-frame on the driver's side of a car.

It was nine o'clock in the morning: the hour which, like a spade turning clods of earth, exposed to the day a myriad of busy creatures that had lain dormant in the quiet night.

Casey made some comment, but his mind was busy as he considered the man.

Doc Abel was busy up front with some of his live patients.

The last night I had called, but the line was always busy and it reassured me.

I was busy the rest of the day.

The place was busy but I didn't feel like a Hun.

Helva's civilization was not without busy, do-good associations, exploring possible inhumanities to terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial citizens.

It was an era of constitution writing — most states were busy at the task — and leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution, even though other nations did not.

Gavin's stallion was in the barn and he tightened the cinches over the saddle blanket, working by touch in the darkness, comforting the animal with easy words.

Cabot turned back to the men and he was drunk with the thing they would do, wild to break from the cloying warmth of the saloon into the cold of the ebbing night.

Gavin's face was bloodless with excitement.

Still, I was disgusted with myself for agreeing with Montero's methods.

His mouth was open, his neck corded with the strain of his screams.

Out in front of our walls the grass was covered with dead and dying men, war shields, lances, blankets and wounded and dead horses.

The morning air was filled with the sweetish odor of new-spilled blood, the acrid stench of frightened horses, and the bitterness of burned powder.

Above me a dark rider was whipping his pony with a quirt in an attempt to hurdle the bales.

He was shaking with anger, his breath coming in long, painful gasps.

The town was about what Wilson expected: one main street with its rows of false-fronted buildings, a water tower, a few warehouses, a single hotel ; ;

It was, I felt, possible that they were men who, having received no tickets for that day, had remained in the hall, to sleep perhaps, in the corners farthest removed from the counter with its overhead light.

He was a man in his late forties, with graying hair, of medium height ; ;

It was partially cemented by ages and pressure, yet it crumpled before the onslaught of the powerful streams, the force of a thousand fire hoses, and with the gold it held washed down through the long sluices.

The man was tall, thin, with a narrow face and a too-large nose.

The ground was covered with soft pine needles and the slope was gentle.

Was it not possible, after all, that the forest was in league with her and her child that its sympathy lay with the Culvers that she had erred in failing to understand this??

She regarded them as signs that she was nearing the glen she sought, and she was glad to at last be doing something positive in her unenunciated, undefined struggle with the mountain and its darkling inhabitants.

Having persisted too long in deliberate ignorance and denial of the forces that threatened her, Pamela was relieved now to admit their potency and to be taking definite steps toward grappling with them.

Unconcerned, indifferent, unmotivated, the forest was simply there -- fighting man's depredations with more abundant growth and man's follies with its own musical evening laughter.

He was handsome, with his coal-black hair and eyes, his fine-chiseled features.