Dialogue as narration - a few examples

I was talking about this with Simon the other day and was saying how I'm trying to use the dialogue to convey action more often. I don't think I communicated the concept clearly enough so here's a few examples. Hopefully they might serve as inspiration.

First from That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis. The setting is a rainy night. A group of people are searching for a man.

"If once we start changing course," said Dimble, "we shall go round and round in circles all night. Let's keep straight on. We're bound to come to the road in the end."

"Hullo!" said Jane Sharply. "What's this?"

All listened Because of the wind, the unidentified rhythmic noise which they were straining to hear seemed quite distant at one the moment, and then, next moment, with shouts of "Look out!"--"Go away, you great brute!"--"Get back!"--and the like, all were shrinking back into the hedge as the plosh-plosh of a horse cantering on soft ground passed close beside them. A cold gobbet of mud flung up from its hoofs struck Denniston in the face.

"Oh look! Look!" cried Jane. "Stop him. Quick!"

"Stop him?" said Denniston who was trying to clean his face. "What on earth for? The less I see of that great clod-hopping quadruped the better--"

"Oh, shout to him, Dr. Dimble," said Jane in an agony of impatience. "Come on. Run! Didn't you see?"

"See what?" panted Dimple as the whole party, under the influence of Jane's urgency, began running in the direction of the retreating horse.

"There's a man on his back," gasped Jane. She was tired and out of breath and had lost a shoe.

"A man?" said Denniston; and then: "by God, Sir, Jane's right. Look, over there! Against the sky... to your left."

"We can't overtake him," said Dimble.

"Hi! Stop! Come back! Friends--amis--amici," bawled Denniston.

That section is a very action filled scene and most of it is conveyed through the dialogue. It works so much better than paragraphs describing how the party was confused by the darkness, how Jane saw the person on the horse, how they realized that Jane was right. These details are all communicated through a few lines of dialogue and the result is a fast-moving scene that reads great.

Another example from another master: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. The setting is The Rat and The Mole rowing along the river when The Rat hears something.

It's gone!" sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. "So beautiful and strange and new! Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is a pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!" he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound.

"No it passes on and I begin to lose it," he said presently. "O, Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us."

The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. "I hear nothing myself," he said, "but the wind playing in the reeds and rushed and osiers."

***

"Clearer and nearer still," cried the Rat joyously. "Now you must surely hear it! Ah--at last--I see you do!"

Again, do you see how the dialogue not only conveys the action but what the characters are hearing. You could re-write the last few paragraphs to be entirely inside the characters heads but when he uses dialogue it's much more natural and interesting to read. Obviously you could go way overboard with this but it's one area that I can stand to improve in.

Can anyone think of some other examples of this?