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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Call of the Canyon, by Zane Grey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Call of the Canyon
+
+Author: Zane Grey
+
+Release Date: September, 1999 [eBook #1881]
+[Most recently updated: May 21, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Bill Brewer
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE CANYON ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Call of the Canyon
+
+by Zane Grey
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I
+ CHAPTER II
+ CHAPTER III
+ CHAPTER IV
+ CHAPTER V
+ CHAPTER VI
+ CHAPTER VII
+ CHAPTER VIII
+ CHAPTER IX
+ CHAPTER X
+ CHAPTER XI
+ CHAPTER XII
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+What subtle strange message had come to her out of the West? Carley
+Burch laid the letter in her lap and gazed dreamily through the window.
+
+It was a day typical of early April in New York, rather cold and gray,
+with steely sunlight. Spring breathed in the air, but the women passing
+along Fifty-seventh Street wore furs and wraps. She heard the distant
+clatter of an L train and then the hum of a motor car. A hurdy-gurdy
+jarred into the interval of quiet.
+
+“Glenn has been gone over a year,” she mused, “three months over a
+year—and of all his strange letters this seems the strangest yet.”
+
+She lived again, for the thousandth time, the last moments she had
+spent with him. It had been on New-Year’s Eve, 1918. They had called
+upon friends who were staying at the McAlpin, in a suite on the
+twenty-first floor overlooking Broadway. And when the last quarter hour
+of that eventful and tragic year began slowly to pass with the low
+swell of whistles and bells, Carley’s friends had discreetly left her
+alone with her lover, at the open window, to watch and hear the old
+year out, the new year in. Glenn Kilbourne had returned from France
+early that fall, shell-shocked and gassed, and otherwise incapacitated
+for service in the army—a wreck of his former sterling self and in many
+unaccountable ways a stranger to her. Cold, silent, haunted by
+something, he had made her miserable with his aloofness. But as the
+bells began to ring out the year that had been his ruin Glenn had drawn
+her close, tenderly, passionately, and yet strangely, too.
+
+“Carley, look and listen!” he had whispered.
+
+Under them stretched the great long white flare of Broadway, with its
+snow-covered length glittering under a myriad of electric lights. Sixth
+Avenue swerved away to the right, a less brilliant lane of blanched
+snow. The L trains crept along like huge fire-eyed serpents. The hum of
+the ceaseless moving line of motor cars drifted upward faintly, almost
+drowned in the rising clamor of the street. Broadway’s gay and
+thoughtless crowds surged to and fro, from that height merely a thick
+stream of black figures, like contending columns of ants on the march.
+And everywhere the monstrous electric signs flared up vivid in white
+and red and green; and dimmed and paled, only to flash up again.
+
+Ring out the Old! Ring in the New! Carley had poignantly felt the
+sadness of the one, the promise of the other. As one by one the siren
+factory whistles opened up with deep, hoarse bellow, the clamor of the
+street and the ringing of the bells were lost in a volume of continuous
+sound that swelled on high into a magnificent roar. It was the voice of
+a city—of a nation. It was the voice of a people crying out the strife
+and the agony of the year—pealing forth a prayer for the future.
+
+Glenn had put his lips to her ear: “It’s like the voice in my soul!”
+Never would she forget the shock of that. And how she had stood
+spellbound, enveloped in the mighty volume of sound no longer
+discordant, but full of great, pregnant melody, until the white ball
+burst upon the tower of the Times Building, showing the bright figures
+1919.
+
+The new year had not been many minutes old when Glenn Kilbourne had
+told her he was going West to try to recover his health.
+
+Carley roused out of her memories to take up the letter that had so
+perplexed her. It bore the postmark, Flagstaff, Arizona. She reread it
+with slow pondering thoughtfulness.
+
+WEST FORK,
+_March_ 25.
+
+
+DEAR CARLEY:
+
+It does seem my neglect in writing you is unpardonable. I used to be a
+pretty fair correspondent, but in that as in other things I have
+changed.
+
+One reason I have not answered sooner is because your letter was so
+sweet and loving that it made me feel an ungrateful and unappreciative
+wretch. Another is that this life I now lead does not induce writing. I
+am outdoors all day, and when I get back to this cabin at night I am
+too tired for anything but bed.
+
+Your imperious questions I must answer—and that _must_, of course, is a
+third reason why I have delayed my reply. First, you ask, “Don’t you
+love me any more as you used to?”... Frankly, I do not. I am sure my
+old love for you, before I went to France, was selfish, thoughtless,
+sentimental, and boyish. I am a man now. And my love for you is
+different. Let me assure you that it has been about all left to me of
+what is noble and beautiful. Whatever the changes in me for the worse,
+my love for you, at least, has grown better, finer, purer.
+
+And now for your second question, “Are you coming home as soon as you
+are well again?”... Carley, I _am_ well. I have delayed telling you
+this because I knew you would expect me to rush back East with the
+telling. But—the fact is, Carley, I am not coming—just yet. I wish it
+were possible for me to make you understand. For a long time I seem to
+have been frozen within. You know when I came back from France I
+couldn’t talk. It’s almost as bad as that now. Yet all that I was then
+seems to have changed again. It is only fair to you to tell you that,
+as I feel now, I hate the city, I hate people, and particularly I hate
+that dancing, drinking, lounging set you chase with. I don’t want to
+come East until I am over that, you know... Suppose I never get over
+it? Well, Carley, you can free yourself from me by one word that I
+could never utter. I could never break our engagement. During the hell
+I went through in the war my attachment to you saved me from moral
+ruin, if it did not from perfect honor and fidelity. This is another
+thing I despair of making you understand. And in the chaos I’ve
+wandered through _since_ the war my love for you was my only anchor.
+You never guessed, did you, that I lived on your letters until I got
+well. And now the fact that I might get along without them is no
+discredit to their charm or to you.
+
+It is all so hard to put in words, Carley. To lie down with death and
+get up with death was nothing. To face one’s degradation was nothing.
+But to come home an incomprehensibly changed man—and to see my old life
+as strange as if it were the new life of another planet—to try to slip
+into the old groove—well, no words of mine can tell you how utterly
+impossible it was.
+
+My old job was not open to me, even if I had been able to work. The
+government that I fought for left me to starve, or to die of my
+maladies like a dog, for all it cared.
+
+I could not live on your money, Carley. My people are poor, as you
+know. So there was nothing for me to do but to borrow a little money
+from my friends and to come West. I’m glad I had the courage to come.
+What this West is I’ll never try to tell you, because, loving the
+luxury and excitement and glitter of the city as you do, you’d think I
+was crazy.
+
+Getting on here, in my condition, was as hard as trench life. But now,
+Carley—something has come to me out of the West. That, too, I am unable
+to put into words. Maybe I can give you an inkling of it. I’m strong
+enough to chop wood all day. No man or woman passes my cabin in a
+month. But I am never lonely. I love these vast red canyon walls
+towering above me. And the silence is so sweet. Think of the hellish
+din that filled my ears. Even now—sometimes, the brook here changes its
+babbling murmur to the roar of war. I never understood anything of the
+meaning of nature until I lived under these looming stone walls and
+whispering pines.
+
+So, Carley, try to understand me, or at least be kind. You know they
+came very near writing, “Gone west!” after my name, and considering
+_that_, this “Out West” signifies for me a very fortunate difference. A
+tremendous difference! For the present I’ll let well enough alone.
+
+
+_Adios_. Write soon. Love from
+GLENN.
+
+
+Carley’s second reaction to the letter was a sudden upflashing desire
+to see her lover—to go out West and find him. Impulses with her were
+rather rare and inhibited, but this one made her tremble. If Glenn was
+well again he must have vastly changed from the moody, stone-faced, and
+haunted-eyed man who had so worried and distressed her. He had
+embarrassed her, too, for sometimes, in her home, meeting young men
+there who had not gone into the service, he had seemed to retreat into
+himself, singularly aloof, as if his world was not theirs.
+
+Again, with eager eyes and quivering lips, she read the letter. It
+contained words that lifted her heart. Her starved love greedily
+absorbed them. In them she had excuse for any resolve that might bring
+Glenn closer to her. And she pondered over this longing to go to him.
+
+Carley had the means to come and go and live as she liked. She did not
+remember her father, who had died when she was a child. Her mother had
+left her in the care of a sister, and before the war they had divided
+their time between New York and Europe, the Adirondacks and Florida,
+Carley had gone in for Red Cross and relief work with more of sincerity
+than most of her set. But she was really not used to making any
+decision as definite and important as that of going out West alone. She
+had never been farther west than Jersey City; and her conception of the
+West was a hazy one of vast plains and rough mountains, squalid towns,
+cattle herds, and uncouth ill-clad men.
+
+So she carried the letter to her aunt, a rather slight woman with a
+kindly face and shrewd eyes, and who appeared somewhat given to
+old-fashioned garments.
+
+“Aunt Mary, here’s a letter from Glenn,” said Carley. “It’s more of a
+stumper than usual. Please read it.”
+
+“Dear me! You look upset,” replied the aunt, mildly, and, adjusting her
+spectacles, she took the letter.
+
+Carley waited impatiently for the perusal, conscious of inward forces
+coming more and more to the aid of her impulse to go West. Her aunt
+paused once to murmur how glad she was that Glenn had gotten well. Then
+she read on to the close.
+
+“Carley, that’s a fine letter,” she said, fervently. “Do you see
+through it?”
+
+“No, I don’t,” replied Carley. “That’s why I asked you to read it.”
+
+“Do you still love Glenn as you used to before—”
+
+“Why, Aunt Mary!” exclaimed Carley, in surprise.
+
+“Excuse me, Carley, if I’m blunt. But the fact is young women of modern
+times are very different from my kind when I was a girl. You haven’t
+acted as though you pined for Glenn. You gad around almost the same as
+ever.”
+
+“What’s a girl to do?” protested Carley.
+
+“You are twenty-six years old, Carley,” retorted Aunt Mary.
+
+“Suppose I am. I’m as young—as I ever was.”
+
+“Well, let’s not argue about modern girls and modern times. We never
+get anywhere,” returned her aunt, kindly. “But I can tell you something
+of what Glenn Kilbourne means in that letter—if you want to hear it.”
+
+“I do—indeed.”
+
+“The war did something horrible to Glenn aside from wrecking his
+health. Shell-shock, they said! I don’t understand that. Out of his
+mind, they said! But that never was true. Glenn was as sane as I am,
+and, my dear, that’s pretty sane, I’ll have you remember. But he must
+have suffered some terrible blight to his spirit—some blunting of his
+soul. For months after he returned he walked as one in a trance. Then
+came a change. He grew restless. Perhaps that change was for the
+better. At least it showed he’d roused. Glenn saw you and your friends
+and the life you lead, and all the present, with eyes from which the
+scales had dropped. He saw what was _wrong_. He never said so to me,
+but I knew it. It wasn’t only to get well that he went West. It was to
+get away.... And, Carley Burch, if your happiness depends on him you
+had better be up and doing—or you’ll _lose_ him!”
+
+“Aunt Mary!” gasped Carley.
+
+“I mean it. That letter shows how near he came to the Valley of the
+Shadow—and how he has become a man.... If I were you I’d go out West.
+Surely there must be a place where it would be all right for you to
+stay.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” replied Carley, eagerly. “Glenn wrote me there was a lodge
+where people went in nice weather—right down in the canyon not far from
+his place. Then, of course, the town—Flagstaff—isn’t far.... Aunt Mary,
+I think I’ll go.”
+
+“I would. You’re certainly wasting your time here.”
+
+“But I could only go for a visit,” rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. “A
+month, perhaps six weeks, if I could stand it.”
+
+“Seems to me if you can stand New York you could stand that place,”
+said Aunt Mary, dryly.
+
+“The idea of staying away from New York any length of time—why, I
+couldn’t do it I... But I can stay out there long enough to bring Glenn
+back with me.”
+
+“That may take you longer than you think,” replied her aunt, with a
+gleam in her shrewd eyes. “If you want my advice you will surprise
+Glenn. Don’t write him—don’t give him a chance to—well to suggest
+courteously that you’d better not come just yet. I don’t like his words
+‘just yet.’”
+
+“Auntie, you’re—rather—more than blunt,” said Carley, divided between
+resentment and amaze. “Glenn would be simply wild to have me come.”
+
+“Maybe he would. Has he ever asked you?”
+
+“No-o—come to think of it, he hasn’t,” replied Carley, reluctantly.
+“Aunt Mary, you hurt my feelings.”
+
+“Well, child, I’m glad to learn your feelings are hurt,” returned the
+aunt. “I’m sure, Carley, that underneath all this—this blasé ultra
+something you’ve acquired, there’s a real heart. Only you must hurry
+and listen to it—or—”
+
+“Or what?” queried Carley.
+
+Aunt Mary shook her gray head sagely. “Never mind what. Carley, I’d
+like your idea of the most significant thing in Glenn’s letter.”
+
+“Why, his love for me, of course!” replied Carley.
+
+“Naturally you think that. But I don’t. What struck me most were his
+words, ‘out of the West.’ Carley, you’d do well to ponder over them.”
+
+“I will,” rejoined Carley, positively. “I’ll do more. I’ll go out to
+his wonderful West and see what he meant by them.”
+
+Carley Burch possessed in full degree the prevailing modern craze for
+speed. She loved a motor-car ride at sixty miles an hour along a
+smooth, straight road, or, better, on the level seashore of Ormond,
+where on moonlight nights the white blanched sand seemed to flash
+toward her. Therefore quite to her taste was the Twentieth Century
+Limited which was hurtling her on the way to Chicago. The unceasingly
+smooth and even rush of the train satisfied something in her. An old
+lady sitting in an adjoining seat with a companion amused Carley by the
+remark: “I wish we didn’t go so fast. People nowadays haven’t time to
+draw a comfortable breath. Suppose we should run off the track!”
+
+Carley had no fear of express trains, or motor cars, or transatlantic
+liners; in fact, she prided herself in not being afraid of anything.
+But she wondered if this was not the false courage of association with
+a crowd. Before this enterprise at hand she could not remember anything
+she had undertaken alone. Her thrills seemed to be in abeyance to the
+end of her journey. That night her sleep was permeated with the steady
+low whirring of the wheels. Once, roused by a jerk, she lay awake in
+the darkness while the thought came to her that she and all her fellow
+passengers were really at the mercy of the engineer. Who was he, and
+did he stand at his throttle keen and vigilant, thinking of the lives
+intrusted to him? Such thoughts vaguely annoyed Carley, and she
+dismissed them.
+
+A long half-day wait in Chicago was a tedious preliminary to the second
+part of her journey. But at last she found herself aboard the
+California Limited, and went to bed with a relief quite a stranger to
+her. The glare of the sun under the curtain awakened her. Propped up on
+her pillows, she looked out at apparently endless green fields or
+pastures, dotted now and then with little farmhouses and tree-skirted
+villages. This country, she thought, must be the prairie land she
+remembered lay west of the Mississippi.
+
+Later, in the dining car, the steward smilingly answered her question:
+“This is Kansas, and those green fields out there are the wheat that
+feeds the nation.”
+
+Carley was not impressed. The color of the short wheat appeared soft
+and rich, and the boundless fields stretched away monotonously. She had
+not known there was so much flat land in the world, and she imagined it
+might be a fine country for automobile roads. When she got back to her
+seat she drew the blinds down and read her magazines. Then tiring of
+that, she went back to the observation car. Carley was accustomed to
+attracting attention, and did not resent it, unless she was annoyed.
+The train evidently had a full complement of passengers, who, as far as
+Carley could see, were people not of her station in life. The glare
+from the many windows, and the rather crass interest of several men,
+drove her back to her own section. There she discovered that some one
+had drawn up her window shades. Carley promptly pulled them down and
+settled herself comfortably. Then she heard a woman speak, not
+particularly low: “I thought people traveled west to see the country.”
+And a man replied, rather dryly. “Wal, not always.” His companion went
+on: “If that girl was mine I’d let down her skirt.” The man laughed and
+replied: “Martha, you’re shore behind the times. Look at the pictures
+in the magazines.”
+
+Such remarks amused Carley, and later she took advantage of an
+opportunity to notice her neighbors. They appeared a rather quaint old
+couple, reminding her of the natives of country towns in the
+Adirondacks. She was not amused, however, when another of her woman
+neighbors, speaking low, referred to her as a “lunger.” Carley
+appreciated the fact that she was pale, but she assured herself that
+there ended any possible resemblance she might have to a consumptive.
+And she was somewhat pleased to hear this woman’s male companion
+forcibly voice her own convictions. In fact, he was nothing if not
+admiring.
+
+Kansas was interminably long to Carley, and she went to sleep before
+riding out of it. Next morning she found herself looking out at the
+rough gray and black land of New Mexico. She searched the horizon for
+mountains, but there did not appear to be any. She received a vague,
+slow-dawning impression that was hard to define. She did not like the
+country, though that was not the impression which eluded her. Bare gray
+flats, low scrub-fringed hills, bleak cliffs, jumble after jumble of
+rocks, and occasionally a long vista down a valley, somehow
+compelling—these passed before her gaze until she tired of them. Where
+was the West Glenn had written about? One thing seemed sure, and it was
+that every mile of this crude country brought her nearer to him. This
+recurring thought gave Carley all the pleasure she had felt so far in
+this endless ride. It struck her that England or France could be
+dropped down into New Mexico and scarcely noticed.
+
+By and by the sun grew hot, the train wound slowly and creakingly
+upgrade, the car became full of dust, all of which was disagreeable to
+Carley. She dozed on her pillow for hours, until she was stirred by a
+passenger crying out, delightedly: “Look! Indians!”
+
+Carley looked, not without interest. As a child she had read about
+Indians, and memory returned images both colorful and romantic. From
+the car window she espied dusty flat barrens, low squat mud houses, and
+queer-looking little people, children naked or extremely ragged and
+dirty, women in loose garments with flares of red, and men in white
+man’s garb, slovenly and motley. All these strange individuals stared
+apathetically as the train slowly passed.
+
+“Indians,” muttered Carley, incredulously. “Well, if they are the noble
+red people, my illusions are dispelled.” She did not look out of the
+window again, not even when the brakeman called out the remarkable name
+of Albuquerque.
+
+Next day Carley’s languid attention quickened to the name of Arizona,
+and to the frowning red walls of rock, and to the vast rolling
+stretches of cedar-dotted land. Nevertheless, it affronted her. This
+was no country for people to live in, and so far as she could see it
+was indeed uninhabited. Her sensations were not, however, limited to
+sight. She became aware of unfamiliar disturbing little shocks or
+vibrations in her ear drums, and after that a disagreeable bleeding of
+the nose. The porter told her this was owing to the altitude. Thus, one
+thing and another kept Carley most of the time away from the window, so
+that she really saw very little of the country. From what she had seen
+she drew the conviction that she had not missed much. At sunset she
+deliberately gazed out to discover what an Arizona sunset was like just
+a pale yellow flare! She had seen better than that above the Palisades.
+Not until reaching Winslow did she realize how near she was to her
+journey’s end and that she would arrive at Flagstaff after dark. She
+grew conscious of nervousness. Suppose Flagstaff were like these other
+queer little towns!
+
+Not only once, but several times before the train slowed down for her
+destination did Carley wish she had sent Glenn word to meet her. And
+when, presently, she found herself standing out in the dark, cold,
+windy night before a dim-lit railroad station she more than regretted
+her decision to surprise Glenn. But that was too late and she must make
+the best of her poor judgment.
+
+Men were passing to and fro on the platform, some of whom appeared to
+be very dark of skin and eye, and were probably Mexicans. At length an
+expressman approached Carley, soliciting patronage. He took her bags
+and, depositing them in a wagon, he pointed up the wide street: “One
+block up an’ turn. Hotel Wetherford.” Then he drove off. Carley
+followed, carrying her small satchel. A cold wind, driving the dust,
+stung her face as she crossed the street to a high sidewalk that
+extended along the block. There were lights in the stores and on the
+corners, yet she seemed impressed by a dark, cold, windy bigness. Many
+people, mostly men, were passing up and down, and there were motor cars
+everywhere. No one paid any attention to her. Gaining the corner of the
+block, she turned, and was relieved to see the hotel sign. As she
+entered the lobby a clicking of pool balls and the discordant rasp of a
+phonograph assailed her ears. The expressman set down her bags and left
+Carley standing there. The clerk or proprietor was talking from behind
+his desk to several men, and there were loungers in the lobby. The air
+was thick with tobacco smoke. No one paid any attention to Carley until
+at length she stepped up to the desk and interrupted the conversation
+there.
+
+“Is this a hotel?” she queried, brusquely.
+
+The shirt-sleeved individual leisurely turned and replied, “Yes,
+ma’am.”
+
+And Carley said: “No one would recognize it by the courtesy shown. I
+have been standing here waiting to register.”
+
+With the same leisurely case and a cool, laconic stare the clerk turned
+the book toward her. “Reckon people round here ask for what they want.”
+
+Carley made no further comment. She assuredly recognized that what she
+had been accustomed to could not be expected out here. What she most
+wished to do at the moment was to get close to the big open grate where
+a cheery red-and-gold fire cracked. It was necessary, however, to
+follow the clerk. He assigned her to a small drab room which contained
+a bed, a bureau, and a stationary washstand with one spigot. There was
+also a chair. While Carley removed her coat and hat the clerk went
+downstairs for the rest of her luggage. Upon his return Carley learned
+that a stage left the hotel for Oak Creek Canyon at nine o’clock next
+morning. And this cheered her so much that she faced the strange sense
+of loneliness and discomfort with something of fortitude. There was no
+heat in the room, and no hot water. When Carley squeezed the spigot
+handle there burst forth a torrent of water that spouted up out of the
+washbasin to deluge her. It was colder than any ice water she had ever
+felt. It was piercingly cold. Hard upon the surprise and shock Carley
+suffered a flash of temper. But then the humor of it struck her and she
+had to laugh.
+
+“Serves you right—you spoiled doll of luxury!” she mocked. “This is out
+West. Shiver and wait on yourself!”
+
+Never before had she undressed so swiftly nor felt grateful for thick
+woollen blankets on a hard bed. Gradually she grew warm. The blackness,
+too, seemed rather comforting.
+
+“I’m only twenty miles from Glenn,” she whispered. “How strange! I
+wonder will he be glad.” She felt a sweet, glowing assurance of that.
+Sleep did not come readily. Excitement had laid hold of her nerves, and
+for a long time she lay awake. After a while the chug of motor cars,
+the click of pool balls, the murmur of low voices all ceased. Then she
+heard a sound of wind outside, an intermittent, low moaning, new to her
+ears, and somehow pleasant. Another sound greeted her—the musical
+clanging of a clock that struck the quarters of the hour. Some time
+late sleep claimed her.
+
+Upon awakening she found she had overslept, necessitating haste upon
+her part. As to that, the temperature of the room did not admit of
+leisurely dressing. She had no adequate name for the feeling of the
+water. And her fingers grew so numb that she made what she considered a
+disgraceful matter of her attire.
+
+Downstairs in the lobby another cheerful red fire burned in the grate.
+How perfectly satisfying was an open fireplace! She thrust her numb
+hands almost into the blaze, and simply shook with the tingling pain
+that slowly warmed out of them. The lobby was deserted. A sign directed
+her to a dining room in the basement, where of the ham and eggs and
+strong coffee she managed to partake a little. Then she went upstairs
+into the lobby and out into the street.
+
+A cold, piercing air seemed to blow right through her. Walking to the
+near corner, she paused to look around. Down the main street flowed a
+leisurely stream of pedestrians, horses, cars, extending between two
+blocks of low buildings. Across from where she stood lay a vacant lot,
+beyond which began a line of neat, oddly constructed houses, evidently
+residences of the town. And then lifting her gaze, instinctively drawn
+by something obstructing the sky line, she was suddenly struck with
+surprise and delight.
+
+“Oh! how perfectly splendid!” she burst out.
+
+Two magnificent mountains loomed right over her, sloping up with
+majestic sweep of green and black timber, to a ragged tree-fringed snow
+area that swept up cleaner and whiter, at last to lift pure glistening
+peaks, noble and sharp, and sunrise-flushed against the blue.
+
+Carley had climbed Mont Blanc and she had seen the Matterhorn, but they
+had never struck such amaze and admiration from her as these twin peaks
+of her native land.
+
+“What mountains are those?” she asked a passer-by.
+
+“San Francisco Peaks, ma’am,” replied the man.
+
+“Why, they can’t be over a mile away!” she said.
+
+“Eighteen miles, ma’am,” he returned, with a grin. “Shore this Arizonie
+air is deceivin’.”
+
+“How strange,” murmured Carley. “It’s not that way in the Adirondacks.”
+
+She was still gazing upward when a man approached her and said the
+stage for Oak Creek Canyon would soon be ready to start, and he wanted
+to know if her baggage was ready. Carley hurried back to her room to
+pack.
+
+She had expected the stage would be a motor bus, or at least a large
+touring car, but it turned out to be a two-seated vehicle drawn by a
+team of ragged horses. The driver was a little wizen-faced man of
+doubtful years, and he did not appear obviously susceptible to the
+importance of his passenger. There was considerable freight to be
+hauled, besides Carley’s luggage, but evidently she was the only
+passenger.
+
+“Reckon it’s goin’ to be a bad day,” said the driver. “These April days
+high up on the desert are windy an’ cold. Mebbe it’ll snow, too. Them
+clouds hangin’ around the peaks ain’t very promisin’. Now, miss,
+haven’t you a heavier coat or somethin’?”
+
+“No, I have not,” replied Carley. “I’ll have to stand it. Did you say
+this was desert?”
+
+“I shore did. Wal, there’s a hoss blanket under the seat, an’ you can
+have that,” he replied, and, climbing to the seat in front of Carley,
+he took up the reins and started the horses off at a trot.
+
+At the first turning Carley became specifically acquainted with the
+driver’s meaning of a bad day. A gust of wind, raw and penetrating,
+laden with dust and stinging sand, swept full in her face. It came so
+suddenly that she was scarcely quick enough to close her eyes. It took
+considerable clumsy effort on her part with a handkerchief, aided by
+relieving tears, to clear her sight again. Thus uncomfortably Carley
+found herself launched on the last lap of her journey.
+
+All before her and alongside lay the squalid environs of the town.
+Looked back at, with the peaks rising behind, it was not unpicturesque.
+But the hard road with its sheets of flying dust, the bleak railroad
+yards, the round pens she took for cattle corrals, and the sordid
+debris littering the approach to a huge sawmill,—these were offensive
+in Carley’s sight. From a tall dome-like stack rose a yellowish smoke
+that spread overhead, adding to the lowering aspect of the sky. Beyond
+the sawmill extended the open country sloping somewhat roughly, and
+evidently once a forest, but now a hideous bare slash, with ghastly
+burned stems of trees still standing, and myriads of stumps attesting
+to denudation.
+
+The bleak road wound away to the southwest, and from this direction
+came the gusty wind. It did not blow regularly so that Carley could be
+on her guard. It lulled now and then, permitting her to look about, and
+then suddenly again whipping dust into her face. The smell of the dust
+was as unpleasant as the sting. It made her nostrils smart. It was
+penetrating, and a little more of it would have been suffocating. And
+as a leaden gray bank of broken clouds rolled up the wind grew stronger
+and the air colder. Chilled before, Carley now became thoroughly cold.
+
+There appeared to be no end to the devastated forest land, and the
+farther she rode the more barren and sordid grew the landscape. Carley
+forgot about the impressive mountains behind her. And as the ride wore
+into hours, such was her discomfort and disillusion that she forgot
+about Glenn Kilbourne. She did not reach the point of regretting her
+adventure, but she grew mightily unhappy. Now and then she espied
+dilapidated log cabins and surroundings even more squalid than the
+ruined forest. What wretched abodes! Could it be possible that people
+had lived in them? She imagined men had but hardly women and children.
+Somewhere she had forgotten an idea that women and children were
+extremely scarce in the West.
+
+Straggling bits of forest—yellow pines, the driver called the
+trees—began to encroach upon the burned-over and arid barren land. To
+Carley these groves, by reason of contrast and proof of what once was,
+only rendered the landscape more forlorn and dreary. Why had these
+miles and miles of forest been cut? By money grubbers, she supposed,
+the same as were devastating the Adirondacks. Presently, when the
+driver had to halt to repair or adjust something wrong with the
+harness, Carley was grateful for a respite from cold inaction. She got
+out and walked. Sleet began to fall, and when she resumed her seat in
+the vehicle she asked the driver for the blanket to cover her. The
+smell of this horse blanket was less endurable than the cold. Carley
+huddled down into a state of apathetic misery. Already she had enough
+of the West.
+
+But the sleet storm passed, the clouds broke, the sun shone through,
+greatly mitigating her discomfort. By and by the road led into a
+section of real forest, unspoiled in any degree. Carley saw large gray
+squirrels with tufted ears and white bushy tails. Presently the driver
+pointed out a flock of huge birds, which Carley, on second glance,
+recognized as turkeys, only these were sleek and glossy, with flecks of
+bronze and black and white, quite different from turkeys back East.
+“There must be a farm near,” said Carley, gazing about.
+
+“No, ma’am. Them’s wild turkeys,” replied the driver, “an’ shore the
+best eatin’ you ever had in your life.”
+
+A little while afterwards, as they were emerging from the woodland into
+more denuded country, he pointed out to Carley a herd of gray
+white-rumped animals that she took to be sheep.
+
+“An’ them’s antelope,” he said. “Once this desert was overrun by
+antelope. Then they nearly disappeared. An’ now they’re increasin’
+again.”
+
+More barren country, more bad weather, and especially an exceedingly
+rough road reduced Carley to her former state of dejection. The jolting
+over roots and rocks and ruts was worse than uncomfortable. She had to
+hold on to the seat to keep from being thrown out. The horses did not
+appreciably change their gait for rough sections of the road. Then a
+more severe jolt brought Carley’s knee in violent contact with an iron
+bolt on the forward seat, and it hurt her so acutely that she had to
+bite her lips to keep from screaming. A smoother stretch of road did
+not come any too soon for her.
+
+It led into forest again. And Carley soon became aware that they had at
+last left the cut and burned-over district of timberland behind. A cold
+wind moaned through the treetops and set the drops of water pattering
+down upon her. It lashed her wet face. Carley closed her eyes and
+sagged in her seat, mostly oblivious to the passing scenery. “The girls
+will never believe this of me,” she soliloquized. And indeed she was
+amazed at herself. Then thought of Glenn strengthened her. It did not
+really matter what she suffered on the way to him. Only she was
+disgusted at her lack of stamina, and her appalling sensitiveness to
+discomfort.
+
+“Wal, hyar’s Oak Creek Canyon,” called the driver.
+
+Carley, rousing out of her weary preoccupation, opened her eyes to see
+that the driver had halted at a turn of the road, where apparently it
+descended a fearful declivity.
+
+The very forest-fringed earth seemed to have opened into a deep abyss,
+ribbed by red rock walls and choked by steep mats of green timber. The
+chasm was a V-shaped split and so deep that looking downward sent at
+once a chill and a shudder over Carley. At that point it appeared
+narrow and ended in a box. In the other direction, it widened and
+deepened, and stretched farther on between tremendous walls of red, and
+split its winding floor of green with glimpses of a gleaming creek,
+bowlder-strewn and ridged by white rapids. A low mellow roar of rushing
+waters floated up to Carley’s ears. What a wild, lonely, terrible
+place! Could Glenn possibly live down there in that ragged rent in the
+earth? It frightened her—the sheer sudden plunge of it from the
+heights. Far down the gorge a purple light shone on the forested floor.
+And on the moment the sun burst through the clouds and sent a golden
+blaze down into the depths, transforming them incalculably. The great
+cliffs turned gold, the creek changed to glancing silver, the green of
+trees vividly freshened, and in the clefts rays of sunlight burned into
+the blue shadows. Carley had never gazed upon a scene like this.
+Hostile and prejudiced, she yet felt wrung from her an acknowledgment
+of beauty and grandeur. But wild, violent, savage! Not livable! This
+insulated rift in the crust of the earth was a gigantic burrow for
+beasts, perhaps for outlawed men—not for a civilized person—not for
+Glenn Kilbourne.
+
+“Don’t be scart, ma’am,” spoke up the driver. “It’s safe if you’re
+careful. An’ I’ve druv this manys the time.”
+
+Carley’s heartbeats thumped at her side, rather denying her taunted
+assurance of fearlessness. Then the rickety vehicle started down at an
+angle that forced her to cling to her seat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Carley, clutching her support, with abated breath and prickling skin,
+gazed in fascinated suspense over the rim of the gorge. Sometimes the
+wheels on that side of the vehicle passed within a few inches of the
+edge. The brakes squeaked, the wheels slid; and she could hear the
+scrape of the iron-shod hoofs of the horses as they held back stiff
+legged, obedient to the wary call of the driver.
+
+The first hundred yards of that steep road cut out of the cliff
+appeared to be the worst. It began to widen, with descents less
+precipitous. Tips of trees rose level with her gaze, obstructing sight
+of the blue depths. Then brush appeared on each side of the road.
+Gradually Carley’s strain relaxed, and also the muscular contraction by
+which she had braced herself in the seat. The horses began to trot
+again. The wheels rattled. The road wound around abrupt corners, and
+soon the green and red wall of the opposite side of the canyon loomed
+close. Low roar of running water rose to Carley’s ears. When at length
+she looked out instead of down she could see nothing but a mass of
+green foliage crossed by tree trunks and branches of brown and gray.
+Then the vehicle bowled under dark cool shade, into a tunnel with mossy
+wet cliff on one side, and close-standing trees on the other.
+
+“Reckon we’re all right now, onless we meet somebody comin’ up,”
+declared the driver.
+
+Carley relaxed. She drew a deep breath of relief. She had her first
+faint intimation that perhaps her extensive experience of motor cars,
+express trains, transatlantic liners, and even a little of airplanes,
+did not range over the whole of adventurous life. She was likely to
+meet something, entirely new and striking out here in the West.
+
+The murmur of falling water sounded closer. Presently Carley saw that
+the road turned at the notch in the canyon, and crossed a clear swift
+stream. Here were huge mossy boulders, and red walls covered by
+lichens, and the air appeared dim and moist, and full of mellow, hollow
+roar. Beyond this crossing the road descended the west side of the
+canyon, drawing away and higher from the creek. Huge trees, the like of
+which Carley had never seen, began to stand majestically up out of the
+gorge, dwarfing the maples and white-spotted sycamores. The driver
+called these great trees yellow pines.
+
+At last the road led down from the steep slope to the floor of the
+canyon. What from far above had appeared only a green timber-choked
+cleft proved from close relation to be a wide winding valley, tip and
+down, densely forested for the most part, yet having open glades and
+bisected from wall to wall by the creek. Every quarter of a mile or so
+the road crossed the stream; and at these fords Carley again held on
+desperately and gazed out dubiously, for the creek was deep, swift, and
+full of bowlders. Neither driver nor horses appeared to mind obstacles.
+Carley was splashed and jolted not inconsiderably. They passed through
+groves of oak trees, from which the creek manifestly derived its name;
+and under gleaming walls, cold, wet, gloomy, and silent; and between
+lines of solemn wide-spreading pines. Carley saw deep, still green
+pools eddying under huge massed jumble of cliffs, and stretches of
+white water, and then, high above the treetops, a wild line of canyon
+rim, cold against the sky. She felt shut in from the world, lost in an
+unscalable rut of the earth. Again the sunlight had failed, and the
+gray gloom of the canyon oppressed her. It struck Carley as singular
+that she could not help being affected by mere weather, mere heights
+and depths, mere rock walls and pine trees, and rushing water. For
+really, what had these to do with her? These were only physical things
+that she was passing. Nevertheless, although she resisted sensation,
+she was more and more shot through and through with the wildness and
+savageness of this canyon.
+
+A sharp turn of the road to the right disclosed a slope down the creek,
+across which showed orchards and fields, and a cottage nestling at the
+base of the wall. The ford at this crossing gave Carley more concern
+than any that had been passed, for there was greater volume and depth
+of water. One of the horses slipped on the rocks, plunged up and on
+with great splash. They crossed, however, without more mishap to Carley
+than further acquaintance with this iciest of waters. From this point
+the driver turned back along the creek, passed between orchards and
+fields, and drove along the base of the red wall to come suddenly upon
+a large rustic house that had been hidden from Carley’s sight. It sat
+almost against the stone cliff, from which poured a white foamy sheet
+of water. The house was built of slabs with the bark on, and it had a
+lower and upper porch running all around, at least as far as the cliff.
+Green growths from the rock wall overhung the upper porch. A column of
+blue smoke curled lazily upward from a stone chimney. On one of the
+porch posts hung a sign with rude lettering: “Lolomi Lodge.”
+
+“Hey, Josh, did you fetch the flour?” called a woman’s voice from
+inside.
+
+“Hullo I Reckon I didn’t forgit nothin’,” replied the man, as he got
+down. “An’ say, Mrs. Hutter, hyar’s a young lady from Noo Yorrk.”
+
+That latter speech of the driver’s brought Mrs. Hutter out on the
+porch. “Flo, come here,” she called to some one evidently near at hand.
+And then she smilingly greeted Carley.
+
+“Get down an’ come in, miss,” she said. “I’m sure glad to see you.”
+
+Carley, being stiff and cold, did not very gracefully disengage herself
+from the high muddy wheel and step. When she mounted to the porch she
+saw that Mrs. Hutter was a woman of middle age, rather stout, with
+strong face full of fine wavy lines, and kind dark eyes.
+
+“I’m Miss Burch,” said Carley.
+
+“You’re the girl whose picture Glenn Kilbourne has over his fireplace,”
+declared the woman, heartily. “I’m sure glad to meet you, an’ my
+daughter Flo will be, too.”
+
+That about her picture pleased and warmed Carley. “Yes, I’m Glenn
+Kilbourne’s fiancée. I’ve come West to surprise him. Is he here....
+Is—is he well?”
+
+“Fine. I saw him yesterday. He’s changed a great deal from what he was
+at first. Most all the last few months. I reckon you won’t know him....
+But you’re wet an’ cold an’ you look fagged. Come right in to the
+fire.”
+
+“Thank you; I’m all right,” returned Carley.
+
+At the doorway they encountered a girl of lithe and robust figure,
+quick in her movements. Carley was swift to see the youth and grace of
+her; and then a face that struck Carley as neither pretty nor
+beautiful, but still wonderfully attractive.
+
+“Flo, here’s Miss Burch,” burst out Mrs. Hutter, with cheerful
+importance. “Glenn Kilbourne’s girl come all the way from New York to
+surprise him!”
+
+“Oh, Carley, I’m shore happy to meet you!” said the girl, in a voice of
+slow drawling richness. “I know you. Glenn has told me all about you.”
+
+If this greeting, sweet and warm as it seemed, was a shock to Carley,
+she gave no sign. But as she murmured something in reply she looked
+with all a woman’s keenness into the face before her. Flo Hutter had a
+fair skin generously freckled; a mouth and chin too firmly cut to
+suggest a softer feminine beauty; and eyes of clear light hazel,
+penetrating, frank, fearless. Her hair was very abundant, almost
+silver-gold in color, and it was either rebellious or showed lack of
+care. Carley liked the girl’s looks and liked the sincerity of her
+greeting; but instinctively she reacted antagonistically because of the
+frank suggestion of intimacy with Glenn.
+
+But for that she would have been spontaneous and friendly rather than
+restrained.
+
+They ushered Carley into a big living room and up to a fire of blazing
+logs, where they helped divest her of the wet wraps. And all the time
+they talked in the solicitous way natural to women who were kind and
+unused to many visitors. Then Mrs. Hutter bustled off to make a cup of
+hot coffee while Flo talked.
+
+“We’ll shore give you the nicest room—with a sleeping porch right under
+the cliff where the water falls. It’ll sing you to sleep. Of course you
+needn’t use the bed outdoors until it’s warmer. Spring is late here,
+you know, and we’ll have nasty weather yet. You really happened on Oak
+Creek at its least attractive season. But then it’s always—well, just
+Oak Creek. You’ll come to know.”
+
+“I dare say I’ll remember my first sight of it and the ride down that
+cliff road,” said Carley, with a wan smile.
+
+“Oh, that’s nothing to what you’ll see and do,” returned Flo,
+knowingly. “We’ve had Eastern tenderfeet here before. And never was
+there a one of them who didn’t come to love Arizona.”
+
+“Tenderfoot! It hadn’t occurred to me. But of course—” murmured Carley.
+
+Then Mrs. Hutter returned, carrying a tray, which she set upon a chair,
+and drew to Carley’s side. “Eat an’ drink,” she said, as if these
+actions were the cardinally important ones of life. “Flo, you carry her
+bags up to that west room we always give to some particular person we
+want to love Lolomi.” Next she threw sticks of wood upon the fire,
+making it crackle and blaze, then seated herself near Carley and beamed
+upon her.
+
+“You’ll not mind if we call you Carley?” she asked, eagerly.
+
+“Oh, indeed no! I—I’d like it,” returned Carley, made to feel friendly
+and at home in spite of herself.
+
+“You see it’s not as if you were just a stranger,” went on Mrs. Hutter.
+“Tom—that’s Flo’s father—took a likin’ to Glenn Kilbourne when he first
+came to Oak Creek over a year ago. I wonder if you all know how sick
+that soldier boy was.... Well, he lay on his back for two solid
+weeks—in the room we’re givin’ you. An’ I for one didn’t think he’d
+ever get up. But he did. An’ he got better. An’ after a while he went
+to work for Tom. Then six months an’ more ago he invested in the sheep
+business with Tom. He lived with us until he built his cabin up West
+Fork. He an’ Flo have run together a good deal, an’ naturally he told
+her about you. So you see you’re not a stranger. An’ we want you to
+feel you’re with friends.”
+
+“I thank you, Mrs. Hutter,” replied Carley, feelingly. “I never could
+thank you enough for being good to Glenn. I did not know he was so—so
+sick. At first he wrote but seldom.”
+
+“Reckon he never wrote you or told you what he did in the war,”
+declared Mrs. Hutter.
+
+“Indeed he never did!”
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you some day. For Tom found out all about him. Got
+some of it from a soldier who came to Flagstaff for lung trouble. He’d
+been in the same company with Glenn. We didn’t know this boy’s name
+while he was in Flagstaff. But later Tom found out. John Henderson. He
+was only twenty-two, a fine lad. An’ he died in Phœnix. We tried to get
+him out here. But the boy wouldn’t live on charity. He was always
+expectin’ money—a war bonus, whatever that was. It didn’t come. He was
+a clerk at the El Tovar for a while. Then he came to Flagstaff. But it
+was too cold an’ he stayed there too long.”
+
+“Too bad,” rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. This information as to the
+suffering of American soldiers had augmented during the last few
+months, and seemed to possess strange, poignant power to depress
+Carley. Always she had turned away from the unpleasant. And the misery
+of unfortunates was as disturbing almost as direct contact with disease
+and squalor. But it had begun to dawn upon Carley that there might
+occur circumstances of life, in every way affronting her comfort and
+happiness, which it would be impossible to turn her back upon.
+
+At this juncture Flo returned to the room, and again Carley was struck
+with the girl’s singular freedom of movement and the sense of sure
+poise and joy that seemed to emanate from her presence.
+
+“I’ve made a fire in your little stove,” she said. “There’s water
+heating. Now won’t you come up and change those traveling clothes.
+You’ll want to fix up for Glenn, won’t you?”
+
+Carley had to smile at that. This girl indeed was frank and
+unsophisticated, and somehow refreshing. Carley rose.
+
+“You are both very good to receive me as a friend,” she said. “I hope I
+shall not disappoint you.... Yes, I do want to improve my appearance
+before Glenn sees me.... Is there any way I can send word to him—by
+someone who has not seen me?”
+
+“There shore is. I’ll send Charley, one of our hired boys.”
+
+“Thank you. Then tell him to say there is a lady here from New York to
+see him, and it is very important.”
+
+Flo Hutter clapped her hands and laughed with glee. Her gladness gave
+Carley a little twinge of conscience. Jealously was an unjust and
+stifling thing.
+
+Carley was conducted up a broad stairway and along a boarded hallway to
+a room that opened out on the porch. A steady low murmur of falling
+water assailed her ears. Through the open door she saw across the porch
+to a white tumbling lacy veil of water falling, leaping, changing, so
+close that it seemed to touch the heavy pole railing of the porch.
+
+This room resembled a tent. The sides were of canvas. It had no
+ceiling. But the rough-hewn shingles of the roof of the house sloped
+down closely. The furniture was home made. An Indian rug covered the
+floor. The bed with its woolly clean blankets and the white pillows
+looked inviting.
+
+“Is this where Glenn lay—when he was sick?” queried Carley.
+
+“Yes,” replied Flo, gravely, and a shadow darkened her eyes. “I ought
+to tell you all about it. I will some day. But you must not be made
+unhappy now.... Glenn nearly died here. Mother or I never left his
+side—for a while there—when life was so bad.”
+
+She showed Carley how to open the little stove and put the short
+billets of wood inside and work the damper; and cautioning her to keep
+an eye on it so that it would not get too hot, she left Carley to
+herself.
+
+Carley found herself in an unfamiliar mood. There came a leap of her
+heart every time she thought of the meeting with Glenn, so soon now to
+be, but it was not that which was unfamiliar. She seemed to have a
+difficult approach to undefined and unusual thoughts. All this was so
+different from her regular life. Besides she was tired. But these
+explanations did not suffice. There was a pang in her breast which must
+owe its origin to the fact that Glenn Kilbourne had been ill in this
+little room and some other girl than Carley Burch had nursed him. “Am I
+jealous?” she whispered. “No!” But she knew in her heart that she lied.
+A woman could no more help being jealous, under such circumstances,
+than she could help the beat and throb of her blood. Nevertheless,
+Carley was glad Flo Hutter had been there, and always she would be
+grateful to her for that kindness.
+
+Carley disrobed and, donning her dressing gown, she unpacked her bags
+and hung her things upon pegs under the curtained shelves. Then she lay
+down to rest, with no intention of slumber. But there was a strange
+magic in the fragrance of the room, like the piny tang outdoors, and in
+the feel of the bed, and especially in the low, dreamy hum and murmur
+of the waterfall. She fell asleep. When she awakened it was five
+o’clock. The fire in the stove was out, but the water was still warm.
+She bathed and dressed, not without care, yet as swiftly as was her
+habit at home; and she wore white because Glenn had always liked her
+best in white. But it was assuredly not a gown to wear in a country
+house where draughts of cold air filled the unheated rooms and halls.
+So she threw round her a warm sweater-shawl, with colorful bars
+becoming to her dark eyes and hair.
+
+All the time that she dressed and thought, her very being seemed to be
+permeated by that soft murmuring sound of falling water. No moment of
+waking life there at Lolomi Lodge, or perhaps of slumber hours, could
+be wholly free of that sound. It vaguely tormented Carley, yet was not
+uncomfortable. She went out upon the porch. The small alcove space held
+a bed and a rustic chair. Above her the peeled poles of the roof
+descended to within a few feet of her head. She had to lean over the
+rail of the porch to look up. The green and red rock wall sheered
+ponderously near. The waterfall showed first at the notch of a fissure,
+where the cliff split; and down over smooth places the water gleamed,
+to narrow in a crack with little drops, and suddenly to leap into a
+thin white sheet.
+
+Out from the porch the view was restricted to glimpses between the
+pines, and beyond to the opposite wall of the canyon. How shut-in, how
+walled in this home!
+
+“In summer it might be good to spend a couple of weeks here,”
+soliloquized Carley. “But to _live_ here? Heavens! A person might as
+well be buried.”
+
+Heavy footsteps upon the porch below accompanied by a man’s voice
+quickened Carley’s pulse. Did they belong to Glenn? After a strained
+second she decided not. Nevertheless, the acceleration of her blood and
+an unwonted glow of excitement, long a stranger to her, persisted as
+she left the porch and entered the boarded hall. How gray and barn-like
+this upper part of the house! From the head of the stairway, however,
+the big living room presented a cheerful contrast. There were warm
+colors, some comfortable rockers, a lamp that shed a bright light, and
+an open fire which alone would have dispelled the raw gloom of the day.
+
+A large man in corduroys and top boots advanced to meet Carley. He had
+a clean-shaven face that might have been hard and stern but for his
+smile, and one look into his eyes revealed their resemblance to Flo’s.
+
+“I’m Tom Hutter, an’ I’m shore glad to welcome you to Lolomi, Miss
+Carley,” he said. His voice was deep and slow. There were ease and
+force in his presence, and the grip he gave Carley’s hand was that of a
+man who made no distinction in hand-shaking. Carley, quick in her
+perceptions, instantly liked him and sensed in him a strong
+personality. She greeted him in turn and expressed her thanks for his
+goodness to Glenn. Naturally Carley expected him to say something about
+her fiance, but he did not.
+
+“Well, Miss Carley, if you don’t mind, I’ll say you’re prettier than
+your picture,” said Hutter. “An’ that is shore sayin’ a lot. All the
+sheep herders in the country have taken a peep at your picture. Without
+permission, you understand.”
+
+“I’m greatly flattered,” laughed Carley.
+
+“We’re glad you’ve come,” replied Hutter, simply. “I just got back from
+the East myself. Chicago an’ Kansas City. I came to Arizona from
+Illinois over thirty years ago. An’ this was my first trip since.
+Reckon I’ve not got back my breath yet. Times have changed, Miss
+Carley. Times an’ people!”
+
+Mrs. Hutter bustled in from the kitchen, where manifestly she had been
+importantly engaged. “For the land’s sakes!” she exclaimed, fervently,
+as she threw up her hands at sight of Carley. Her expression was indeed
+a compliment, but there was a suggestion of shock in it. Then Flo came
+in. She wore a simple gray gown that reached the top of her high shoes.
+
+“Carley, don’t mind mother,” said Flo. “She means your dress is lovely.
+Which is my say, too.... But, listen. I just saw Glenn comin’ up the
+road.”
+
+Carley ran to the open door with more haste than dignity. She saw a
+tall man striding along. Something about him appeared familiar. It was
+his walk—an erect swift carriage, with a swing of the march still
+visible. She recognized Glenn. And all within her seemed to become
+unstable. She watched him cross the road, face the house. How changed!
+No—this was not Glenn Kilbourne. This was a bronzed man, wide of
+shoulder, roughly garbed, heavy limbed, quite different from the Glenn
+she remembered. He mounted the porch steps. And Carley, still unseen
+herself, saw his face. Yes—Glenn! Hot blood seemed to be tingling
+liberated in her veins. Wheeling away, she backed against the wall
+behind the door and held up a warning finger to Flo, who stood nearest.
+Strange and disturbing then, to see something in Flo Hutter’s eyes that
+could be read by a woman in only one way!
+
+A tall form darkened the doorway. It strode in and halted.
+
+“Flo!—who—where?” he began, breathlessly.
+
+His voice, so well remembered, yet deeper, huskier, fell upon Carley’s
+ears as something unconsciously longed for. His frame had so filled out
+that she did not recognize it. His face, too, had unbelievably
+changed—not in the regularity of feature that had been its chief charm,
+but in contour of cheek and vanishing of pallid hue and tragic line.
+Carley’s heart swelled with joy. Beyond all else she had hoped to see
+the sad fixed hopelessness, the havoc, gone from his face. Therefore
+the restraint and nonchalance upon which Carley prided herself
+sustained eclipse.
+
+“Glenn! Look—who’s—here!” she called, in voice she could not have
+steadied to save her life. This meeting was more than she had
+anticipated.
+
+Glenn whirled with an inarticulate cry. He saw Carley. Then—no matter
+how unreasonable or exacting had been Carley’s longings, they were
+satisfied.
+
+“You!” he cried, and leaped at her with radiant face.
+
+Carley not only did not care about the spectators of this meeting, but
+forgot them utterly. More than the joy of seeing Glenn, more than the
+all-satisfying assurance to her woman’s heart that she was still
+beloved, welled up a deep, strange, profound something that shook her
+to her depths. It was beyond selfishness. It was gratitude to God and
+to the West that had restored him.
+
+“Carley! I couldn’t believe it was you,” he declared, releasing her
+from his close embrace, yet still holding her.
+
+“Yes, Glenn—it’s I—all you’ve left of me,” she replied, tremulously,
+and she sought with unsteady hands to put up her dishevelled hair.
+“You—you big sheep herder! You Goliath!”
+
+“I never was so knocked off my pins,” he said. “A lady to see me—from
+New York!... Of course it had to be you. But I couldn’t believe.
+Carley, you were good to come.”
+
+Somehow the soft, warm look of his dark eyes hurt her. New and strange
+indeed it was to her, as were other things about him. Why had she not
+come West sooner? She disengaged herself from his hold and moved away,
+striving for the composure habitual with her. Flo Hutter was standing
+before the fire, looking down. Mrs. Hutter beamed upon Carley.
+
+“Now let’s have supper,” she said.
+
+“Reckon Miss Carley can’t eat now, after that hug Glenn gave her,”
+drawled Tom Hutter. “I was some worried. You see Glenn has gained
+seventy pounds in six months. An’ he doesn’t know his strength.”
+
+“Seventy pounds!” exclaimed Carley, gayly. “I thought it was more.”
+
+“Carley, you must excuse my violence,” said Glenn. “I’ve been hugging
+sheep. That is, when I shear a sheep I have to hold him.”
+
+They all laughed, and so the moment of readjustment passed. Presently
+Carley found herself sitting at table, directly across from Flo. A
+pearly whiteness was slowly warming out of the girl’s face. Her frank
+clear eyes met Carley’s and they had nothing to hide. Carley’s first
+requisite for character in a woman was that she be a thoroughbred. She
+lacked it often enough herself to admire it greatly in another woman.
+And that moment saw a birth of respect and sincere liking in her for
+this Western girl. If Flo Hutter ever was a rival she would be an
+honest one.
+
+Not long after supper Tom Hutter winked at Carley and said he “reckoned
+on general principles it was his hunch to go to bed.” Mrs. Hutter
+suddenly discovered tasks to perform elsewhere. And Flo said in her
+cool sweet drawl, somehow audacious and tantalizing, “Shore you two
+will want to spoon.”
+
+“Now, Flo, Eastern girls are no longer old-fashioned enough for that,”
+declared Glenn.
+
+“Too bad! Reckon I can’t see how love could ever be old-fashioned. Good
+night, Glenn. Good night, Carley.”
+
+Flo stood an instant at the foot of the dark stairway where the light
+from the lamp fell upon her face. It seemed sweet and earnest to
+Carley. It expressed unconscious longing, but no envy. Then she ran up
+the stairs to disappear.
+
+“Glenn, is that girl in love with you?” asked Carley, bluntly.
+
+To her amaze, Glenn laughed. When had she heard him laugh? It thrilled
+her, yet nettled her a little.
+
+“If that isn’t like you!” he ejaculated. “Your very first words after
+we are left alone! It brings back the East, Carley.”
+
+“Probably recall to memory will be good for you,” returned Carley. “But
+tell me. Is she in love with you?”
+
+“Why, no, certainly not!” replied Glenn. “Anyway, how could I answer
+such a question? It just made me laugh, that’s all.”
+
+“Humph! I can remember when you were not above making love to a pretty
+girl. You certainly had me worn to a frazzle—before we became engaged,”
+said Carley.
+
+“Old times! How long ago they seem!... Carley, it’s sure wonderful to
+see you.”
+
+“How do you like my gown?” asked Carley, pirouetting for his benefit.
+
+“Well, what little there is of it is beautiful,” he replied, with a
+slow smile. “I always liked you best in white. Did you remember?”
+
+“Yes. I got the gown for you. And I’ll never wear it except for you.”
+
+“Same old coquette—same old eternal feminine,” he said, half sadly.
+“You know when you look stunning.... But, Carley, the cut of that—or
+rather the abbreviation of it—inclines me to think that style for
+women’s clothes has not changed for the better. In fact, it’s worse
+than two years ago in Paris and later in New York. Where will you women
+draw the line?”
+
+“Women are slaves to the prevailing mode,” rejoined Carley. “I don’t
+imagine women who dress would ever draw a line, if fashion went on
+dictating.”
+
+“But would they care so much—if they had to work—plenty of work—and
+children?” inquired Glenn, wistfully.
+
+“Glenn! Work and children for modern women? Why, you are dreaming!”
+said Carley, with a laugh.
+
+She saw him gaze thoughtfully into the glowing embers of the fire, and
+as she watched him her quick intuition grasped a subtle change in his
+mood. It brought a sternness to his face. She could hardly realize she
+was looking at the Glenn Kilbourne of old.
+
+“Come close to the fire,” he said, and pulled up a chair for her. Then
+he threw more wood upon the red coals. “You must be careful not to
+catch cold out here. The altitude makes a cold dangerous. And that gown
+is no protection.”
+
+“Glenn, one chair used to be enough for us,” she said, archly, standing
+beside him.
+
+But he did not respond to her hint, and, a little affronted, she
+accepted the proffered chair. Then he began to ask questions rapidly.
+He was eager for news from home—from his people—from old friends.
+However he did not inquire of Carley about her friends. She talked
+unremittingly for an hour, before she satisfied his hunger. But when
+her turn came to ask questions she found him reticent.
+
+He had fallen upon rather hard days at first out here in the West; then
+his health had begun to improve; and as soon as he was able to work his
+condition rapidly changed for the better; and now he was getting along
+pretty well. Carley felt hurt at his apparent disinclination to confide
+in her. The strong cast of his face, as if it had been chiseled in
+bronze; the stern set of his lips and the jaw that protruded lean and
+square cut; the quiet masked light of his eyes; the coarse roughness of
+his brown hands, mute evidence of strenuous labors—these all gave a
+different impression from his brief remarks about himself. Lastly there
+was a little gray in the light-brown hair over his temples. Glenn was
+only twenty-seven, yet he looked ten years older. Studying him so, with
+the memory of earlier years in her mind, she was forced to admit that
+she liked him infinitely more as he was now. He seemed proven.
+Something had made him a man. Had it been his love for her, or the army
+service, or the war in France, or the struggle for life and health
+afterwards? Or had it been this rugged, uncouth West? Carley felt
+insidious jealousy of this last possibility. She feared this West. She
+was going to hate it. She had womanly intuition enough to see in Flo
+Hutter a girl somehow to be reckoned with. Still, Carley would not
+acknowledge to herself that his simple, unsophisticated Western girl
+could possibly be a rival. Carley did not need to consider the fact
+that she had been spoiled by the attention of men. It was not her
+vanity that precluded Flo Hutter as a rival.
+
+Gradually the conversation drew to a lapse, and it suited Carley to let
+it be so. She watched Glenn as he gazed thoughtfully into the amber
+depths of the fire. What was going on in his mind? Carley’s old
+perplexity suddenly had rebirth. And with it came an unfamiliar fear
+which she could not smother. Every moment that she sat there beside
+Glenn she was realizing more and more a yearning, passionate love for
+him. The unmistakable manifestation of his joy at sight of her, the
+strong, almost rude expression of his love, had called to some
+responsive, but hitherto unplumbed deeps of her. If it had not been for
+these undeniable facts Carley would have been panic-stricken. They
+reassured her, yet only made her state of mind more dissatisfied.
+
+“Carley, do you still go in for dancing?” Glenn asked, presently, with
+his thoughtful eyes turning to her.
+
+“Of course. I like dancing, and it’s about all the exercise I get,” she
+replied.
+
+“Have the dances changed—again?”
+
+“It’s the music, perhaps, that changes the dancing. Jazz is becoming
+popular. And about all the crowd dances now is an infinite variation of
+fox-trot.”
+
+“No waltzing?”
+
+“I don’t believe I waltzed once this winter.”
+
+“Jazz? That’s a sort of tinpanning, jiggly stuff, isn’t it?”
+
+“Glenn, it’s the fever of the public pulse,” replied Carley. “The
+graceful waltz, like the stately minuet, flourished back in the days
+when people rested rather than raced.”
+
+“More’s the pity,” said Glenn. Then after a moment, in which his gaze
+returned to the fire, he inquired rather too casually, “Does Morrison
+still chase after you?”
+
+“Glenn, I’m neither old—nor married,” she replied, laughing.
+
+“No, that’s true. But if you were married it wouldn’t make any
+difference to Morrison.”
+
+Carley could not detect bitterness or jealousy in his voice. She would
+not have been averse to hearing either. She gathered from his remark,
+however, that he was going to be harder than ever to understand. What
+had she said or done to make him retreat within himself, aloof,
+impersonal, unfamiliar? He did not impress her as loverlike. What irony
+of fate was this that held her there yearning for his kisses and
+caresses as never before, while he watched the fire, and talked as to a
+mere acquaintance, and seemed sad and far away? Or did she merely
+imagine that? Only one thing could she be sure of at that moment, and
+it was that pride would never be her ally.
+
+“Glenn, look here,” she said, sliding her chair close to his and
+holding out her left hand, slim and white, with its glittering diamond
+on the third finger.
+
+He took her hand in his and pressed it, and smiled at her. “Yes,
+Carley, it’s a beautiful, soft little hand. But I think I’d like it
+better if it were strong and brown, and coarse on the inside—from
+useful work.”
+
+“Like Flo Hutter’s?” queried Carley.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Carley looked proudly into his eyes. “People are born in different
+stations. I respect your little Western friend, Glenn, but could I wash
+and sweep, milk cows and chop wood, and all that sort of thing?”
+
+“I suppose you couldn’t,” he admitted, with a blunt little laugh.
+
+“Would you want me to?” she asked.
+
+“Well, that’s hard to say,” he replied, knitting his brows. “I hardly
+know. I think it depends on you.... But if you did do such work
+wouldn’t you be happier?”
+
+“Happier! Why Glenn, I’d be miserable!... But listen. It wasn’t my
+beautiful and useless hand I wanted you to see. It was my engagement
+ring.”
+
+“Oh!—Well?” he went on, slowly.
+
+“I’ve never had it off since you left New York,” she said, softly. “You
+gave it to me four years ago. Do you remember? It was on my
+twenty-second birthday. You said it would take two months’ salary to
+pay the bill.”
+
+“It sure did,” he retorted, with a hint of humor.
+
+“Glenn, during the war it was not so—so very hard to wear this ring as
+an engagement ring should be worn,” said Carley, growing more earnest.
+“But after the war—especially after your departure West it was terribly
+hard to be true to the significance of this betrothal ring. There was a
+let-down in all women. Oh, no one need tell _me!_ There was. And men
+were affected by that and the chaotic condition of the times. New York
+was wild during the year of your absence. Prohibition was a joke.—Well,
+I gadded, danced, dressed, drank, smoked, motored, just the same as the
+other women in our crowd. Something drove me to. I never rested.
+Excitement seemed to be happiness—Glenn, I am not making any plea to
+excuse all that. But I want you to know—how under trying
+circumstances—I was absolutely true to you. Understand me. I mean true
+as regards love. Through it all I loved you just the same. And now I’m
+with you, it seems, oh, so much more!... Your last letter hurt me. I
+don’t know just how. But I came West to see you—to tell you this—and to
+ask you.... Do you want this ring back?”
+
+“Certainly not,” he replied, forcibly, with a dark flush spreading over
+his face.
+
+“Then—you love me?” she whispered.
+
+“Yes—I love you,” he returned, deliberately. “And in spite of all you
+say—very probably more than you love me.... But you, like all women,
+make love and its expression the sole object of life. Carley, I have
+been concerned with keeping my body from the grave and my soul from
+hell.”
+
+“But—dear—you’re well now?” she returned, with trembling lips.
+
+“Yes, I’ve almost pulled out.”
+
+“Then what is wrong?”
+
+“Wrong?—With me or you,” he queried, with keen, enigmatical glance upon
+her.
+
+“What is wrong between us? There is something.”
+
+“Carley, a man who has been on the verge—as I have been—seldom or never
+comes back to happiness. But perhaps—”
+
+“You frighten me,” cried Carley, and, rising, she sat upon the arm of
+his chair and encircled his neck with her arms. “How can I help if I do
+not understand? Am I so miserably little?... Glenn, _must_ I tell you?
+No woman can live without love. I need to be loved. That’s all that’s
+wrong with _me_.”
+
+“Carley, you are still an imperious, mushy girl,” replied Glenn, taking
+her into his arms. “I need to be loved, too. But that’s not what is
+wrong with me. You’ll have to find it out yourself.”
+
+“You’re a dear old Sphinx,” she retorted.
+
+“Listen, Carley,” he said, earnestly. “About this love-making stuff.
+Please don’t misunderstand me. I love you. I’m starved for your kisses.
+But—is it right to ask them?”
+
+“Right! Aren’t we engaged? And don’t I want to give them?”
+
+“If I were only _sure_ we’d be married!” he said, in low, tense voice,
+as if speaking more to himself.
+
+“Married!” cried Carley, convulsively clasping him. “Of course we’ll be
+married. Glenn, you wouldn’t jilt me?”
+
+“Carley, what I mean is that you might never really marry me,” he
+answered, seriously.
+
+“Oh, if that’s all you need be sure of, Glenn Kilbourne, you may begin
+to make love to me now.”
+
+
+It was late when Carley went up to her room. And she was in such a
+softened mood, so happy and excited and yet disturbed in mind, that the
+coldness and the darkness did not matter in the least. She undressed in
+pitchy blackness, stumbling over chair and bed, feeling for what she
+needed. And in her mood this unusual proceeding was fun. When ready for
+bed she opened the door to take a peep out. Through the dense blackness
+the waterfall showed dimly opaque. Carley felt a soft mist wet her
+face. The low roar of the falling water seemed to envelop her. Under
+the cliff wall brooded impenetrable gloom. But out above the treetops
+shone great stars, wonderfully white and radiant and cold, with a
+piercing contrast to the deep clear blue of sky. The waterfall hummed
+into an absolutely dead silence. It emphasized the silence. Not only
+cold was it that made Carley shudder. How lonely, how lost, how hidden
+this canyon!
+
+Then she hurried to bed, grateful for the warm woolly blankets.
+Relaxation and thought brought consciousness of the heat of her blood,
+the beat and throb and swell of her heart, of the tumult within her. In
+the lonely darkness of her room she might have faced the truth of her
+strangely renewed and augmented love for Glenn Kilbourne. But she was
+more concerned with her happiness. She had won him back. Her presence,
+her love had overcome his restraint. She thrilled in the sweet
+consciousness of her woman’s conquest. How splendid he was! To hold
+back physical tenderness, the simple expressions of love, because he
+had feared they might unduly influence her! He had grown in many ways.
+She must be careful to reach up to his ideals. That about Flo Hutter’s
+toil-hardened hands! Was that significance somehow connected with the
+rift in the lute? For Carley admitted to herself that there was
+something amiss, something incomprehensible, something intangible that
+obtruded its menace into her dream of future happiness. Still, what had
+she to fear, so long as she could be with Glenn?
+
+And yet there were forced upon her, insistent and perplexing, the
+questions—was her love selfish? was she considering him? was she blind
+to something he could see? Tomorrow and next day and the days to come
+held promise of joyous companionship with Glenn, yet likewise they
+seemed full of a portent of trouble for her, or fight and ordeal, of
+lessons that would make life significant for her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Carley was awakened by rattling sounds in her room. The raising of
+sleepy eyelids disclosed Flo on her knees before the little stove, in
+the act of lighting a fire.
+
+“Mawnin’, Carley,” she drawled. “It’s shore cold. Reckon it’ll snow
+today, worse luck, just because you’re here. Take my hunch and stay in
+bed till the fire burns up.”
+
+“I shall do no such thing,” declared Carley, heroically.
+
+“We’re afraid you’ll take cold,” said Flo. “This is desert country with
+high altitude. Spring is here when the sun shines. But it’s only
+shinin’ in streaks these days. That means winter, really. Please be
+good.”
+
+“Well, it doesn’t require much self-denial to stay here awhile longer,”
+replied Carley, lazily.
+
+Flo left with a parting admonition not to let the stove get red-hot.
+And Carley lay snuggled in the warm blankets, dreading the ordeal of
+getting out into that cold bare room. Her nose was cold. When her nose
+grew cold, it being a faithful barometer as to temperature, Carley knew
+there was frost in the air. She preferred summer. Steam-heated rooms
+with hothouse flowers lending their perfume had certainly not trained
+Carley for primitive conditions. She had a spirit, however, that was
+waxing a little rebellious to all this intimation as to her
+susceptibility to colds and her probable weakness under privation.
+Carley got up. Her bare feet landed upon the board floor instead of the
+Navajo rug, and she thought she had encountered cold stone. Stove and
+hot water notwithstanding, by the time she was half dressed she was
+also half frozen. “Some actor fellow once said w-when you w-went West
+you were c-camping out,” chattered Carley. “Believe me, he said
+something.”
+
+The fact was Carley had never camped out. Her set played golf, rode
+horseback, motored and house-boated, but they had never gone in for
+uncomfortable trips. The camps and hotels in the Adirondacks were as
+warm and luxurious as Carley’s own home. Carley now missed many things.
+And assuredly her flesh was weak. It cost her effort of will and real
+pain to finish lacing her boots. As she had made an engagement with
+Glenn to visit his cabin, she had donned an outdoor suit. She wondered
+if the cold had anything to do with the perceptible diminishing of the
+sound of the waterfall. Perhaps some of the water had frozen, like her
+fingers.
+
+Carley went downstairs to the living room, and made no effort to resist
+a rush to the open fire. Flo and her mother were amused at Carley’s
+impetuosity. “You’ll like that stingin’ of the air after you get used
+to it,” said Mrs. Hutter. Carley had her doubts. When she was
+thoroughly thawed out she discovered an appetite quite unusual for her,
+and she enjoyed her breakfast. Then it was time to sally forth to meet
+Glenn.
+
+“It’s pretty sharp this mawnin’,” said Flo. “You’ll need gloves and
+sweater.”
+
+Having fortified herself with these, Carley asked how to find West Fork
+Canyon.
+
+“It’s down the road a little way,” replied Flo. “A great narrow canyon
+opening on the right side. You can’t miss it.”
+
+Flo accompanied her as far as the porch steps. A queer-looking
+individual was slouching along with ax over his shoulder.
+
+“There’s Charley,” said Flo. “He’ll show you.” Then she whispered:
+“He’s sort of dotty sometimes. A horse kicked him once. But mostly he’s
+sensible.”
+
+At Flo’s call the fellow halted with a grin. He was long, lean, loose
+jointed, dressed in blue overalls stuck into the tops of muddy boots,
+and his face was clear olive without beard or line. His brow bulged a
+little, and from under it peered out a pair of wistful brown eyes that
+reminded Carley of those of a dog she had once owned.
+
+“Wal, it ain’t a-goin’ to be a nice day,” remarked Charley, as he tried
+to accommodate his strides to Carley’s steps.
+
+“How can you tell?” asked Carley. “It looks clear and bright.”
+
+“Naw, this is a dark mawnin’. Thet’s a cloudy sun. We’ll hev snow on
+an’ off.”
+
+“Do you mind bad weather?”
+
+“Me? All the same to me. Reckon, though, I like it cold so I can loaf
+round a big fire at night.”
+
+“I like a big fire, too.”
+
+“Ever camped out?” he asked.
+
+“Not what you’d call the real thing,” replied Carley.
+
+“Wal, thet’s too bad. Reckon it’ll be tough fer you,” he went on,
+kindly. “There was a gurl tenderfoot heah two years ago an’ she had a
+hell of a time. They all joked her, ’cept me, an’ played tricks on her.
+An’ on her side she was always puttin’ her foot in it. I was shore
+sorry fer her.”
+
+“You were very kind to be an exception,” murmured Carley.
+
+“You look out fer Tom Hutter, an’ I reckon Flo ain’t so darn above
+layin’ traps fer you. ’Specially as she’s sweet on your beau. I seen
+them together a lot.”
+
+“Yes?” interrogated Carley, encouragingly.
+
+“Kilbourne is the best fellar thet ever happened along Oak Creek. I
+helped him build his cabin. We’ve hunted some together. Did you ever
+hunt?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Wal, you’ve shore missed a lot of fun,” he said. “Turkey huntin’.
+Thet’s what fetches the gurls. I reckon because turkeys are so good to
+eat. The old gobblers hev begun to gobble now. I’ll take you gobbler
+huntin’ if you’d like to go.”
+
+“I’m sure I would.”
+
+“There’s good trout fishin’ along heah a little later,” he said,
+pointing to the stream. “Crick’s too high now. I like West Fork best.
+I’ve ketched some lammin’ big ones up there.”
+
+Carley was amused and interested. She could not say that Charley had
+shown any indication of his mental peculiarity to her. It took
+considerable restraint not to lead him to talk more about Flo and
+Glenn. Presently they reached the turn in the road, opposite the
+cottage Carley had noticed yesterday, and here her loquacious escort
+halted.
+
+“You take the trail heah,” he said, pointing it out, “an’ foller it
+into West Fork. So long, an’ don’t forget we’re goin’ huntin’ turkeys.”
+
+Carley smiled her thanks, and, taking to the trail, she stepped out
+briskly, now giving attention to her surroundings. The canyon had
+widened, and the creek with its deep thicket of green and white had
+sheered to the left. On her right the canyon wall appeared to be
+lifting higher—and higher. She could not see it well, owing to
+intervening treetops. The trail led her through a grove of maples and
+sycamores, out into an open park-like bench that turned to the right
+toward the cliff. Suddenly Carley saw a break in the red wall. It was
+the intersecting canyon, West Fork. What a narrow red-walled gateway!
+Huge pine trees spread wide gnarled branches over her head. The wind
+made soft rush in their tops, sending the brown needles lightly on the
+air. Carley turned the bulging corner, to be halted by a magnificent
+spectacle. It seemed a mountain wall loomed over her. It was the
+western side of this canyon, so lofty that Carley had to tip back her
+head to see the top. She swept her astonished gaze down the face of
+this tremendous red mountain wall and then slowly swept it upward
+again. This phenomenon of a cliff seemed beyond the comprehension of
+her sight. It looked a mile high. The few trees along its bold rampart
+resembled short spear-pointed bushes outlined against the steel gray of
+sky. Ledges, caves, seams, cracks, fissures, beetling red brows, yellow
+crumbling crags, benches of green growths and niches choked with brush,
+and bold points where single lonely pine trees grew perilously, and
+blank walls a thousand feet across their shadowed faces—these features
+gradually took shape in Carley’s confused sight, until the colossal
+mountain front stood up before her in all its strange, wild,
+magnificent ruggedness and beauty.
+
+“Arizona! Perhaps this is what he meant,” murmured Carley. “I never
+dreamed of anything like this.... But, oh! it overshadows me—bears me
+down! I could never have a moment’s peace under it.”
+
+It fascinated her. There were inaccessible ledges that haunted her with
+their remote fastnesses. How wonderful would it be to get there, rest
+there, if that were possible! But only eagles could reach them. There
+were places, then, that the desecrating hands of man could not touch.
+The dark caves were mystically potent in their vacant staring out at
+the world beneath them. The crumbling crags, the toppling ledges, the
+leaning rocks all threatened to come thundering down at the breath of
+wind. How deep and soft the red color in contrast with the green! How
+splendid the sheer bold uplift of gigantic steps! Carley found herself
+marveling at the forces that had so rudely, violently, and grandly left
+this monument to nature.
+
+“Well, old Fifth Avenue gadder!” called a gay voice. “If the back wall
+of my yard so halts you—what will you ever do when you see the Painted
+Desert, or climb Sunset Peak, or look down into the Grand Canyon?”
+
+“Oh, Glenn, where are you?” cried Carley, gazing everywhere near at
+hand. But he was farther away. The clearness of his voice had deceived
+her. Presently she espied him a little distance away, across a creek
+she had not before noticed.
+
+“Come on,” he called. “I want to see you cross the stepping stones.”
+
+Carley ran ahead, down a little slope of clean red rock, to the shore
+of the green water. It was clear, swift, deep in some places and
+shallow in others, with white wreathes or ripples around the rocks
+evidently placed there as a means to cross. Carley drew back aghast.
+
+“Glenn, I could never make it,” she called.
+
+“Come on, my Alpine climber,” he taunted. “Will you let Arizona daunt
+you?”
+
+“Do you want me to fall in and catch cold?” she cried, desperately.
+
+“Carley, big women might even cross the bad places of modern life on
+stepping stones of their dead selves!” he went on, with something of
+mockery. “Surely a few physical steps are not beyond you.”
+
+“Say, are you mangling _Tennyson_ or just kidding me?” she demanded
+slangily.
+
+“My love, Flo could cross here with her eyes shut.”
+
+That thrust spurred Carley to action. His words were jest, yet they
+held a hint of earnest. With her heart at her throat Carley stepped on
+the first rock, and, poising, she calculated on a running leap from
+stone to stone. Once launched, she felt she was falling downhill. She
+swayed, she splashed, she slipped; and clearing the longest leap from
+the last stone to shore she lost her balance and fell into Glenn’s
+arms. His kisses drove away both her panic and her resentment.
+
+“By Jove! I didn’t think you’d even attempt it!” he declared,
+manifestly pleased. “I made sure I’d have to pack you over—in fact,
+rather liked the idea.”
+
+“I wouldn’t advise you to employ any such means again—to dare me,” she
+retorted.
+
+“That’s a nifty outdoor suit you’ve on,” he said, admiringly. “I was
+wondering what you’d wear. I like short outing skirts for women, rather
+than trousers. The service sort of made the fair sex dippy about
+pants.”
+
+“It made them dippy about more than that,” she replied. “You and I will
+never live to see the day that women recover their balance.”
+
+“I agree with you,” replied Glenn.
+
+Carley locked her arm in his. “Honey, I want to have a good time today.
+Cut out all the _other_ women stuff.... Take me to see your little gray
+home in the West. Or is it gray?”
+
+He laughed. “Why, yes, it’s gray, just about. The logs have bleached
+some.”
+
+Glenn led her away up a trail that climbed between bowlders, and
+meandered on over piny mats of needles under great, silent, spreading
+pines; and closer to the impondering mountain wall, where at the base
+of the red rock the creek murmured strangely with hollow gurgle, where
+the sun had no chance to affect the cold damp gloom; and on through
+sweet-smelling woods, out into the sunlight again, and across a wider
+breadth of stream; and up a slow slope covered with stately pines, to a
+little cabin that faced the west.
+
+“Here we are, sweetheart,” said Glenn. “Now we shall see what you are
+made of.”
+
+Carley was non-committal as to that. Her intense interest precluded any
+humor at this moment. Not until she actually saw the log cabin Glenn
+had erected with his own hands had she been conscious of any great
+interest. But sight of it awoke something unaccustomed in Carley. As
+she stepped into the cabin her heart was not acting normally for a
+young woman who had no illusions about love in a cottage.
+
+Glenn’s cabin contained one room about fifteen feet wide by twenty
+long. Between the peeled logs were lines of red mud, hard dried. There
+was a small window opposite the door. In one corner was a couch of
+poles, with green tips of pine boughs peeping from under the blankets.
+The floor consisted of flat rocks laid irregularly, with many spaces of
+earth showing between. The open fireplace appeared too large for the
+room, but the very bigness of it, as well as the blazing sticks and
+glowing embers, appealed strongly to Carley. A rough-hewn log formed
+the mantel, and on it Carley’s picture held the place of honor. Above
+this a rifle lay across deer antlers. Carley paused here in her survey
+long enough to kiss Glenn and point to her photograph.
+
+“You couldn’t have pleased me more.”
+
+To the left of the fireplace was a rude cupboard of shelves, packed
+with boxes, cans, bags, and utensils. Below the cupboard, hung upon
+pegs, were blackened pots and pans, a long-handled skillet, and a
+bucket. Glenn’s table was a masterpiece. There was no danger of
+knocking it over. It consisted of four poles driven into the ground,
+upon which had been nailed two wide slabs. This table showed
+considerable evidence of having been scrubbed scrupulously clean. There
+were two low stools, made out of boughs, and the seats had been covered
+with woolly sheep hide. In the right-hand corner stood a neat pile of
+firewood, cut with an ax, and beyond this hung saddle and saddle
+blanket, bridle and spurs. An old sombrero was hooked upon the pommel
+of the saddle. Upon the wall, higher up, hung a lantern, resting in a
+coil of rope that Carley took to be a lasso. Under a shelf upon which
+lay a suitcase hung some rough wearing apparel.
+
+Carley noted that her picture and the suit case were absolutely the
+only physical evidences of Glenn’s connection with his Eastern life.
+That had an unaccountable effect upon Carley. What had she expected?
+Then, after another survey of the room, she began to pester Glenn with
+questions. He had to show her the spring outside and the little bench
+with basin and soap. Sight of his soiled towel made her throw up her
+hands. She sat on the stools. She lay on the couch. She rummaged into
+the contents of the cupboard. She threw wood on the fire. Then,
+finally, having exhausted her search and inquiry, she flopped down on
+one of the stools to gaze at Glenn in awe and admiration and
+incredulity.
+
+“Glenn—you’ve actually lived here!” she ejaculated.
+
+“Since last fall before the snow came,” he said, smiling.
+
+“Snow! Did it snow?” she inquired.
+
+“Well, I guess. I was snowed in for a week.”
+
+“Why did you choose this lonely place—way off from the Lodge?” she
+asked, slowly.
+
+“I wanted to be by myself,” he replied, briefly.
+
+“You mean this is a sort of camp-out place?”
+
+“Carley, I call it my home,” he replied, and there was a low, strong
+sweetness in his voice she had never heard before.
+
+That silenced her for a while. She went to the door and gazed up at the
+towering wall, more wonderful than ever, and more fearful, too, in her
+sight. Presently tears dimmed her eyes. She did not understand her
+feeling; she was ashamed of it; she hid it from Glenn. Indeed, there
+was something terribly wrong between her and Glenn, and it was not in
+him. This cabin he called home gave her a shock which would take time
+to analyze. At length she turned to him with gay utterance upon her
+lips. She tried to put out of her mind a dawning sense that this
+close-to-the-earth habitation, this primitive dwelling, held strange
+inscrutable power over a self she had never divined she possessed. The
+very stones in the hearth seemed to call out from some remote past, and
+the strong sweet smell of burnt wood thrilled to the marrow of her
+bones. How little she knew of herself! But she had intelligence enough
+to understand that there was a woman in her, the female of the species;
+and through that the sensations from logs and stones and earth and fire
+had strange power to call up the emotions handed down to her from the
+ages. The thrill, the queer heartbeat, the vague, haunting memory of
+something, as of a dim childhood adventure, the strange prickling sense
+of dread—these abided with her and augmented while she tried to show
+Glenn her pride in him and also how funny his cabin seemed to her.
+
+Once or twice he hesitatingly, and somewhat appealingly, she imagined,
+tried to broach the subject of his work there in the West. But Carley
+wanted a little while with him free of disagreeable argument. It was a
+foregone conclusion that she would not like his work. Her intention at
+first had been to begin at once to use all persuasion in her power
+toward having him go back East with her, or at the latest some time
+this year. But the rude log cabin had checked her impulse. She felt
+that haste would be unwise.
+
+“Glenn Kilbourne, I told you why I came West to see you,” she said,
+spiritedly. “Well, since you still swear allegiance to your girl from
+the East, you might entertain her a little bit before getting down to
+business talk.”
+
+“All right, Carley,” he replied, laughing. “What do you want to do? The
+day is at your disposal. I wish it were June. Then if you didn’t fall
+in love with West Fork you’d be no good.”
+
+“Glenn, I love people, not places,” she returned.
+
+“So I remember. And that’s one thing I don’t like. But let’s not
+quarrel. What’ll we do?”
+
+“Suppose you tramp with me all around, until I’m good and hungry. Then
+we’ll come back here—and you can cook dinner for me.”
+
+“Fine! Oh, I know you’re just bursting with curiosity to see how I’ll
+do it. Well, you may be surprised, miss.”
+
+“Let’s go,” she urged.
+
+“Shall I take my gun or fishing rod?”
+
+“You shall take nothing but _me_,” retorted Carley. “What chance has a
+girl with a man, if he can hunt or fish?”
+
+So they went out hand in hand. Half of the belt of sky above was
+obscured by swiftly moving gray clouds. The other half was blue and was
+being slowly encroached upon by the dark storm-like pall. How cold the
+air! Carley had already learned that when the sun was hidden the
+atmosphere was cold. Glenn led her down a trail to the brook, where he
+calmly picked her up in his arms, quite easily, it appeared, and
+leisurely packed her across, kissing her half a dozen times before he
+deposited her on her feet.
+
+“Glenn, you do this sort of thing so well that it makes me imagine you
+have practice now and then,” she said.
+
+“No. But you are pretty and sweet, and like the girl you were four
+years ago. That takes me back to those days.”
+
+“I thank you. That’s dear of you. I think I am something of a cat....
+I’ll be glad if this walk leads us often to the creek.”
+
+Spring might have been fresh and keen in the air, but it had not yet
+brought much green to the brown earth or to the trees. The cotton-woods
+showed a light feathery verdure. The long grass was a bleached white,
+and low down close to the sod fresh tiny green blades showed. The great
+fern leaves were sear and ragged, and they rustled in the breeze. Small
+gray sheath-barked trees with clumpy foliage and snags of dead
+branches, Glenn called cedars; and, grotesque as these were, Carley
+rather liked them. They were approachable, not majestic and lofty like
+the pines, and they smelled sweetly wild, and best of all they afforded
+some protection from the bitter wind. Carley rested better than she
+walked. The huge sections of red rock that had tumbled from above also
+interested Carley, especially when the sun happened to come out for a
+few moments and brought out their color. She enjoyed walking on the
+fallen pines, with Glenn below, keeping pace with her and holding her
+hand. Carley looked in vain for flowers and birds. The only living
+things she saw were rainbow trout that Glenn pointed out to her in the
+beautiful clear pools. The way the great gray bowlders trooped down to
+the brook as if they were cattle going to drink; the dark caverns under
+the shelving cliffs, where the water murmured with such hollow mockery;
+the low spear-pointed gray plants, resembling century plants, and which
+Glenn called mescal cactus, each with its single straight dead stalk
+standing on high with fluted head; the narrow gorges, perpendicularly
+walled in red, where the constricted brook plunged in amber and white
+cascades over fall after fall, tumbling, rushing, singing its water
+melody—these all held singular appeal for Carley as aspects of the wild
+land, fascinating for the moment, symbolic of the lonely red man and
+his forbears, and by their raw contrast making more necessary and
+desirable and elevating the comforts and conventions of civilization.
+The cave man theory interested Carley only as mythology.
+
+Lonelier, wilder, grander grew Glenn’s canyon. Carley was finally
+forced to shift her attention from the intimate objects of the canyon
+floor to the aloof and unattainable heights. Singular to feel the
+difference! That which she could see close at hand, touch if she
+willed, seemed to, become part of her knowledge, could be observed and
+so possessed and passed by. But the gold-red ramparts against the sky,
+the crannied cliffs, the crags of the eagles, the lofty, distant blank
+walls, where the winds of the gods had written their wars—these haunted
+because they could never be possessed. Carley had often gazed at the
+Alps as at celebrated pictures. She admired, she appreciated—then she
+forgot. But the canyon heights did not affect her that way. They
+vaguely dissatisfied, and as she could not be sure of what they
+dissatisfied, she had to conclude that it was in herself. To see, to
+watch, to dream, to seek, to strive, to endure, to find! Was that what
+they meant? They might make her thoughtful of the vast earth, and its
+endless age, and its staggering mystery. But what more!
+
+The storm that had threatened blackened the sky, and gray scudding
+clouds buried the canyon rims, and long veils of rain and sleet began
+to descend. The wind roared through the pines, drowning the roar of the
+brook. Quite suddenly the air grew piercingly cold. Carley had
+forgotten her gloves, and her pockets had not been constructed to
+protect hands. Glenn drew her into a sheltered nook where a rock jutted
+out from overhead and a thicket of young pines helped break the
+onslaught of the wind. There Carley sat on a cold rock, huddled up
+close to Glenn, and wearing to a state she knew would be misery. Glenn
+not only seemed content; he was happy. “This is great,” he said. His
+coat was open, his hands uncovered, and he watched the storm and
+listened with manifest delight. Carley hated to betray what a weakling
+she was, so she resigned herself to her fate, and imagined she felt her
+fingers numbing into ice, and her sensitive nose slowly and painfully
+freezing.
+
+The storm passed, however, before Carley sank into abject and open
+wretchedness. She managed to keep pace with Glenn until exercise warmed
+her blood. At every little ascent in the trail she found herself
+laboring to get her breath. There was assuredly evidence of abundance
+of air in this canyon, but somehow she could not get enough of it.
+Glenn detected this and said it was owing to the altitude. When they
+reached the cabin Carley was wet, stiff, cold, exhausted. How welcome
+the shelter, the open fireplace! Seeing the cabin in new light, Carley
+had the grace to acknowledge to herself that, after all, it was not so
+bad.
+
+“Now for a good fire and then dinner,” announced Glenn, with the air of
+one who knew his ground.
+
+“Can I help?” queried Carley.
+
+“Not today. I do not want you to spring any domestic science on me
+now.” Carley was not averse to withholding her ignorance. She watched
+Glenn with surpassing curiosity and interest. First he threw a quantity
+of wood upon the smoldering fire.
+
+“I have ham and mutton of my own raising,” announced Glenn, with
+importance. “Which would you prefer?”
+
+“Of your own raising. What do you mean?” queried Carley.
+
+“My dear, you’ve been so steeped in the fog of the crowd that you are
+blind to the homely and necessary things of living. I mean I have here
+meat of both sheep and hog that I raised myself. That is to say, mutton
+and ham. Which do you like?”
+
+“Ham!” cried Carley, incredulously.
+
+Without more ado Glenn settled to brisk action, every move of which
+Carley watched with keen eyes. The usurping of a woman’s province by a
+man was always an amusing thing. But for Glenn Kilbourne—what more
+would it be? He evidently knew what he wanted, for every movement was
+quick, decisive. One after another he placed bags, cans, sacks, pans,
+utensils on the table. Then he kicked at the roaring fire, settling
+some of the sticks. He strode outside to return with a bucket of water,
+a basin, towel, and soap. Then he took down two queer little iron pots
+with heavy lids. To each pot was attached a wire handle. He removed the
+lids, then set both the pots right on the fire or in it. Pouring water
+into the basin, he proceeded to wash his hands. Next he took a large
+pail, and from a sack he filled it half full of flour. To this he added
+baking powder and salt. It was instructive for Carley to see him run
+his skillful fingers all through that flour, as if searching for lumps.
+After this he knelt before the fire and, lifting off one of the iron
+pots with a forked stick, he proceeded to wipe out the inside of the
+pot and grease it with a piece of fat. His next move was to rake out a
+pile of the red coals, a feat he performed with the stick, and upon
+these he placed the pot. Also he removed the other pot from the fire,
+leaving it, however, quite close.
+
+“Well, all eyes?” he bantered, suddenly staring at her. “Didn’t I say
+I’d surprise you?”
+
+“Don’t mind me. This is about the happiest and most bewildered
+moment—of my life,” replied Carley.
+
+Returning to the table, Glenn dug at something in a large red can. He
+paused a moment to eye Carley.
+
+“Girl, do you know how to make biscuits?” he queried.
+
+“I might have known in my school days, but I’ve forgotten,” she
+replied.
+
+“Can you make apple pie?” he demanded, imperiously.
+
+“No,” rejoined Carley.
+
+“How do you expect to please your husband?”
+
+“Why—by marrying him, I suppose,” answered Carley, as if weighing a
+problem.
+
+“That has been the universal feminine point of view for a good many
+years,” replied Glenn, flourishing a flour-whitened hand. “But it never
+served the women of the Revolution or the pioneers. And they were the
+builders of the nation. It will never serve the wives of the future, if
+we are to survive.”
+
+“Glenn, you rave!” ejaculated Carley, not knowing whether to laugh or
+be grave. “You were talking of humble housewifely things.”
+
+“Precisely. The humble things that were the foundation of the great
+nation of Americans. I meant work and children.”
+
+Carley could only stare at him. The look he flashed at her, the sudden
+intensity and passion of his ringing words, were as if he gave her a
+glimpse into the very depths of him. He might have begun in fun, but he
+had finished otherwise. She felt that she really did not know this man.
+Had he arraigned her in judgment? A flush, seemingly hot and cold,
+passed over her. Then it relieved her to see that he had returned to
+his task.
+
+He mixed the shortening with the flour, and, adding water, he began a
+thorough kneading. When the consistency of the mixture appeared to
+satisfy him he took a handful of it, rolled it into a ball, patted and
+flattened it into a biscuit, and dropped it into the oven he had set
+aside on the hot coals. Swiftly he shaped eight or ten other biscuits
+and dropped them as the first. Then he put the heavy iron lid on the
+pot, and with a rude shovel, improvised from a flattened tin can, he
+shoveled red coals out of the fire, and covered the lid with them. His
+next move was to pare and slice potatoes, placing these aside in a pan.
+A small black coffee-pot half full of water, was set on a glowing part
+of the fire. Then he brought into use a huge, heavy knife, a
+murderous-looking implement it appeared to Carley, with which he cut
+slices of ham. These he dropped into the second pot, which he left
+uncovered. Next he removed the flour sack and other inpedimenta from
+the table, and proceeded to set places for two—blue-enamel plate and
+cup, with plain, substantial-looking knives, forks, and spoons. He went
+outside, to return presently carrying a small crock of butter.
+Evidently he had kept the butter in or near the spring. It looked dewy
+and cold and hard. After that he peeped under the lid of the pot which
+contained the biscuits. The other pot was sizzling and smoking, giving
+forth a delicious savory odor that affected Carley most agreeably. The
+coffee-pot had begun to steam. With a long fork Glenn turned the slices
+of ham and stood a moment watching them. Next he placed cans of three
+sizes upon the table; and these Carley conjectured contained sugar,
+salt, and pepper. Carley might not have been present, for all the
+attention he paid to her. Again he peeped at the biscuits. At the edge
+of the hot embers he placed a tin plate, upon which he carefully
+deposited the slices of ham. Carley had not needed sight of them to
+know she was hungry; they made her simply ravenous. That done, he
+poured the pan of sliced potatoes into the pot. Carley judged the heat
+of that pot to be extreme. Next he removed the lid from the other pot,
+exposing biscuits slightly browned; and evidently satisfied with these,
+he removed them from the coals. He stirred the slices of potatoes round
+and round; he emptied two heaping tablespoonfuls of coffee into the
+coffee-pot.
+
+“Carley,” he said, at last turning to her with a warm smile, “out here
+in the West the cook usually yells, ‘Come and get it.’ Draw up your
+stool.”
+
+And presently Carley found herself seated across the crude table from
+Glenn, with the background of chinked logs in her sight, and the smart
+of wood smoke in her eyes. In years past she had sat with him in the
+soft, subdued, gold-green shadows of the Astor, or in the sumptuous
+atmosphere of the St. Regis. But this event was so different, so
+striking, that she felt it would have limitless significance. For one
+thing, the look of Glenn! When had he ever seemed like this,
+wonderfully happy to have her there, consciously proud of this dinner
+he had prepared in half an hour, strangely studying her as one on
+trial? This might have had its effect upon Carley’s reaction to the
+situation, making it sweet, trenchant with meaning, but she was hungry
+enough and the dinner was good enough to make this hour memorable on
+that score alone. She ate until she was actually ashamed of herself.
+She laughed heartily, she talked, she made love to Glenn. Then suddenly
+an idea flashed into her quick mind.
+
+“Glenn, did this girl Flo teach you to cook?” she queried, sharply.
+
+“No. I always was handy in camp. Then out here I had the luck to fall
+in with an old fellow who was a wonderful cook. He lived with me for a
+while. ... Why, what difference would it have made—had Flo taught me?”
+
+Carley felt the heat of blood in her face. “I don’t know that it would
+have made a difference. Only—I’m glad she didn’t teach you. I’d rather
+no girl could teach you what I couldn’t.”
+
+“You think I’m a pretty good cook, then?” he asked.
+
+“I’ve enjoyed this dinner more than any I’ve ever eaten.”
+
+“Thanks, Carley. That’ll help a lot,” he said, gayly, but his eyes
+shone with earnest, glad light. “I hoped I’d surprise you. I’ve found
+out here that I want to do things well. The West stirs something in a
+man. It must be an unwritten law. You stand or fall by your own hands.
+Back East you know meals are just occasions—to hurry through—to dress
+for—to meet somebody—to eat because you have to eat. But out here they
+are different. I don’t know how. In the city, producers, merchants,
+waiters serve you for money. The meal is a transaction. It has no
+significance. It is money that keeps you from starvation. But in the
+West money doesn’t mean much. You must work to live.”
+
+Carley leaned her elbows on the table and gazed at him curiously and
+admiringly. “Old fellow, you’re a wonder. I can’t tell you how proud I
+am of you. That you could come West weak and sick, and fight your way
+to health, and learn to be self-sufficient! It is a splendid
+achievement. It amazes me. I don’t grasp it. I want to think.
+Nevertheless I—”
+
+“What?” he queried, as she hesitated.
+
+“Oh, never mind now,” she replied, hastily, averting her eyes.
+
+
+The day was far spent when Carley returned to the Lodge—and in spite of
+the discomfort of cold and sleet, and the bitter wind that beat in her
+face as she struggled up the trail—it was a day never to be forgotten.
+Nothing had been wanting in Glenn’s attention or affection. He had been
+comrade, lover, all she craved for. And but for his few singular words
+about work and children there had been no serious talk. Only a play day
+in his canyon and his cabin! Yet had she appeared at her best?
+Something vague and perplexing knocked at the gate of her
+consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Two warm sunny days in early May inclined Mr. Hutter to the opinion
+that pleasant spring weather was at hand and that it would be a
+propitious time to climb up on the desert to look after his sheep
+interests. Glenn, of course, would accompany him.
+
+“Carley and I will go too,” asserted Flo.
+
+“Reckon that’ll be good,” said Hutter, with approving nod.
+
+His wife also agreed that it would be fine for Carley to see the
+beautiful desert country round Sunset Peak. But Glenn looked dubious.
+
+“Carley, it’ll be rather hard,” he said. “You’re soft, and riding and
+lying out will stove you up. You ought to break in gradually.”
+
+“I rode ten miles today,” rejoined Carley. “And didn’t mind it—much.”
+This was a little deviation from stern veracity.
+
+“Shore Carley’s well and strong,” protested Flo. “She’ll get sore, but
+that won’t kill her.”
+
+Glenn eyed Flo with rather penetrating glance. “I might drive Carley
+round about in the car,” he said.
+
+“But you can’t drive over those lava flats, or go round, either. We’d
+have to send horses in some cases miles to meet you. It’s horseback if
+you go at all.”
+
+“Shore we’ll go horseback,” spoke up Flo. “Carley has got it all over
+that Spencer girl who was here last summer.”
+
+“I think so, too. I am sure I hope so. Because you remember what the
+ride to Long Valley did to Miss Spencer,” rejoined Glenn.
+
+“What?” inquired Carley.
+
+“Bad cold, peeled nose, skinned shin, saddle sores. She was in bed two
+days. She didn’t show much pep the rest of her stay here, and she never
+got on another horse.”
+
+“Oh, is that all, Glenn?” returned Carley, in feigned surprise. “Why, I
+imagined from your tone that Miss Spencer’s ride must have occasioned
+her discomfort.... See here, Glenn. I may be a tenderfoot, but I’m no
+mollycoddle.”
+
+“My dear, I surrender,” replied Glenn, with a laugh. “Really, I’m
+delighted. But if anything happens—don’t you blame me. I’m quite sure
+that a long horseback ride, in spring, on the desert, will show you a
+good many things about yourself.”
+
+That was how Carley came to find herself, the afternoon of the next
+day, astride a self-willed and unmanageable little mustang, riding in
+the rear of her friends, on the way through a cedar forest toward a
+place called Deep Lake.
+
+Carley had not been able yet, during the several hours of their
+journey, to take any pleasure in the scenery or in her mount. For in
+the first place there was nothing to see but scrubby little gnarled
+cedars and drab-looking rocks; and in the second this Indian pony she
+rode had discovered she was not an adept horsewoman and had proceeded
+to take advantage of the fact. It did not help Carley’s predicament to
+remember that Glenn had decidedly advised her against riding this
+particular mustang. To be sure, Flo had approved of Carley’s choice,
+and Mr. Hutter, with a hearty laugh, had fallen in line: “Shore. Let
+her ride one of the broncs, if she wants.” So this animal she bestrode
+must have been a bronc, for it did not take him long to elicit from
+Carley a muttered, “I don’t know what bronc means, but it sounds like
+this pony acts.”
+
+Carley had inquired the animal’s name from the young herder who had
+saddled him for her.
+
+“Wal, I reckon he ain’t got much of a name,” replied the lad, with a
+grin, as he scratched his head. “For us boys always called him
+Spillbeans.”
+
+“Humph! What a beautiful cognomen!” ejaculated Carley, “But according
+to Shakespeare any name will serve. I’ll ride him or—or—”
+
+So far there had not really been any necessity for the completion of
+that sentence. But five miles of riding up into the cedar forest had
+convinced Carley that she might not have much farther to go. Spillbeans
+had ambled along well enough until he reached level ground where a long
+bleached grass waved in the wind. Here he manifested hunger, then a
+contrary nature, next insubordination, and finally direct hostility.
+Carley had urged, pulled, and commanded in vain. Then when she gave
+Spillbeans a kick in the flank he jumped stiff legged, propelling her
+up out of the saddle, and while she was descending he made the queer
+jump again, coming up to meet her. The jolt she got seemed to dislocate
+every bone in her body. Likewise it hurt. Moreover, along with her idea
+of what a spectacle she must have presented, it quickly decided Carley
+that Spillbeans was a horse that was not to be opposed. Whenever he
+wanted a mouthful of grass he stopped to get it. Therefore Carley was
+always in the rear, a fact which in itself did not displease her.
+Despite his contrariness, however, Spillbeans had apparently no
+intention of allowing the other horses to get completely out of sight.
+
+Several times Flo waited for Carley to catch up. “He’s loafing on you,
+Carley. You ought to have on a spur. Break off a switch and beat him
+some.” Then she whipped the mustang across the flank with her bridle
+rein, which punishment caused Spillbeans meekly to trot on with
+alacrity. Carley had a positive belief that he would not do it for her.
+And after Flo’s repeated efforts, assisted by chastisement from Glenn,
+had kept Spillbeans in a trot for a couple of miles Carley began to
+discover that the trotting of a horse was the most uncomfortable motion
+possible to imagine. It grew worse. It became painful. It gradually got
+unendurable. But pride made Carley endure it until suddenly she thought
+she had been stabbed in the side. This strange piercing pain must be
+what Glenn had called a “stitch” in the side, something common to
+novices on horseback. Carley could have screamed. She pulled the
+mustang to a walk and sagged in her saddle until the pain subsided.
+What a blessed relief! Carley had keen sense of the difference between
+riding in Central Park and in Arizona. She regretted her choice of
+horses. Spillbeans was attractive to look at, but the pleasure of
+riding him was a delusion. Flo had said his gait resembled the motion
+of a rocking chair. This Western girl, according to Charley, the sheep
+herder, was not above playing Arizona jokes. Be that as it might,
+Spillbeans now manifested a desire to remain with the other horses, and
+he broke out of a walk into a trot. Carley could not keep him from
+trotting. Hence her state soon wore into acute distress.
+
+Her left ankle seemed broken. The stirrup was heavy, and as soon as she
+was tired she could no longer keep its weight from drawing her foot in.
+The inside of her right knee was as sore as a boil. Besides, she had
+other pains, just as severe, and she stood momentarily in mortal dread
+of that terrible stitch in her side. If it returned she knew she would
+fall off. But, fortunately, just when she was growing weak and dizzy,
+the horses ahead slowed to a walk on a descent. The road wound down
+into a wide deep canyon. Carley had a respite from her severest pains.
+Never before had she known what it meant to be so grateful for relief
+from anything.
+
+The afternoon grew far advanced and the sunset was hazily shrouded in
+gray. Hutter did not like the looks of those clouds. “Reckon we’re in
+for weather,” he said. Carley did not care what happened. Weather or
+anything else that might make it possible to get off her horse! Glenn
+rode beside her, inquiring solicitously as to her pleasure. “Ride of my
+life!” she lied heroically. And it helped some to see that she both
+fooled and pleased him.
+
+Beyond the canyon the cedared desert heaved higher and changed its
+aspect. The trees grew larger, bushier, greener, and closer together,
+with patches of bleached grass between, and russet-lichened rocks
+everywhere. Small cactus plants bristled sparsely in open places; and
+here and there bright red flowers—Indian paintbrush, Flo called
+them—added a touch of color to the gray. Glenn pointed to where dark
+banks of cloud had massed around the mountain peaks. The scene to the
+west was somber and compelling.
+
+At last the men and the pack-horses ahead came to a halt in a level
+green forestland with no high trees. Far ahead a chain of soft gray
+round hills led up to the dark heaved mass of mountains. Carley saw the
+gleam of water through the trees. Probably her mustang saw or scented
+it, because he started to trot. Carley had reached a limit of strength,
+endurance, and patience. She hauled him up short. When Spillbeans
+evinced a stubborn intention to go on Carley gave him a kick. Then it
+happened.
+
+She felt the reins jerked out of her hands and the saddle propel her
+upward. When she descended it was to meet that before-experienced jolt.
+
+“Look!” cried Flo. “That bronc is going to pitch.”
+
+“Hold on, Carley!” yelled Glenn.
+
+Desperately Carley essayed to do just that. But Spillbeans jolted her
+out of the saddle. She came down on his rump and began to slide back
+and down. Frightened and furious, Carley tried to hang to the saddle
+with her hands and to squeeze the mustang with her knees. But another
+jolt broke her hold, and then, helpless and bewildered, with her heart
+in her throat and a terrible sensation of weakness, she slid back at
+each upheave of the muscular rump until she slid off and to the ground
+in a heap. Whereupon Spillbeans trotted off toward the water.
+
+Carley sat up before Glenn and Flo reached her. Manifestly they were
+concerned about her, but both were ready to burst with laughter. Carley
+knew she was not hurt and she was so glad to be off the mustang that,
+on the moment, she could almost have laughed herself.
+
+“That beast is well named,” she said. “He spilled me, all right. And I
+presume I resembled a sack of beans.”
+
+“Carley—you’re—not hurt?” asked Glenn, choking, as he helped her up.
+
+“Not physically. But my feelings are.”
+
+Then Glenn let out a hearty howl of mirth, which was seconded by a loud
+guffaw from Hutter. Flo, however, appeared to be able to restrain
+whatever she felt. To Carley she looked queer.
+
+“Pitch! You called it that,” said Carley.
+
+“Oh, he didn’t really pitch. He just humped up a few times,” replied
+Flo, and then when she saw how Carley was going to take it she burst
+into a merry peal of laughter. Charley, the sheep herder was grinning,
+and some of the other men turned away with shaking shoulders.
+
+“Laugh, you wild and woolly Westerners!” ejaculated Carley. “It must
+have been funny. I hope I can be a good sport.... But I bet you I ride
+him tomorrow.”
+
+“Shore you will,” replied Flo.
+
+Evidently the little incident drew the party closer together. Carley
+felt a warmth of good nature that overcame her first feeling of
+humiliation. They expected such things from her, and she should expect
+them, too, and take them, if not fearlessly or painlessly, at least
+without resentment.
+
+Carley walked about to ease her swollen and sore joints, and while
+doing so she took stock of the camp ground and what was going on. At
+second glance the place had a certain attraction difficult for her to
+define. She could see far, and the view north toward those strange
+gray-colored symmetrical hills was one that fascinated while it
+repelled her. Near at hand the ground sloped down to a large rock-bound
+lake, perhaps a mile in circumference. In the distance, along the shore
+she saw a white conical tent, and blue smoke, and moving gray objects
+she took for sheep.
+
+The men unpacked and unsaddled the horses, and, hobbling their forefeet
+together, turned them loose. Twilight had fallen and each man appeared
+to be briskly set upon his own task. Glenn was cutting around the foot
+of a thickly branched cedar where, he told Carley, he would make a bed
+for her and Flo. All that Carley could see that could be used for such
+purpose was a canvas-covered roll. Presently Glenn untied a rope from
+round this, unrolled it, and dragged it under the cedar. Then he spread
+down the outer layer of canvas, disclosing a considerable thickness of
+blankets. From under the top of these he pulled out two flat little
+pillows. These he placed in position, and turned back some of the
+blankets.
+
+“Carley, you crawl in here, pile the blankets up, and the tarp over
+them,” directed Glenn. “If it rains pull the tarp up over your head—and
+let it rain.”
+
+This direction sounded in Glenn’s cheery voice a good deal more
+pleasurable than the possibilities suggested. Surely that cedar tree
+could not keep off rain or snow.
+
+“Glenn, how about—about animals—and crawling things, you know?” queried
+Carley.
+
+“Oh, there are a few tarantulas and centipedes, and sometimes a
+scorpion. But these don’t crawl around much at night. The only thing to
+worry about are the hydrophobia skunks.”
+
+“What on earth are they?” asked Carley, quite aghast.
+
+“Skunks are polecats, you know,” replied Glenn, cheerfully. “Sometimes
+one gets bitten by a coyote that has rabies, and then he’s a dangerous
+customer. He has no fear and he may run across you and bite you in the
+face. Queer how they generally bite your nose. Two men have been bitten
+since I’ve been here. One of them died, and the other had to go to the
+Pasteur Institute with a well-developed case of hydrophobia.”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Carley, horrified.
+
+“You needn’t be afraid,” said Glenn. “I’ll tie one of the dogs near
+your bed.”
+
+Carley wondered whether Glenn’s casual, easy tone had been adopted for
+her benefit or was merely an assimilation from this Western life. Not
+improbably Glenn himself might be capable of playing a trick on her.
+Carley endeavored to fortify herself against disaster, so that when it
+befell she might not be wholly ludicrous.
+
+With the coming of twilight a cold, keen wind moaned through the
+cedars. Carley would have hovered close to the fire even if she had not
+been too tired to exert herself. Despite her aches, she did justice to
+the supper. It amazed her that appetite consumed her to the extent of
+overcoming a distaste for this strong, coarse cooking. Before the meal
+ended darkness had fallen, a windy raw darkness that enveloped heavily
+like a blanket. Presently Carley edged closer to the fire, and there
+she stayed, alternately turning back and front to the welcome heat. She
+seemingly roasted hands, face, and knees while her back froze. The wind
+blew the smoke in all directions. When she groped around with blurred,
+smarting eyes to escape the hot smoke, it followed her. The other
+members of the party sat comfortably on sacks or rocks, without much
+notice of the smoke that so exasperated Carley. Twice Glenn insisted
+that she take a seat he had fixed for her, but she preferred to stand
+and move around a little.
+
+By and by the camp tasks of the men appeared to be ended, and all
+gathered near the fire to lounge and smoke and talk. Glenn and Hutter
+engaged in interested conversation with two Mexicans, evidently sheep
+herders. If the wind and cold had not made Carley so uncomfortable she
+might have found the scene picturesque. How black the night! She could
+scarcely distinguish the sky at all. The cedar branches swished in the
+wind, and from the gloom came a low sound of waves lapping a rocky
+shore. Presently Glenn held up a hand.
+
+“Listen, Carley!” he said.
+
+Then she heard strange wild yelps, staccato, piercing, somehow
+infinitely lonely. They made her shudder.
+
+“Coyotes,” said Glenn. “You’ll come to love that chorus. Hear the dogs
+bark back.”
+
+Carley listened with interest, but she was inclined to doubt that she
+would ever become enamoured of such wild cries.
+
+“Do coyotes come near camp?” she queried.
+
+“Shore. Sometimes they pull your pillow out from under your head,”
+replied Flo, laconically.
+
+Carley did not ask any more questions. Natural history was not her
+favorite study and she was sure she could dispense with any first-hand
+knowledge of desert beasts. She thought, however, she heard one of the
+men say, “Big varmint prowlin’ round the sheep.” To which Hutter
+replied, “Reckon it was a bear.” And Glenn said, “I saw his fresh track
+by the lake. Some bear!”
+
+The heat from the fire made Carley so drowsy that she could scarcely
+hold up her head. She longed for bed even if it was out there in the
+open. Presently Flo called her: “Come. Let’s walk a little before
+turning in.”
+
+So Carley permitted herself to be led to and fro down an open aisle
+between some cedars. The far end of that aisle, dark, gloomy, with the
+bushy secretive cedars all around, caused Carley apprehension she was
+ashamed to admit. Flo talked eloquently about the joys of camp life,
+and how the harder any outdoor task was and the more endurance and pain
+it required, the more pride and pleasure one had in remembering it.
+Carley was weighing the import of these words when suddenly Flo
+clutched her arm. “What’s that?” she whispered, tensely.
+
+Carley stood stockstill. They had reached the furthermost end of that
+aisle, but had turned to go back. The flare of the camp fire threw a
+wan light into the shadows before them. There came a rustling in the
+brush, a snapping of twigs. Cold tremors chased up and down Carley’s
+back.
+
+“Shore it’s a varmint, all right. Let’s hurry,” whispered Flo.
+
+Carley needed no urging. It appeared that Flo was not going to run. She
+walked fast, peering back over her shoulder, and, hanging to Carley’s
+arm, she rounded a large cedar that had obstructed some of the
+firelight. The gloom was not so thick here. And on the instant Carley
+espied a low, moving object, somehow furry, and gray in color. She
+gasped. She could not speak. Her heart gave a mighty throb and seemed
+to stop.
+
+“What—do you see?” cried Flo, sharply, peering ahead. “Oh!... Come,
+Carley. _Run!_”
+
+Flo’s cry showed she must nearly be strangled with terror. But Carley
+was frozen in her tracks. Her eyes were riveted upon the gray furry
+object. It stopped. Then it came faster. It magnified. It was a huge
+beast. Carley had no control over mind, heart, voice, or muscle. Her
+legs gave way. She was sinking. A terrible panic, icy, sickening,
+rending, possessed her whole body.
+
+The huge gray thing came at her. Into the rushing of her ears broke
+thudding sounds. The thing leaped up. A horrible petrifaction suddenly
+made stone of Carley. Then she saw a gray mantlelike object cast aside
+to disclose the dark form of a man. Glenn!
+
+“Carley, dog-gone it! You don’t scare worth a cent,” he laughingly
+complained.
+
+She collapsed into his arms. The liberating shock was as great as had
+been her terror. She began to tremble violently. Her hands got back a
+sense of strength to clutch. Heart and blood seemed released from that
+ice-banded vise.
+
+“Say, I believe you were scared,” went on Glenn, bending over her.
+
+“Scar-ed!” she gasped. “Oh—there’s no word—to tell—what I was!”
+
+Flo came running back, giggling with joy. “Glenn, she shore took you
+for a bear. Why, I felt her go stiff as a post!... Ha! Ha! Ha! Carley,
+now how do you like the wild and woolly?”
+
+“Oh! You put up a trick on me!” ejaculated Carley. “Glenn, how could
+you? ... Such a terrible trick! I wouldn’t have minded something
+reasonable. But that! Oh, I’ll never forgive you!”
+
+Glenn showed remorse, and kissed her before Flo in a way that made some
+little amends. “Maybe I overdid it,” he said. “But I thought you’d have
+a momentary start, you know, enough to make you yell, and then you’d
+see through it. I only had a sheepskin over my shoulders as I crawled
+on hands and knees.”
+
+“Glenn, for me you were a prehistoric monster—a dinosaur, or
+something,” replied Carley.
+
+It developed, upon their return to the campfire circle, that everybody
+had been in the joke; and they all derived hearty enjoyment from it.
+
+“Reckon that makes you one of us,” said Hutter, genially. “We’ve all
+had our scares.”
+
+Carley wondered if she were not so constituted that such trickery
+alienated her. Deep in her heart she resented being made to show her
+cowardice. But then she realized that no one had really seen any
+evidence of her state. It was fun to them.
+
+Soon after this incident Hutter sounded what he called the roll-call
+for bed. Following Flo’s instructions, Carley sat on their bed, pulled
+off her boots, folded coat and sweater at her head, and slid down under
+the blankets. How strange and hard a bed! Yet Carley had the most
+delicious sense of relief and rest she had ever experienced. She
+straightened out on her back with a feeling that she had never before
+appreciated the luxury of lying down.
+
+Flo cuddled up to her in quite sisterly fashion, saying: “Now don’t
+cover your head. If it rains I’ll wake and pull up the tarp. Good
+night, Carley.” And almost immediately she seemed to fall asleep.
+
+For Carley, however, sleep did not soon come. She had too many aches;
+the aftermath of her shock of fright abided with her; and the blackness
+of night, the cold whip of wind over her face, and the unprotected
+helplessness she felt in this novel bed, were too entirely new and
+disturbing to be overcome at once. So she lay wide eyed, staring at the
+dense gray shadow, at the flickering lights upon the cedar. At length
+her mind formed a conclusion that this sort of thing might be worth the
+hardship once in a lifetime, anyway. What a concession to Glenn’s West!
+In the secret seclusion of her mind she had to confess that if her
+vanity had not been so assaulted and humiliated she might have enjoyed
+herself more. It seemed impossible, however, to have thrills and
+pleasures and exaltations in the face of discomfort, privation, and an
+uneasy half-acknowledged fear. No woman could have either a good or a
+profitable time when she was at her worst. Carley thought she would not
+be averse to getting Flo Hutter to New York, into an atmosphere wholly
+strange and difficult, and see how she met situation after situation
+unfamiliar to her. And so Carley’s mind drifted on until at last she
+succumbed to drowsiness.
+
+
+A voice pierced her dreams of home, of warmth and comfort. Something
+sharp, cold, and fragrant was scratching her eyes. She opened them.
+Glenn stood over her, pushing a sprig of cedar into her face.
+
+“Carley, the day is far spent,” he said, gayly. “We want to roll up
+your bedding. Will you get out of it?”
+
+“Hello, Glenn! What time is it?” she replied.
+
+“It’s nearly six.”
+
+“What!... Do you expect me to get up at that ungodly hour?”
+
+“We’re all up. Flo’s eating breakfast. It’s going to be a bad day, I’m
+afraid. And we want to get packed and moving before it starts to rain.”
+
+“Why do girls leave home?” she asked, tragically.
+
+“To make poor devils happy, of course,” he replied, smiling down upon
+her.
+
+That smile made up to Carley for all the clamoring sensations of stiff,
+sore muscles. It made her ashamed that she could not fling herself into
+this adventure with all her heart. Carley essayed to sit up. “Oh, I’m
+afraid my anatomy has become disconnected!... Glenn, do I look a
+sight?” She never would have asked him that if she had not known she
+could bear inspection at such an inopportune moment.
+
+“You look great,” he asserted, heartily. “You’ve got color. And as for
+your hair—I like to see it mussed that way. You were always one to have
+it dressed—just so.... Come, Carley, rustle now.”
+
+Thus adjured, Carley did her best under adverse circumstances. And she
+was gritting her teeth and complimenting herself when she arrived at
+the task of pulling on her boots. They were damp and her feet appeared
+to have swollen. Moreover, her ankles were sore. But she accomplished
+getting into them at the expense of much pain and sundry utterances
+more forcible than elegant. Glenn brought her warm water, a mitigating
+circumstance. The morning was cold and thought of that biting desert
+water had been trying.
+
+“Shore you’re doing fine,” was Flo’s greeting. “Come and get it before
+we throw it out.”
+
+Carley made haste to comply with the Western mandate, and was once
+again confronted with the singular fact that appetite did not wait upon
+the troubles of a tenderfoot. Glenn remarked that at least she would
+not starve to death on the trip.
+
+“Come, climb the ridge with me,” he invited. “I want you to take a look
+to the north and east.”
+
+He led her off through the cedars, up a slow red-earth slope, away from
+the lake. A green moundlike eminence topped with flat red rock appeared
+near at hand and not at all a hard climb. Nevertheless, her eyes
+deceived her, as she found to the cost of her breath. It was both far
+away and high.
+
+“I like this location,” said Glenn. “If I had the money I’d buy this
+section of land—six hundred and forty acres—and make a ranch of it.
+Just under this bluff is a fine open flat bench for a cabin. You could
+see away across the desert clear to Sunset Peak. There’s a good spring
+of granite water. I’d run water from the lake down into the lower
+flats, and I’d sure raise some stock.”
+
+“What do you call this place?” asked Carley, curiously.
+
+“Deep Lake. It’s only a watering place for sheep and cattle. But
+there’s fine grazing, and it’s a wonder to me no one has ever settled
+here.”
+
+Looking down, Carley appreciated his wish to own the place; and
+immediately there followed in her a desire to get possession of this
+tract of land before anyone else discovered its advantages, and to hold
+it for Glenn. But this would surely conflict with her intention of
+persuading Glenn to go back East. As quickly as her impulse had been
+born it died.
+
+Suddenly the scene gripped Carley. She looked from near to far, trying
+to grasp the illusive something. Wild lonely Arizona land! She saw
+ragged dumpy cedars of gray and green, lines of red earth, and a round
+space of water, gleaming pale under the lowering clouds; and in the
+distance isolated hills, strangely curved, wandering away to a black
+uplift of earth obscured in the sky.
+
+These appeared to be mere steps leading her sight farther and higher to
+the cloud-navigated sky, where rosy and golden effulgence betokened the
+sun and the east. Carley held her breath. A transformation was going on
+before her eyes.
+
+“Carley, it’s a stormy sunrise,” said Glenn.
+
+His words explained, but they did not convince. Was this
+sudden-bursting glory only the sun rising behind storm clouds? She
+could see the clouds moving while they were being colored. The
+universal gray surrendered under some magic paint brush. The rifts
+widened, and the gloom of the pale-gray world seemed to vanish. Beyond
+the billowy, rolling, creamy edges of clouds, white and pink, shone the
+soft exquisite fresh blue sky. And a blaze of fire, a burst of molten
+gold, sheered up from behind the rim of cloud and suddenly poured a sea
+of sunlight from east to west. It transfigured the round foothills.
+They seemed bathed in ethereal light, and the silver mists that
+overhung them faded while Carley gazed, and a rosy flush crowned the
+symmetrical domes. Southward along the horizon line, down-dropping
+veils of rain, just touched with the sunrise tint, streamed in drifting
+slow movement from cloud to earth. To the north the range of foothills
+lifted toward the majestic dome of Sunset Peak, a volcanic upheaval of
+red and purple cinders, bare as rock, round as the lower hills, and
+wonderful in its color. Full in the blaze of the rising sun it flaunted
+an unchangeable front. Carley understood now what had been told her
+about this peak. Volcanic fires had thrown up a colossal mound of
+cinders burned forever to the hues of the setting sun. In every light
+and shade of day it held true to its name. Farther north rose the bold
+bulk of the San Francisco Peaks, that, half lost in the clouds, still
+dominated the desert scene. Then as Carley gazed the rifts began to
+close. Another transformation began, the reverse of what she watched.
+The golden radiance of sunrise vanished, and under a gray, lowering,
+coalescing pall of cloud the round hills returned to their bleak
+somberness, and the green desert took again its cold sheen.
+
+“Wasn’t it fine, Carley?” asked Glenn. “But nothing to what you will
+experience. I hope you stay till the weather gets warm. I want you to
+see a summer dawn on the Painted Desert, and a noon with the great
+white clouds rolling up from the horizon, and a sunset of massed purple
+and gold. If _they_ do not get you then I’ll give up.”
+
+Carley murmured something of her appreciation of what she had just
+seen. Part of his remark hung on her ear, thought-provoking and
+disturbing. He hoped she would stay until summer! That was kind of him.
+But her visit must be short and she now intended it to end with his
+return East with her. If she did not persuade him to go he might not
+want to go for a while, as he had written—“just yet.” Carley grew
+troubled in mind. Such mental disturbance, however, lasted no longer
+than her return with Glenn to camp, where the mustang Spillbeans stood
+ready for her to mount. He appeared to put one ear up, the other down,
+and to look at her with mild surprise, as if to say:
+“What—hello—tenderfoot! Are you going to ride me again?”
+
+Carley recalled that she had avowed she would ride him. There was no
+alternative, and her misgivings only made matters worse. Nevertheless,
+once in the saddle, she imagined she had the hallucination that to ride
+off so, with the long open miles ahead, was really thrilling. This
+remarkable state of mind lasted until Spillbeans began to trot, and
+then another day of misery beckoned to Carley with gray stretches of
+distance.
+
+She was to learn that misery, as well as bliss, can swallow up the
+hours. She saw the monotony of cedar trees, but with blurred eyes; she
+saw the ground clearly enough, for she was always looking down, hoping
+for sandy places or rocky places where her mustang could not trot.
+
+At noon the cavalcade ahead halted near a cabin and corral, which
+turned out to be a sheep ranch belonging to Hutter. Here Glenn was so
+busy that he had no time to devote to Carley. And Flo, who was more at
+home on a horse than on the ground, rode around everywhere with the
+men. Most assuredly Carley could not pass by the chance to get off
+Spillbeans and to walk a little. She found, however, that what she
+wanted most was to rest. The cabin was deserted, a dark, damp place
+with a rank odor. She did not stay long inside.
+
+Rain and snow began to fall, adding to what Carley felt to be a
+disagreeable prospect. The immediate present, however, was cheered by a
+cup of hot soup and some bread and butter which the herder Charley
+brought her. By and by Glenn and Hutter returned with Flo, and all
+partook of some lunch.
+
+All too soon Carley found herself astride the mustang again. Glenn
+helped her don the slicker, an abominable sticky rubber coat that
+bundled her up and tangled her feet round the stirrups. She was glad to
+find, though, that it served well indeed to protect her from raw wind
+and rain.
+
+“Where do we go from here?” Carley inquired, ironically.
+
+Glenn laughed in a way which proved to Carley that he knew perfectly
+well how she felt. Again his smile caused her self-reproach. Plain
+indeed was it that he had really expected more of her in the way of
+complaint and less of fortitude. Carley bit her lips.
+
+Thus began the afternoon ride. As it advanced the sky grew more
+threatening, the wind rawer, the cold keener, and the rain cut like
+little bits of sharp ice. It blew in Carley’s face. Enough snow fell to
+whiten the open patches of ground. In an hour Carley realized that she
+had the hardest task of her life to ride to the end of the day’s
+journey. No one could have guessed her plight. Glenn complimented her
+upon her adaptation to such unpleasant conditions. Flo evidently was on
+the lookout for the tenderfoot’s troubles. But as Spillbeans, had taken
+to lagging at a walk, Carley was enabled to conceal all outward sign of
+her woes. It rained, hailed, sleeted, snowed, and grew colder all the
+time. Carley’s feet became lumps of ice. Every step the mustang took
+sent acute pains ramifying from bruised and raw places all over her
+body.
+
+Once, finding herself behind the others and out of sight in the cedars,
+she got off to walk awhile, leading the mustang. This would not do,
+however, because she fell too far in the rear. Mounting again, she rode
+on, beginning to feel that nothing mattered, that this trip would be
+the end of Carley Burch. How she hated that dreary, cold, flat land the
+road bisected without end. It felt as if she rode hours to cover a
+mile. In open stretches she saw the whole party straggling along,
+separated from one another, and each for himself. They certainly could
+not be enjoying themselves. Carley shut her eyes, clutched the pommel
+of the saddle, trying to support her weight. How could she endure
+another mile? Alas! there might be many miles. Suddenly a terrible
+shock seemed to rack her. But it was only that Spillbeans had once
+again taken to a trot. Frantically she pulled on the bridle. He was not
+to be thwarted. Opening her eyes, she saw a cabin far ahead which
+probably was the destination for the night. Carley knew she would never
+reach it, yet she clung on desperately. What she dreaded was the return
+of that stablike pain in her side. It came, and life seemed something
+abject and monstrous. She rode stiff legged, with her hands propping
+her stiffly above the pommel, but the stabbing pain went right on, and
+in deeper. When the mustang halted his trot beside the other horses
+Carley was in the last extremity. Yet as Glenn came to her, offering a
+hand, she still hid her agony. Then Flo called out gayly: “Carley,
+you’ve done twenty-five miles on as rotten a day as I remember. Shore
+we all hand it to you. And I’m confessing I didn’t think you’d ever
+stay the ride out. Spillbeans is the meanest nag we’ve got and he has
+the hardest gait.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Later Carley leaned back in a comfortable seat, before a blazing fire
+that happily sent its acrid smoke up the chimney, pondering ideas in
+her mind.
+
+There could be a relation to familiar things that was astounding in its
+revelation. To get off a horse that had tortured her, to discover an
+almost insatiable appetite, to rest weary, aching body before the
+genial warmth of a beautiful fire—these were experiences which Carley
+found to have been hitherto unknown delights. It struck her suddenly
+and strangely that to know the real truth about anything in life might
+require infinite experience and understanding. How could one feel
+immense gratitude and relief, or the delight of satisfying acute
+hunger, or the sweet comfort of rest, unless there had been
+circumstances of extreme contrast? She had been compelled to suffer
+cruelly on horseback in order to make her appreciate how good it was to
+get down on the ground. Otherwise she never would have known. She
+wondered, then, how true that principle might be in all experience. It
+gave strong food for thought. There were things in the world never
+before dreamed of in her philosophy.
+
+Carley was wondering if she were narrow and dense to circumstances of
+life differing from her own when a remark of Flo’s gave pause to her
+reflections.
+
+“Shore the worst is yet to come.” Flo had drawled.
+
+Carley wondered if this distressing statement had to do in some way
+with the rest of the trip. She stifled her curiosity. Painful knowledge
+of that sort would come quickly enough.
+
+“Flo, are you girls going to sleep here in the cabin?” inquired Glenn.
+
+“Shore. It’s cold and wet outside,” replied Flo.
+
+“Well, Felix, the Mexican herder, told me some Navajos had been bunking
+here.”
+
+“Navajos? You mean Indians?” interposed Carley, with interest.
+
+“Shore do,” said Flo. “I knew that. But don’t mind Glenn. He’s full of
+tricks, Carley. He’d give us a hunch to lie out in the wet.”
+
+Hutter burst into his hearty laugh. “Wal, I’d rather get some things
+any day than a bad cold.”
+
+“Shore I’ve had both,” replied Flo, in her easy drawl, “and I’d prefer
+the cold. But for Carley’s sake—”
+
+“Pray don’t consider me,” said Carley. The rather crude drift of the
+conversation affronted her.
+
+“Well, my dear,” put in Glenn, “it’s a bad night outside. We’ll all
+make our beds here.”
+
+“Glenn, you shore are a nervy fellow,” drawled Flo.
+
+Long after everybody was in bed Carley lay awake in the blackness of
+the cabin, sensitively fidgeting and quivering over imaginative contact
+with creeping things. The fire had died out. A cold air passed through
+the room. On the roof pattered gusts of rain. Carley heard a rustling
+of mice. It did not seem possible that she could keep awake, yet she
+strove to do so. But her pangs of body, her extreme fatigue soon
+yielded to the quiet and rest of her bed, engendering a drowsiness that
+proved irresistible.
+
+Morning brought fair weather and sunshine, which helped to sustain
+Carley in her effort to brave out her pains and woes. Another
+disagreeable day would have forced her to humiliating defeat.
+Fortunately for her, the business of the men was concerned with the
+immediate neighborhood, in which they expected to stay all morning.
+
+“Flo, after a while persuade Carley to ride with you to the top of this
+first foothill,” said Glenn. “It’s not far, and it’s worth a good deal
+to see the Painted Desert from there. The day is clear and the air free
+from dust.”
+
+“Shore. Leave it to me. I want to get out of camp, anyhow. That
+conceited _hombre_, Lee Stanton, will be riding in here,” answered Flo,
+laconically.
+
+The slight knowing smile on Glenn’s face and the grinning disbelief on
+Mr. Hutter’s were facts not lost upon Carley. And when Charley, the
+herder, deliberately winked at Carley, she conceived the idea that Flo,
+like many women, only ran off to be pursued. In some manner Carley did
+not seek to analyze, the purported advent of this Lee Stanton pleased
+her. But she did admit to her consciousness that women, herself
+included, were both as deep and mysterious as the sea, yet as
+transparent as an inch of crystal water.
+
+It happened that the expected newcomer rode into camp before anyone
+left. Before he dismounted he made a good impression on Carley, and as
+he stepped down in lazy, graceful action, a tall lithe figure, she
+thought him singularly handsome. He wore black sombrero, flannel shirt,
+blue jeans stuffed into high boots, and long, big-roweled spurs.
+
+“How are you-all?” was his greeting.
+
+From the talk that ensued between him and the men, Carley concluded
+that he must be overseer of the sheep hands. Carley knew that Hutter
+and Glenn were not interested in cattle raising. And in fact they were,
+especially Hutter, somewhat inimical to the dominance of the range land
+by cattle barons of Flagstaff.
+
+“When’s Ryan goin’ to dip?” asked Hutter.
+
+“Today or tomorrow,” replied Stanton.
+
+“Reckon we ought to ride over,” went on Hutter. “Say, Glenn, do you
+reckon Miss Carley could stand a sheep-dip?”
+
+This was spoken in a low tone, scarcely intended for Carley, but she
+had keen ears and heard distinctly. Not improbably this sheep-dip was
+what Flo meant as the worst to come. Carley adopted a listless posture
+to hide her keen desire to hear what Glenn would reply to Hutter.
+
+“I should say not!” whispered Glenn, fiercely.
+
+“Cut out that talk. She’ll hear you and want to go.”
+
+Whereupon Carley felt mount in her breast an intense and rebellious
+determination to see a sheep-dip. She would astonish Glenn. What did he
+want, anyway? Had she not withstood the torturing trot of the
+hardest-gaited horse on the range? Carley realized she was going to
+place considerable store upon that feat. It grew on her.
+
+When the consultation of the men ended, Lee Stanton turned to Flo. And
+Carley did not need to see the young man look twice to divine what
+ailed him. He was caught in the toils of love. But seeing through Flo
+Hutter was entirely another matter.
+
+“Howdy, Lee!” she said, coolly, with her clear eyes on him. A tiny
+frown knitted her brow. She did not, at the moment, entirely approve of
+him.
+
+“Shore am glad to see you, Flo,” he said, with rather a heavy expulsion
+of breath. He wore a cheerful grin that in no wise deceived Flo, or
+Carley either. The young man had a furtive expression of eye.
+
+“Ahuh!” returned Flo.
+
+“I was shore sorry about—about that—” he floundered, in low voice.
+
+“About what?”
+
+“Aw, you know, Flo.”
+
+Carley strolled out of hearing, sure of two things—that she felt rather
+sorry for Stanton, and that his course of love did not augur well for
+smooth running. What queer creatures were women! Carley had seen
+several million coquettes, she believed; and assuredly Flo Hutter
+belonged to the species.
+
+Upon Carley’s return to the cabin she found Stanton and Flo waiting for
+her to accompany them on a ride up the foothill. She was so stiff and
+sore that she could hardly mount into the saddle; and the first mile of
+riding was something like a nightmare. She lagged behind Flo and
+Stanton, who apparently forgot her in their quarrel.
+
+The riders soon struck the base of a long incline of rocky ground that
+led up to the slope of the foothill. Here rocks and gravel gave place
+to black cinders out of which grew a scant bleached grass. This desert
+verdure was what lent the soft gray shade to the foothill when seen
+from a distance. The slope was gentle, so that the ascent did not
+entail any hardship. Carley was amazed at the length of the slope, and
+also to see how high over the desert she was getting. She felt lifted
+out of a monotonous level. A green-gray league-long cedar forest
+extended down toward Oak Creek. Behind her the magnificent bulk of the
+mountains reached up into the stormy clouds, showing white slopes of
+snow under the gray pall.
+
+The hoofs of the horses sank in the cinders. A fine choking dust
+assailed Carley’s nostrils. Presently, when there appeared at least a
+third of the ascent still to be accomplished and Flo dismounted to
+walk, leading their horses. Carley had no choice but to do likewise. At
+first walking was a relief. Soon, however, the soft yielding cinders
+began to drag at her feet. At every step she slipped back a few inches,
+a very annoying feature of climbing. When her legs seemed to grow dead
+Carley paused for a little rest. The last of the ascent, over a few
+hundred yards of looser cinders, taxed her remaining strength to the
+limit. She grew hot and wet and out of breath. Her heart labored. An
+unreasonable antipathy seemed to attend her efforts. Only her
+ridiculous vanity held her to this task. She wanted to please Glenn,
+but not so earnestly that she would have kept on plodding up this
+ghastly bare mound of cinders. Carley did not mind being a tenderfoot,
+but she hated the thought of these Westerners considering her a
+weakling. So she bore the pain of raw blisters and the miserable
+sensation of staggering on under a leaden weight.
+
+Several times she noted that Flo and Stanton halted to face each other
+in rather heated argument. At least Stanton’s red face and forceful
+gestures attested to heat on his part. Flo evidently was weary of
+argument, and in answer to a sharp reproach she retorted, “Shore I was
+different after he came.” To which Stanton responded by a quick
+passionate shrinking as if he had been stung.
+
+Carley had her own reaction to this speech she could not help hearing;
+and inwardly, at least, her feeling must have been similar to
+Stanton’s. She forgot the object of this climb and looked off to her
+right at the green level without really seeing it. A vague sadness
+weighed upon her soul. Was there to be a tangle of fates here, a
+conflict of wills, a crossing of loves? Flo’s terse confession could
+not be taken lightly. Did she mean that she loved Glenn? Carley began
+to fear it. Only another reason why she must persuade Glenn to go back
+East! But the closer Carley came to what she divined must be an ordeal
+the more she dreaded it. This raw, crude West might have confronted her
+with a situation beyond her control. And as she dragged her weighted
+feet through the cinders, kicking, up little puffs of black dust, she
+felt what she admitted to be an unreasonable resentment toward these
+Westerners and their barren, isolated, and boundless world.
+
+“Carley,” called Flo, “come—looksee, as the Indians say. Here is
+Glenn’s Painted Desert, and I reckon it’s shore worth seeing.”
+
+To Carley’s surprise, she found herself upon the knob of the foothill.
+And when she looked out across a suddenly distinguishable void she
+seemed struck by the immensity of something she was unable to grasp.
+She dropped her bridle; she gazed slowly, as if drawn, hearing Flo’s
+voice.
+
+“That thin green line of cottonwoods down there is the Little Colorado
+River,” Flo was saying. “Reckon it’s sixty miles, all down hill. The
+Painted Desert begins there and also the Navajo Reservation. You see
+the white strips, the red veins, the yellow bars, the black lines. They
+are all desert steps leading up and up for miles. That sharp black peak
+is called Wildcat. It’s about a hundred miles. You see the desert
+stretching away to the right, growing dim—lost in distance? We don’t
+know that country. But that north country we know as landmarks, anyway.
+Look at that saw-tooth range. The Indians call it Echo Cliffs. At the
+far end it drops off into the Colorado River. Lee’s Ferry is
+there—about one hundred and sixty miles. That ragged black rent is the
+Grand Canyon. Looks like a thread, doesn’t it? But Carley, it’s some
+hole, believe me. Away to the left you see the tremendous wall rising
+and turning to come this way. That’s the north wall of the Canyon. It
+ends at the great bluff—Greenland Point. See the black fringe above the
+bar of gold. That’s a belt of pine trees. It’s about eighty miles
+across this ragged old stone washboard of a desert. ... Now turn and
+look straight and strain your sight over Wildcat. See the rim purple
+dome. You must look hard. I’m glad it’s clear and the sun is shining.
+We don’t often get this view.... That purple dome is Navajo Mountain,
+two hundred miles and more away!”
+
+Carley yielded to some strange drawing power and slowly walked forward
+until she stood at the extreme edge of the summit.
+
+What was it that confounded her sight? Desert slope—down and
+down—color—distance—space! The wind that blew in her face seemed to
+have the openness of the whole world back of it. Cold, sweet, dry,
+exhilarating, it breathed of untainted vastness. Carley’s memory
+pictures of the Adirondacks faded into pastorals; her vaunted images of
+European scenery changed to operetta settings. She had nothing with
+which to compare this illimitable space.
+
+“Oh!—America!” was her unconscious tribute.
+
+Stanton and Flo had come on to places beside her. The young man
+laughed. “Wal, now Miss Carley, you couldn’t say more. When I was in
+camp trainin’ for service overseas I used to remember how this looked.
+An’ it seemed one of the things I was goin’ to fight for. Reckon I
+didn’t the idea of the Germans havin’ my Painted Desert. I didn’t get
+across to fight for it, but I shore was willin’.”
+
+“You see, Carley, this is our America,” said Flo, softly.
+
+Carley had never understood the meaning of the word. The immensity of
+the West seemed flung at her. What her vision beheld, so far-reaching
+and boundless, was only a dot on the map.
+
+“Does any one live—out there?” she asked, with slow sweep of hand.
+
+“A few white traders and some Indian tribes,” replied Stanton. “But you
+can ride all day an’ next day an’ never see a livin’ soul.”
+
+What was the meaning of the gratification in his voice? Did Westerners
+court loneliness? Carley wrenched her gaze from the desert void to look
+at her companions. Stanton’s eyes were narrowed; his expression had
+changed; lean and hard and still, his face resembled bronze. The
+careless humor was gone, as was the heated flush of his quarrel with
+Flo. The girl, too, had subtly changed, had responded to an influence
+that had subdued and softened her. She was mute; her eyes held a light,
+comprehensive and all-embracing; she was beautiful then. For Carley,
+quick to read emotion, caught a glimpse of a strong, steadfast soul
+that spiritualized the brown freckled face.
+
+Carley wheeled to gaze out and down into this incomprehensible abyss,
+and on to the far up-flung heights, white and red and yellow, and so on
+to the wonderful mystic haze of distance. The significance of Flo’s
+designation of miles could not be grasped by Carley. She could not
+estimate distance. But she did not need that to realize her perceptions
+were swallowed up by magnitude. Hitherto the power of her eyes had been
+unknown. How splendid to see afar! She could see—yes—but what did she
+see? Space first, annihilating space, dwarfing her preconceived images,
+and then wondrous colors! What had she known of color? No wonder
+artists failed adequately and truly to paint mountains, let alone the
+desert space. The toiling millions of the crowded cities were ignorant
+of this terrible beauty and sublimity. Would it have helped them to
+see? But just to breathe that untainted air, just to see once the
+boundless open of colored sand and rock—to realize what the freedom of
+eagles meant would not that have helped anyone?
+
+And with the thought there came to Carley’s quickened and struggling
+mind a conception of freedom. She had not yet watched eagles, but she
+now gazed out into their domain. What then must be the effect of such
+environment on people whom it encompassed? The idea stunned Carley.
+Would such people grow in proportion to the nature with which they were
+in conflict? Hereditary influence could not be comparable to such
+environment in the shaping of character.
+
+“Shore I could stand here all day,” said Flo. “But it’s beginning to
+cloud over and this high wind is cold. So we’d better go, Carley.”
+
+“I don’t know what I am, but it’s not cold,” replied Carley.
+
+“Wal, Miss Carley, I reckon you’ll have to come again an’ again before
+you get a comfortable feelin’ here,” said Stanton.
+
+It surprised Carley to see that this young Westerner had hit upon the
+truth. He understood her. Indeed she was uncomfortable. She was
+oppressed, vaguely unhappy. But why? The thing there—the infinitude of
+open sand and rock—was beautiful, wonderful, even glorious. She looked
+again.
+
+Steep black-cindered slope, with its soft gray patches of grass,
+sheered down and down, and out in rolling slope to merge upon a
+cedar-dotted level. Nothing moved below, but a red-tailed hawk sailed
+across her vision. How still—how gray the desert floor as it reached
+away, losing its black dots, and gaining bronze spots of stone! By
+plain and prairie it fell away, each inch of gray in her sight
+magnifying into its league-long roll. On and on, and down across dark
+lines that were steppes, and at last blocked and changed by the
+meandering green thread which was the verdure of a desert river. Beyond
+stretched the white sand, where whirlwinds of dust sent aloft their
+funnel-shaped spouts; and it led up to the horizon-wide ribs and ridges
+of red and walls of yellow and mountains of black, to the dim mound of
+purple so ethereal and mystic against the deep-blue cloud-curtained
+band of sky.
+
+And on the moment the sun was obscured and that world of colorful flame
+went out, as if a blaze had died.
+
+Deprived of its fire, the desert seemed to retreat, to fade coldly and
+gloomily, to lose its great landmarks in dim obscurity. Closer, around
+to the north, the canyon country yawned with innumerable gray jaws,
+ragged and hard, and the riven earth took on a different character. It
+had no shadows. It grew flat and, like the sea, seemed to mirror the
+vast gray cloud expanse. The sublime vanished, but the desolate
+remained. No warmth—no movement—no life! Dead stone it was, cut into a
+million ruts by ruthless ages. Carley felt that she was gazing down
+into chaos.
+
+At this moment, as before, a hawk had crossed her vision, so now a
+raven sailed by, black as coal, uttering a hoarse croak.
+
+“Quoth the raven—” murmured Carley, with a half-bitter laugh, as she
+turned away shuddering in spite of an effort of self-control. “Maybe he
+meant this wonderful and terrible West is never for such as I.... Come,
+let us go.”
+
+
+Carley rode all that afternoon in the rear of the caravan, gradually
+succumbing to the cold raw wind and the aches and pains to which she
+had subjected her flesh. Nevertheless, she finished the day’s journey,
+and, sorely as she needed Glenn’s kindly hand, she got off her horse
+without aid.
+
+Camp was made at the edge of the devastated timber zone that Carley had
+found so dispiriting. A few melancholy pines were standing, and
+everywhere, as far as she could see southward, were blackened fallen
+trees and stumps. It was a dreary scene. The few cattle grazing on the
+bleached grass appeared as melancholy as the pines. The sun shone
+fitfully at sunset, and then sank, leaving the land to twilight and
+shadows.
+
+Once in a comfortable seat beside the camp fire, Carley had no further
+desire to move. She was so far exhausted and weary that she could no
+longer appreciate the blessing of rest. Appetite, too, failed her this
+meal time. Darkness soon settled down. The wind moaned through the
+pines. She was indeed glad to crawl into bed, and not even the thought
+of skunks could keep her awake.
+
+Morning disclosed the fact that gray clouds had been blown away. The
+sun shone bright upon a white-frosted land. The air was still. Carley
+labored at her task of rising, and brushing her hair, and pulling on
+her boots; and it appeared her former sufferings were as naught
+compared with the pangs of this morning. How she hated the cold, the
+bleak, denuded forest land, the emptiness, the roughness, the
+crudeness! If this sort of feeling grew any worse she thought she would
+hate Glenn. Yet she was nonetheless set upon going on, and seeing the
+sheep-dip, and riding that fiendish mustang until the trip was ended.
+
+Getting in the saddle and on the way this morning was an ordeal that
+made Carley actually sick. Glenn and Flo both saw how it was with her,
+and they left her to herself. Carley was grateful for this
+understanding. It seemed to proclaim their respect. She found further
+matter for satisfaction in the astonishing circumstance that after the
+first dreadful quarter of an hour in the saddle she began to feel
+easier. And at the end of several hours of riding she was not suffering
+any particular pain, though she was weaker.
+
+At length the cut-over land ended in a forest of straggling pines,
+through which the road wound southward, and eventually down into a wide
+shallow canyon. Through the trees Carley saw a stream of water, open
+fields of green, log fences and cabins, and blue smoke. She heard the
+chug of a gasoline engine and the baa-baa of sheep. Glenn waited for
+her to catch up with him, and he said: “Carley, this is one of Hutter’s
+sheep camps. It’s not a—a very pleasant place. You won’t care to see
+the sheep-dip. So I’m suggesting you wait here—”
+
+“Nothing doing, Glenn,” she interrupted. “I’m going to see what there
+is to see.”
+
+“But, dear—the men—the way they handle sheep—they’ll—really it’s no
+sight for you,” he floundered.
+
+“Why not?” she inquired, eying him.
+
+“Because, Carley—you know how you hate the—the seamy side of things.
+And the stench—why, it’ll make you sick!”
+
+“Glenn, be on the level,” she said. “Suppose it does. Wouldn’t you
+think more of me if I could stand it?”
+
+“Why, yes,” he replied, reluctantly, smiling at her, “I would. But I
+wanted to spare you. This trip has been hard. I’m sure proud of you.
+And, Carley—you can overdo it. Spunk is not everything. You simply
+couldn’t stand this.”
+
+“Glenn, how little you know a woman!” she exclaimed. “Come along and
+show me your old sheep-dip.”
+
+They rode out of the woods into an open valley that might have been
+picturesque if it had not been despoiled by the work of man. A log
+fence ran along the edge of open ground and a mud dam held back a pool
+of stagnant water, slimy and green. As Carley rode on the baa-baa of
+sheep became so loud that she could scarcely hear Glenn talking.
+
+Several log cabins, rough hewn and gray with age, stood down inside the
+inclosure; and beyond there were large corrals. From the other side of
+these corrals came sounds of rough voices of men, a trampling of hoofs,
+heavy splashes, the beat of an engine, and the incessant baaing of the
+sheep.
+
+At this point the members of Hutter’s party dismounted and tied their
+horses to the top log of the fence. When Carley essayed to get off
+Glenn tried to stop her, saying she could see well enough from there.
+But Carley got down and followed Flo. She heard Hutter call to Glenn:
+“Say, Ryan is short of men. We’ll lend a hand for a couple of hours.”
+
+Presently Carley reached Flo’s side and the first corral that contained
+sheep. They formed a compact woolly mass, rather white in color, with a
+tinge of pink. When Flo climbed up on the fence the flock plunged as
+one animal and with a trampling roar ran to the far side of the corral.
+Several old rams with wide curling horns faced around; and some of the
+ewes climbed up on the densely packed mass. Carley rather enjoyed
+watching them. She surely could not see anything amiss in this sight.
+
+The next corral held a like number of sheep, and also several Mexicans
+who were evidently driving them into a narrow lane that led farther
+down. Carley saw the heads of men above other corral fences, and there
+was also a thick yellowish smoke rising from somewhere.
+
+“Carley, are you game to see the dip?” asked Flo, with good nature that
+yet had a touch of taunt in it.
+
+“That’s my middle name,” retorted Carley, flippantly.
+
+Both Glenn and this girl seemed to be bent upon bringing out Carley’s
+worst side, and they were succeeding. Flo laughed. The ready slang
+pleased her.
+
+She led Carley along that log fence, through a huge open gate, and
+across a wide pen to another fence, which she scaled. Carley followed
+her, not particularly overanxious to look ahead. Some thick odor had
+begun to reach Carley’s delicate nostrils. Flo led down a short lane
+and climbed another fence, and sat astride the top log. Carley hurried
+along to clamber up to her side, but stood erect with her feet on the
+second log of the fence.
+
+Then a horrible stench struck Carley almost like a blow in the face,
+and before her confused sight there appeared to be drifting smoke and
+active men and running sheep, all against a background of mud. But at
+first it was the odor that caused Carley to close her eyes and press
+her knees hard against the upper log to keep from reeling. Never in her
+life had such a sickening nausea assailed her. It appeared to attack
+her whole body. The forerunning qualm of seasickness was as nothing to
+this. Carley gave a gasp, pinched her nose between her fingers so she
+could not smell, and opened her eyes.
+
+Directly beneath her was a small pen open at one end into which sheep
+were being driven from the larger corral. The drivers were yelling. The
+sheep in the rear plunged into those ahead of them, forcing them on.
+Two men worked in this small pen. One was a brawny giant in undershirt
+and overalls that appeared filthy. He held a cloth in his hand and
+strode toward the nearest sheep. Folding the cloth round the neck of
+the sheep, he dragged it forward, with an ease which showed great
+strength, and threw it into a pit that yawned at the side. Souse went
+the sheep into a murky, muddy pool and disappeared. But suddenly its
+head came up and then its shoulders. And it began half to walk and half
+swim down what appeared to be a narrow boxlike ditch that contained
+other floundering sheep. Then Carley saw men on each side of this ditch
+bending over with poles that had crooks at the end, and their work was
+to press and pull the sheep along to the end of the ditch, and drive
+them up a boarded incline into another corral where many other sheep
+huddled, now a dirty muddy color like the liquid into which they had
+been emersed. Souse! Splash! In went sheep after sheep. Occasionally
+one did not go under. And then a man would press it under with the
+crook and quickly lift its head. The work went on with precision and
+speed, in spite of the yells and trampling and baa-baas, and the
+incessant action that gave an effect of confusion.
+
+Carley saw a pipe leading from a huge boiler to the ditch. The dark
+fluid was running out of it. From a rusty old engine with big
+smokestack poured the strangling smoke. A man broke open a sack of
+yellow powder and dumped it into the ditch. Then he poured an acid-like
+liquid after it.
+
+“Sulphur and nicotine,” yelled Flo up at Carley. “The dip’s poison. If
+a sheep opens his mouth he’s usually a goner. But sometimes they save
+one.”
+
+Carley wanted to tear herself away from this disgusting spectacle. But
+it held her by some fascination. She saw Glenn and Hutter fall in line
+with the other men, and work like beavers. These two pacemakers in the
+small pen kept the sheep coming so fast that every worker below had a
+task cut out for him. Suddenly Flo squealed and pointed.
+
+“There! that sheep didn’t come up,” she cried. “Shore he opened his
+mouth.”
+
+Then Carley saw Glenn energetically plunge his hooked pole in and out
+and around until he had located the submerged sheep. He lifted its head
+above the dip. The sheep showed no sign of life. Down on his knees
+dropped Glenn, to reach the sheep with strong brown hands, and to haul
+it up on the ground, where it flopped inert. Glenn pummeled it and
+pressed it, and worked on it much as Carley had seen a life-guard work
+over a half-drowned man. But the sheep did not respond to Glenn’s
+active administrations.
+
+“No use, Glenn,” yelled Hutter, hoarsely. “That one’s a goner.”
+
+Carley did not fail to note the state of Glenn’s hands and arms and
+overalls when he returned to the ditch work. Then back and forth
+Carley’s gaze went from one end to the other of that scene. And
+suddenly it was arrested and held by the huge fellow who handled the
+sheep so brutally. Every time he dragged one and threw it into the pit
+he yelled: “Ho! Ho!” Carley was impelled to look at his face, and she
+was amazed to meet the rawest and boldest stare from evil eyes that had
+ever been her misfortune to incite. She felt herself stiffen with a
+shock that was unfamiliar. This man was scarcely many years older than
+Glenn, yet he had grizzled hair, a seamed and scarred visage, coarse,
+thick lips, and beetling brows, from under which peered gleaming light
+eyes. At every turn he flashed them upon Carley’s face, her neck, the
+swell of her bosom. It was instinct that caused her hastily to close
+her riding coat. She felt as if her flesh had been burned. Like a snake
+he fascinated her. The intelligence in his bold gaze made the
+beastliness of it all the harder to endure, all the stronger to arouse.
+
+“Come, Carley, let’s rustle out of this stinkin’ mess,” cried Flo.
+
+Indeed, Carley needed Flo’s assistance in clambering down out of the
+choking smoke and horrid odor.
+
+“_Adios_, pretty eyes,” called the big man from the pen.
+
+“Well,” ejaculated Flo, when they got out, “I’ll bet I call Glenn good
+and hard for letting you go down there.”
+
+“It was—my—fault,” panted Carley. “I said I’d stand it.”
+
+“Oh, you’re game, all right. I didn’t mean the dip.... That
+sheep-slinger is Haze Ruff, the toughest _hombre_ on this range. Shore,
+now, wouldn’t I like to take a shot at him?... I’m going to tell dad
+and Glenn.”
+
+“Please don’t,” returned Carley, appealingly.
+
+“I shore am. Dad needs hands these days. That’s why he’s lenient. But
+Glenn will cowhide Ruff and I want to see him do it.”
+
+In Flo Hutter then Carley saw another and a different spirit of the
+West, a violence unrestrained and fierce that showed in the girl’s even
+voice and in the piercing light of her eyes.
+
+They went back to the horses, got their lunches from the saddlebags,
+and, finding comfortable seats in a sunny, protected place, they ate
+and talked. Carley had to force herself to swallow. It seemed that the
+horrid odor of dip and sheep had permeated everything. Glenn had known
+her better than she had known herself, and he had wished to spare her
+an unnecessary and disgusting experience. Yet so stubborn was Carley
+that she did not regret going through with it.
+
+“Carley, I don’t mind telling you that you’ve stuck it out better than
+any tenderfoot we ever had here,” said Flo.
+
+“Thank you. That from a Western girl is a compliment I’ll not soon
+forget,” replied Carley.
+
+“I shore mean it. We’ve had rotten weather. And to end the little trip
+at this sheep-dip hole! Why, Glenn certainly wanted you to stack up
+against the real thing!”
+
+“Flo, he did not want me to come on the trip, and especially here,”
+protested Carley.
+
+“Shore I know. But he _let_ you.”
+
+“Neither Glenn nor any other man could prevent me from doing what I
+wanted to do.”
+
+“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” drawled Flo, “I’ll differ with you. I
+reckon Glenn Kilbourne is not the man you knew before the war.”
+
+“No, he is not. But that does not alter the case.”
+
+“Carley, we’re not well acquainted,” went on Flo, more carefully
+feeling her way, “and I’m not your kind. I don’t know your Eastern
+ways. But I know what the West does to a man. The war ruined your
+friend—both his body and mind.... How sorry mother and I were for
+Glenn, those days when it looked he’d sure ‘go west,’ for good!... Did
+you know he’d been gassed and that he had five hemorrhages?”
+
+“Oh! I knew his lungs had been weakened by gas. But he never told me
+about having hemorrhages.”
+
+“Well, he shore had them. The last one I’ll never forget. Every time
+he’d cough it would fetch the blood. I could tell!... Oh, it was awful.
+I begged him _not_ to cough. He smiled—like a ghost smiling—and he
+whispered, ‘I’ll quit.’... And he did. The doctor came from Flagstaff
+and packed him in ice. Glenn sat propped up all night and never moved a
+muscle. Never coughed again! And the bleeding stopped. After that we
+put him out on the porch where he could breathe fresh air all the time.
+There’s something wonderfully healing in Arizona air. It’s from the dry
+desert and here it’s full of cedar and pine. Anyway Glenn got well. And
+I think the West has cured his mind, too.”
+
+“Of what?” queried Carley, in an intense curiosity she could scarcely
+hide.
+
+“Oh, God only knows!” exclaimed Flo, throwing up her gloved hands. “I
+never could understand. But I _hated_ what the war did to him.”
+
+Carley leaned back against the log, quite spent. Flo was unwittingly
+torturing her. Carley wanted passionately to give in to jealousy of
+this Western girl, but she could not do it. Flo Hutter deserved better
+than that. And Carley’s baser nature seemed in conflict with all that
+was noble in her. The victory did not yet go to either side. This was a
+bad hour for Carley. Her strength had about played out, and her spirit
+was at low ebb.
+
+“Carley, you’re all in,” declared Flo. “You needn’t deny it. I’m shore
+you’ve made good with me as a tenderfoot who stayed the limit. But
+there’s no sense in your killing yourself, nor in me letting you. So
+I’m going to tell dad we want to go home.”
+
+She left Carley there. The word home had struck strangely into Carley’s
+mind and remained there. Suddenly she realized what it was to be
+homesick. The comfort, the ease, the luxury, the rest, the sweetness,
+the pleasure, the cleanliness, the gratification to eye and ear—to all
+the senses—how these thoughts came to haunt her! All of Carley’s will
+power had been needed to sustain her on this trip to keep her from
+miserably failing. She had not failed. But contact with the West had
+affronted, disgusted, shocked, and alienated her. In that moment she
+could not be fair minded; she knew it; she did not care.
+
+Carley gazed around her. Only one of the cabins was in sight from this
+position. Evidently it was a home for some of these men. On one side
+the peaked rough roof had been built out beyond the wall, evidently to
+serve as a kind of porch. On that wall hung the motliest assortment of
+things Carley had ever seen—utensils, sheep and cow hides, saddles,
+harness, leather clothes, ropes, old sombreros, shovels, stove pipe,
+and many other articles for which she could find no name. The most
+striking characteristic manifest in this collection was that of
+service. How they had been used! They had enabled people to live under
+primitive conditions. Somehow this fact inhibited Carley’s sense of
+repulsion at their rude and uncouth appearance. Had any of her
+forefathers ever been pioneers? Carley did not know, but the thought
+was disturbing. It was thought-provoking. Many times at home, when she
+was dressing for dinner, she had gazed into the mirror at the graceful
+lines of her throat and arms, at the proud poise of her head, at the
+alabaster whiteness of her skin, and wonderingly she had asked of her
+image: “Can it be possible that I am a descendant of cavemen?” She had
+never been able to realize it, yet she knew it was true. Perhaps
+somewhere not far back along her line there had been a
+great-great-grandmother who had lived some kind of a primitive life,
+using such implements and necessaries as hung on this cabin wall, and
+thereby helped some man to conquer the wilderness, to live in it, and
+reproduce his kind. Like flashes Glenn’s words came back to
+Carley—“Work and children!”
+
+Some interpretation of his meaning and how it related to this hour held
+aloof from Carley. If she would ever be big enough to understand it and
+broad enough to accept it the time was far distant. Just now she was
+sore and sick physically, and therefore certainly not in a receptive
+state of mind. Yet how could she have keener impressions than these she
+was receiving? It was all a problem. She grew tired of thinking. But
+even then her mind pondered on, a stream of consciousness over which
+she had no control. This dreary woods was deserted. No birds, no
+squirrels, no creatures such as fancy anticipated! In another
+direction, across the canyon, she saw cattle, gaunt, ragged, lumbering,
+and stolid. And on the moment the scent of sheep came on the breeze.
+Time seemed to stand still here, and what Carley wanted most was for
+the hours and days to fly, so that she would be home again.
+
+At last Flo returned with the men. One quick glance at Glenn convinced
+Carley that Flo had not yet told him about the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff.
+
+“Carley, you’re a real sport,” declared Glenn, with the rare smile she
+loved. “It’s a dreadful mess. And to think you stood it!... Why, old
+Fifth Avenue, if you needed to make another hit with me you’ve done
+it!”
+
+His warmth amazed and pleased Carley. She could not quite understand
+why it would have made any difference to him whether she had stood the
+ordeal or not. But then every day she seemed to drift a little farther
+from a real understanding of her lover. His praise gladdened her, and
+fortified her to face the rest of this ride back to Oak Creek.
+
+Four hours later, in a twilight so shadowy that no one saw her
+distress, Carley half slipped and half fell from her horse and managed
+somehow to mount the steps and enter the bright living room. A cheerful
+red fire blazed on the hearth; Glenn’s hound, Moze, trembled eagerly at
+sight of her and looked up with humble dark eyes; the white-clothed
+dinner table steamed with savory dishes. Flo stood before the blaze,
+warming her hands. Lee Stanton leaned against the mantel, with eyes on
+her, and every line of his lean, hard face expressed his devotion to
+her. Hutter was taking his seat at the head of the table. “Come an’ get
+it—you-all,” he called, heartily. Mrs. Hutter’s face beamed with the
+spirit of that home. And lastly, Carley saw Glenn waiting for her,
+watching her come, true in this very moment to his stern hope for her
+and pride in her, as she dragged her weary, spent body toward him and
+the bright fire.
+
+By these signs, or the effect of them, Carley vaguely realized that she
+was incalculably changing, that this Carley Burch had become a vastly
+bigger person in the sight of her friends, and strangely in her own a
+lesser creature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+If spring came at all to Oak Creek Canyon it warmed into summer before
+Carley had time to languish with the fever characteristic of early June
+in the East.
+
+As if by magic it seemed the green grass sprang up, the green buds
+opened into leaves, the bluebells and primroses bloomed, the apple and
+peach blossoms burst exquisitely white and pink against the blue sky.
+Oak Creek fell to a transparent, beautiful brook, leisurely eddying in
+the stone walled nooks, hurrying with murmur and babble over the little
+falls. The mornings broke clear and fragrantly cool, the noon hours
+seemed to lag under a hot sun, the nights fell like dark mantles from
+the melancholy star-sown sky.
+
+Carley had stubbornly kept on riding and climbing until she killed her
+secret doubt that she was really a thoroughbred, until she satisfied
+her own insistent vanity that she could train to a point where this
+outdoor life was not too much for her strength. She lost flesh despite
+increase of appetite; she lost her pallor for a complexion of
+gold-brown she knew her Eastern friends would admire; she wore out the
+blisters and aches and pains; she found herself growing firmer of
+muscle, lither of line, deeper of chest. And in addition to these
+physical manifestations there were subtle intimations of a delight in a
+freedom of body she had never before known, of an exhilaration in
+action that made her hot and made her breathe, of a sloughing off of
+numberless petty and fussy and luxurious little superficialities which
+she had supposed were necessary to her happiness. What she had
+undertaken in vain conquest of Glenn’s pride and Flo Hutter’s Western
+tolerance she had found to be a boomerang. She had won Glenn’s
+admiration; she had won the Western girl’s recognition. But her
+passionate, stubborn desire had been ignoble, and was proved so by the
+rebound of her achievement, coming home to her with a sweetness she had
+not the courage to accept. She forced it from her. This West with its
+rawness, its ruggedness, she hated.
+
+Nevertheless, the June days passed, growing dreamily swift, growing
+more incomprehensibly full; and still she had not broached to Glenn the
+main object of her visit—to take him back East. Yet a little while
+longer! She hated his work and had not talked of that. Yet an honest
+consciousness told her that as time flew by she feared more and more to
+tell him that he was wasting his life there and that she could not bear
+it. Still was he wasting it? Once in a while a timid and unfamiliar
+Carley Burch voiced a pregnant query. Perhaps what held Carley back
+most was the happiness she achieved in her walks and rides with Glenn.
+She lingered because of them. Every day she loved him more, and
+yet—there was something. Was it in her or in him? She had a woman’s
+assurance of his love and sometimes she caught her breath—so sweet and
+strong was the tumultuous emotion it stirred. She preferred to enjoy
+while she could, to dream instead of think. But it was not possible to
+hold a blank, dreamy, lulled consciousness all the time. Thought would
+return. And not always could she drive away a feeling that Glenn would
+never be her slave. She divined something in his mind that kept him
+gentle and kindly, restrained always, sometimes melancholy and aloof,
+as if he were an impassive destiny waiting for the iron consequences he
+knew inevitably must fall. What was this that he knew which she did not
+know? The idea haunted her. Perhaps it was that which compelled her to
+use all her woman’s wiles and charms on Glenn. Still, though it
+thrilled her to see she made him love her more as the days passed, she
+could not blind herself to the truth that no softness or allurement of
+hers changed this strange restraint in him. How that baffled her! Was
+it resistance or knowledge or nobility or doubt?
+
+Flo Hutter’s twentieth birthday came along the middle of June, and all
+the neighbors and range hands for miles around were invited to
+celebrate it.
+
+For the second time during her visit Carley put on the white gown that
+had made Flo gasp with delight, and had stunned Mrs. Hutter, and had
+brought a reluctant compliment from Glenn. Carley liked to create a
+sensation. What were exquisite and expensive gowns for, if not that?
+
+It was twilight on this particular June night when she was ready to go
+downstairs, and she tarried a while on the long porch. The evening
+star, so lonely and radiant, so cold and passionless in the dusky blue,
+had become an object she waited for and watched, the same as she had
+come to love the dreaming, murmuring melody of the waterfall. She
+lingered there. What had the sights and sounds and smells of this wild
+canyon come to mean to her? She could not say. But they had changed her
+immeasurably.
+
+Her soft slippers made no sound on the porch, and as she turned the
+corner of the house, where shadows hovered thick, she heard Lee
+Stanton’s voice:
+
+“But, Flo, you loved me before Kilbourne came.”
+
+The content, the pathos, of his voice chained Carley to the spot. Some
+situations, like fate, were beyond resisting.
+
+“Shore I did,” replied Flo, dreamily. This was the voice of a girl who
+was being confronted by happy and sad thoughts on her birthday.
+
+“Don’t you—love me—still?” he asked, huskily.
+
+“Why, of course, Lee! _I_ don’t change,” she said.
+
+“But then, why—” There for the moment his utterance or courage failed.
+
+“Lee, do you want the honest to God’s truth?”
+
+“I reckon—I do.”
+
+“Well, I love you just as I always did,” replied Flo, earnestly. “But,
+Lee, I love—_him_ more than you or anybody.”
+
+“My Heaven! Flo—you’ll ruin us all!” he exclaimed, hoarsely.
+
+“No, I won’t either. You can’t say I’m not level headed. I hated to
+tell you this, Lee, but you made me.”
+
+“Flo, you love me an’ him—two men?” queried Stanton, incredulously.
+
+“I shore do,” she drawled, with a soft laugh. “And it’s no fun.”
+
+“Reckon I don’t cut much of a figure alongside Kilbourne,” said
+Stanton, disconsolately.
+
+“Lee, you could stand alongside any man,” replied Flo, eloquently.
+“You’re Western, and you’re steady and loyal, and you’ll—well, some day
+you’ll be like dad. Could I say more?... But, Lee, this man is
+_different_. He is wonderful. I can’t explain it, but I feel it. He has
+been through hell’s fire. Oh! will I ever forget his ravings when he
+lay so ill? He means more to me than just _one_ man. He’s American.
+You’re American, too, Lee, and you trained to be a soldier, and you
+would have made a grand one—if I know old Arizona. But you were not
+called to France.... Glenn Kilbourne went. God only knows what that
+means. But he _went_. And there’s the difference. I saw the wreck of
+him. I did a little to save his life and his mind. I wouldn’t be an
+American girl if I _didn’t_ love him.... Oh, Lee, can’t you
+understand?”
+
+“I reckon so. I’m not begrudging Glenn what—what you care. I’m only
+afraid I’ll lose you.”
+
+“I never promised to marry you, did I?”
+
+“Not in words. But kisses ought to—?”
+
+“Yes, kisses mean a lot,” she replied. “And so far I stand committed. I
+suppose I’ll marry you some day and be blamed lucky. I’ll be happy,
+too—don’t you overlook that hunch.... You needn’t worry. Glenn is in
+love with Carley. She’s beautiful, rich—and of his class. How could he
+ever see me?”
+
+“Flo, you can never tell,” replied Stanton, thoughtfully. “I didn’t
+like her at first. But I’m comin’ round. The thing is, Flo, does she
+love him as you love him?”
+
+“Oh, I think so—I hope so,” answered Flo, as if in distress.
+
+“I’m not so shore. But then I can’t savvy her. Lord knows I hope so,
+too. If she doesn’t—if she goes back East an’ leaves him here—I reckon
+my case—”
+
+“Hush! I know she’s out here to take him back. Let’s go downstairs
+now.”
+
+“Aw, wait—Flo,” he begged. “What’s your hurry?... Come-give me—”
+
+“There! That’s all you get, birthday or no birthday,” replied Flo,
+gayly.
+
+Carley heard the soft kiss and Stanton’s deep breath, and then
+footsteps as they walked away in the gloom toward the stairway. Carley
+leaned against the log wall. She felt the rough wood—smelled the rusty
+pine rosin. Her other hand pressed her bosom where her heart beat with
+unwonted vigor. Footsteps and voices sounded beneath her. Twilight had
+deepened into night. The low murmur of the waterfall and the babble of
+the brook floated to her strained ears.
+
+Listeners never heard good of themselves. But Stanton’s subtle doubt of
+any depth to her, though it hurt, was not so conflicting as the ringing
+truth of Flo Hutter’s love for Glenn. This unsought knowledge
+powerfully affected Carley. She was forewarned and forearmed now. It
+saddened her, yet did not lessen her confidence in her hold on Glenn.
+But it stirred to perplexing pitch her curiosity in regard to the
+mystery that seemed to cling round Glenn’s transformation of character.
+This Western girl really knew more about Glenn than his fiancée knew.
+Carley suffered a humiliating shock when she realized that she had been
+thinking of herself, of her love, her life, her needs, her wants
+instead of Glenn’s. It took no keen intelligence or insight into human
+nature to see that Glenn needed her more than she needed him.
+
+Thus unwontedly stirred and upset and flung back upon pride of herself,
+Carley went downstairs to meet the assembled company. And never had she
+shown to greater contrast, never had circumstance and state of mind
+contrived to make her so radiant and gay and unbending. She heard many
+remarks not intended for her far-reaching ears. An old grizzled
+Westerner remarked to Hutter: “Wall, she’s shore an unbroke filly.”
+Another of the company—a woman—remarked: “Sweet an’ pretty as a
+columbine. But I’d like her better if she was dressed decent.” And a
+gaunt range rider, who stood with others at the porch door, looking on,
+asked a comrade: “Do you reckon that’s style back East?” To which the
+other replied: “Mebbe, but I’d gamble they’re short on silk back East
+an’ likewise sheriffs.”
+
+Carley received some meed of gratification out of the sensation she
+created, but she did not carry her craving for it to the point of
+overshadowing Flo. On the contrary, she contrived to have Flo share the
+attention she received. She taught Flo to dance the fox-trot and got
+Glenn to dance with her. Then she taught it to Lee Stanton. And when
+Lee danced with Flo, to the infinite wonder and delight of the
+onlookers, Carley experienced her first sincere enjoyment of the
+evening.
+
+Her moment came when she danced with Glenn. It reminded her of days
+long past and which she wanted to return again. Despite war tramping
+and Western labors Glenn retained something of his old grace and
+lightness. But just to dance with him was enough to swell her heart,
+and for once she grew oblivious to the spectators.
+
+“Glenn, would you like to go to the Plaza with me again, and dance
+between dinner courses, as we used to?” she whispered up to him.
+
+“Sure I would—unless Morrison knew you were to be there,” he replied.
+
+“Glenn!... I would not even see him.”
+
+“Any old time you wouldn’t see Morrison!” he exclaimed, half mockingly.
+
+His doubt, his tone grated upon her. Pressing closer to him, she said,
+“Come back and I’ll prove it.”
+
+But he laughed and had no answer for her. At her own daring words
+Carley’s heart had leaped to her lips. If he had responded, even
+teasingly, she could have burst out with her longing to take him back.
+But silence inhibited her, and the moment passed.
+
+At the end of that dance Hutter claimed Glenn in the interest of
+neighboring sheep men. And Carley, crossing the big living room alone,
+passed close to one of the porch doors. Some one, indistinct in the
+shadow, spoke to her in low voice: “Hello, pretty eyes!”
+
+Carley felt a little cold shock go tingling through her. But she gave
+no sign that she had heard. She recognized the voice and also the
+epithet. Passing to the other side of the room and joining the company
+there, Carley presently took a casual glance at the door. Several men
+were lounging there. One of them was the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff. His
+bold eyes were on her now, and his coarse face wore a slight, meaning
+smile, as if he understood something about her that was a secret to
+others. Carley dropped her eyes. But she could not shake off the
+feeling that wherever she moved this man’s gaze followed her. The
+unpleasantness of this incident would have been nothing to Carley had
+she at once forgotten it. Most unaccountably, however, she could not
+make herself unaware of this ruffian’s attention. It did no good for
+her to argue that she was merely the cynosure of all eyes. This Ruff’s
+tone and look possessed something heretofore unknown to Carley. Once
+she was tempted to tell Glenn. But that would only cause a fight, so
+she kept her counsel. She danced again, and helped Flo entertain her
+guests, and passed that door often; and once stood before it,
+deliberately, with all the strange and contrary impulse so inscrutable
+in a woman, and never for a moment wholly lost the sense of the man’s
+boldness. It dawned upon her, at length, that the singular thing about
+this boldness was its difference from any, which had ever before
+affronted her. The fool’s smile meant that he thought she saw his
+attention, and, understanding it perfectly, had secret delight in it.
+Many and various had been the masculine egotisms which had come under
+her observation. But quite beyond Carley was this brawny sheep dipper,
+Haze Ruff. Once the party broke up and the guests had departed, she
+instantly forgot both man and incident.
+
+Next day, late in the afternoon, when Carley came out on the porch, she
+was hailed by Flo, who had just ridden in from down the canyon.
+
+“Hey Carley, come down. I shore have something to tell you,” she
+called.
+
+Carley did not use any time pattering down that rude porch stairway.
+Flo was dusty and hot, and her chaps carried the unmistakable scent of
+sheep-dip.
+
+“Been over to Ryan’s camp an’ shore rode hard to beat Glenn home,”
+drawled Flo.
+
+“Why?” queried Carley, eagerly.
+
+“Reckon I wanted to tell you something Glenn swore he wouldn’t let me
+tell. ... He makes me tired. He thinks you can’t stand things.”
+
+“Oh! Has he been—hurt?”
+
+“He’s skinned an’ bruised up some, but I reckon he’s not hurt.”
+
+“Flo—what happened?” demanded Carley, anxiously.
+
+“Carley, do you know Glenn can fight like the devil?” asked Flo.
+
+“No, I don’t. But I remember he used to be athletic. Flo, you make me
+nervous. Did Glenn fight?”
+
+“I reckon he did,” drawled Flo.
+
+“With whom?”
+
+“Nobody else but that big _hombre_, Haze Ruff.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Carley, with a violent start. “That—that ruffian! Flo, did
+you see—were you there?”
+
+“I shore was, an’ next to a horse race I like a fight,” replied the
+Western girl. “Carley, why didn’t you tell me Haze Ruff insulted you
+last night?”
+
+“Why, Flo—he only said, ‘Hello, pretty eyes,’ and I let it pass!” said
+Carley, lamely.
+
+“You never want to let anything pass, out West. Because next time
+you’ll get worse. This turn your other cheek doesn’t go in Arizona. But
+we shore thought Ruff said worse than that. Though from him that’s
+aplenty.”
+
+“How did you know?”
+
+“Well, Charley told it. He was standing out here by the door last night
+an’ he heard Ruff speak to you. Charley thinks a heap of you an’ I
+reckon he hates Ruff. Besides, Charley stretches things. He shore riled
+Glenn, an’ I want to say, my dear, you missed the best thing that’s
+happened since you got here.”
+
+“Hurry—tell me,” begged Carley, feeling the blood come to her face.
+
+“I rode over to Ryan’s place for dad, an’ when I got there I knew
+nothing about what Ruff said to you,” began Flo, and she took hold of
+Carley’s hand. “Neither did dad. You see, Glenn hadn’t got there yet.
+Well, just as the men had finished dipping a bunch of sheep Glenn came
+riding down, lickety cut.”
+
+“‘Now what the hell’s wrong with Glenn?’ said dad, getting up from
+where we sat.
+
+“Shore I knew Glenn was mad, though I never before saw him that way. He
+looked sort of grim an’ black.... Well, he rode right down on us an’
+piled off. Dad yelled at him an’ so did I. But Glenn made for the sheep
+pen. You know where we watched Haze Ruff an’ Lorenzo slinging the sheep
+into the dip. Ruff was just about to climb out over the fence when
+Glenn leaped up on it.”
+
+“‘Say, Ruff,’ he said, sort of hard, ‘Charley an’ Ben tell me they
+heard you speak disrespectfully to Miss Burch last night.’”
+
+“Dad an’ I ran to the fence, but before we could catch hold of Glenn
+he’d jumped down into the pen.”
+
+“‘I’m not carin’ much for what them herders say,’ replied Ruff.
+
+“‘Do you deny it?’ demanded Glenn.
+
+“‘I ain’t denyin’ nothin’, Kilbourne,’ growled Ruff. ‘I might argue
+against me bein’ disrespectful. That’s a matter of opinion.’
+
+“‘You’ll apologize for speaking to Miss Burch or I’ll beat you up an’
+have Hutter fire you.’
+
+“‘Wal, Kilbourne, I never eat my words,’ replied Ruff.
+
+“Then Glenn knocked him flat. You ought to have heard that crack.
+Sounded like Charley hitting a steer with a club. Dad yelled: ‘Look
+out, Glenn. He packs a gun!’—Ruff got up mad clear through I reckon.
+Then they mixed it. Ruff got in some swings, but he couldn’t reach
+Glenn’s face. An’ Glenn batted him right an’ left, every time in his
+ugly mug. Ruff got all bloody an’ he cussed something awful. Glenn beat
+him against the fence an’ then we all saw Ruff reach for a gun or
+knife. All the men yelled. An’ shore I screamed. But Glenn saw as much
+as we saw. He got fiercer. He beat Ruff down to his knees an’ swung on
+him hard. Deliberately knocked Ruff into the dip ditch. What a splash!
+It wet all of us. Ruff went out of sight. Then he rolled up like a huge
+hog. We were all scared now. That dip’s rank poison, you know. Reckon
+Ruff knew that. He floundered along an’ crawled up at the end. Anyone
+could see that he had mouth an’ eyes tight shut. He began to grope an’
+feel around, trying to find the way to the pond. One of the men led him
+out. It was great to see him wade in the water an’ wallow an’ souse his
+head under. When he came out the men got in front of him any stopped
+him. He shore looked bad.... An’ Glenn called to him, ‘Ruff, that
+sheep-dip won’t go through your tough hide, but a bullet will!”
+
+
+Not long after this incident Carley started out on her usual afternoon
+ride, having arranged with Glenn to meet her on his return from work.
+
+Toward the end of June Carley had advanced in her horsemanship to a
+point where Flo lent her one of her own mustangs. This change might not
+have had all to do with a wonderful difference in riding, but it seemed
+so to Carley. There was as much difference in horses as in people. This
+mustang she had ridden of late was of Navajo stock, but he had been
+born and raised and broken at Oak Creek. Carley had not yet discovered
+any objection on his part to do as she wanted him to. He liked what she
+liked, and most of all he liked to go. His color resembled a pattern of
+calico, and in accordance with Western ways his name was therefore
+Calico. Left to choose his own gait, Calico always dropped into a
+gentle pace which was so easy and comfortable and swinging that Carley
+never tired of it. Moreover, he did not shy at things lying in the road
+or rabbits darting from bushes or at the upwhirring of birds. Carley
+had grown attached to Calico before she realized she was drifting into
+it; and for Carley to care for anything or anybody was a serious
+matter, because it did not happen often and it lasted. She was
+exceedingly tenacious of affection.
+
+June had almost passed and summer lay upon the lonely land. Such
+perfect and wonderful weather had never before been Carley’s
+experience. The dawns broke cool, fresh, fragrant, sweet, and rosy,
+with a breeze that seemed of heaven rather than earth, and the air
+seemed tremulously full of the murmur of falling water and the melody
+of mocking birds. At the solemn noontides the great white sun glared
+down hot—so hot that it burned the skin, yet strangely was a pleasant
+burn. The waning afternoons were Carley’s especial torment, when it
+seemed the sounds and winds of the day were tiring, and all things were
+seeking repose, and life must soften to an unthinking happiness. These
+hours troubled Carley because she wanted them to last, and because she
+knew for her this changing and transforming time could not last. So
+long as she did not think she was satisfied.
+
+Maples and sycamores and oaks were in full foliage, and their bright
+greens contrasted softly with the dark shine of the pines. Through the
+spaces between brown tree trunks and the white-spotted holes of the
+sycamores gleamed the amber water of the creek. Always there was murmur
+of little rills and the musical dash of little rapids. On the surface
+of still, shady pools trout broke to make ever-widening ripples. Indian
+paintbrush, so brightly carmine in color, lent touch of fire to the
+green banks, and under the oaks, in cool dark nooks where mossy
+bowlders lined the stream, there were stately nodding yellow
+columbines. And high on the rock ledges shot up the wonderful mescal
+stalks, beginning to blossom, some with tints of gold and others with
+tones of red.
+
+Riding along down the canyon, under its looming walls, Carley wondered
+that if unawares to her these physical aspects of Arizona could have
+become more significant than she realized. The thought had confronted
+her before. Here, as always, she fought it and denied it by the simple
+defense of elimination. Yet refusing to think of a thing when it seemed
+ever present was not going to do forever. Insensibly and subtly it
+might get a hold on her, never to be broken. Yet it was infinitely
+easier to dream than to think.
+
+But the thought encroached upon her that it was not a dreamful habit of
+mind she had fallen into of late. When she dreamed or mused she lived
+vaguely and sweetly over past happy hours or dwelt in enchanted fancy
+upon a possible future. Carley had been told by a Columbia professor
+that she was a type of the present age—a modern young woman of
+materialistic mind. Be that as it might, she knew many things seemed
+loosening from the narrowness and tightness of her character, sloughing
+away like scales, exposing a new and strange and susceptible softness
+of fiber. And this blank habit of mind, when she did not think, and now
+realized that she was not dreaming, seemed to be the body of Carley
+Burch, and her heart and soul stripped of a shell. Nerve and emotion
+and spirit received something from her surroundings. She absorbed her
+environment. She felt. It was a delightful state. But when her own
+consciousness caused it to elude her, then she both resented and
+regretted. Anything that approached permanent attachment to this crude
+and untenanted West Carley would not tolerate for a moment. Reluctantly
+she admitted it had bettered her health, quickened her blood, and quite
+relegated Florida and the Adirondacks, to little consideration.
+
+“Well, as I told Glenn,” soliloquized Carley, “every time I’m almost
+won over a little to Arizona she gives me a hard jolt. I’m getting near
+being mushy today. Now let’s see what I’ll get. I suppose that’s my
+pessimism or materialism. Funny how Glenn keeps saying its the jolts,
+the hard knocks, the fights that are best to remember afterward. I
+don’t get that at all.”
+
+Five miles below West Fork a road branched off and climbed the left
+side of the canyon. It was a rather steep road, long and zigzaging, and
+full of rocks and ruts. Carley did not enjoy ascending it, but she
+preferred the going up to coming down. It took half an hour to climb.
+
+Once up on the flat cedar-dotted desert she was met, full in the face,
+by a hot dusty wind coming from the south. Carley searched her pockets
+for her goggles, only to ascertain that she had forgotten them.
+Nothing, except a freezing sleety wind, annoyed and punished Carley so
+much as a hard puffy wind, full of sand and dust. Somewhere along the
+first few miles of this road she was to meet Glenn. If she turned back
+for any cause he would be worried, and, what concerned her more
+vitally, he would think she had not the courage to face a little dust.
+So Carley rode on.
+
+The wind appeared to be gusty. It would blow hard awhile, then lull for
+a few moments. On the whole, however, it increased in volume and
+persistence until she was riding against a gale. She had now come to a
+bare, flat, gravelly region, scant of cedars and brush, and far ahead
+she could see a dull yellow pall rising high into the sky. It was a
+duststorm and it was sweeping down on the wings of that gale. Carley
+remembered that somewhere along this flat there was a log cabin which
+had before provided shelter for her and Flo when they were caught in a
+rainstorm. It seemed unlikely that she had passed by this cabin.
+
+Resolutely she faced the gale and knew she had a task to find that
+refuge. If there had been a big rock or bushy cedar to offer shelter
+she would have welcomed it. But there was nothing. When the hard dusty
+gusts hit her, she found it absolutely necessary to shut her eyes. At
+intervals less windy she opened them, and rode on, peering through the
+yellow gloom for the cabin. Thus she got her eyes full of dust—an
+alkali dust that made them sting and smart. The fiercer puffs of wind
+carried pebbles large enough to hurt severely. Then the dust clogged
+her nose and sand got between her teeth. Added to these annoyances was
+a heat like a blast from a furnace. Carley perspired freely and that
+caked the dust on her face. She rode on, gradually growing more
+uncomfortable and miserable. Yet even then she did not utterly lose a
+sort of thrilling zest in being thrown upon her own responsibility. She
+could hate an obstacle, yet feel something of pride in holding her own
+against it.
+
+Another mile of buffeting this increasing gale so exhausted Carley and
+wrought upon her nerves that she became nearly panic-stricken. It grew
+harder and harder not to turn back. At last she was about to give up
+when right at hand through the flying dust she espied the cabin. Riding
+behind it, she dismounted and tied the mustang to a post. Then she ran
+around to the door and entered.
+
+What a welcome refuge! She was all right now, and when Glenn came along
+she would have added to her already considerable list another feat for
+which he would commend her. With aid of her handkerchief, and the tears
+that flowed so copiously, Carley presently freed her eyes of the
+blinding dust. But when she essayed to remove it from her face she
+discovered she would need a towel and soap and hot water.
+
+The cabin appeared to be enveloped in a soft, swishing, hollow sound.
+It seeped and rustled. Then the sound lulled, only to rise again.
+Carley went to the door, relieved and glad to see that the duststorm
+was blowing by. The great sky-high pall of yellow had moved on to the
+north. Puffs of dust were whipping along the road, but no longer in one
+continuous cloud. In the west, low down the sun was sinking, a dull
+magenta in hue, quite weird and remarkable.
+
+“I knew I’d get the jolt all right,” soliloquized Carley, wearily, as
+she walked to a rude couch of poles and sat down upon it. She had begun
+to cool off. And there, feeling dirty and tired, and slowly wearing to
+the old depression, she composed herself to wait.
+
+Suddenly she heard the clip-clop of hoofs. “There! that’s Glenn,” she
+cried, gladly, and rising, she ran to the door.
+
+She saw a big bay horse bearing a burly rider. He discovered her at the
+same instant, and pulled his horse.
+
+“Ho! Ho! if it ain’t Pretty Eyes!” he called out, in gay, coarse voice.
+
+Carley recognized the voice, and then the epithet, before her sight
+established the man as Haze Ruff. A singular stultifying shock passed
+over her.
+
+“Wal, by all thet’s lucky!” he said, dismounting. “I knowed we’d meet
+some day. I can’t say I just laid fer you, but I kept my eyes open.”
+
+Manifestly he knew she was alone, for he did not glance into the cabin.
+
+“I’m waiting for—Glenn,” she said, with lips she tried to make stiff.
+
+“Shore I reckoned thet,” he replied, genially. “But he won’t be along
+yet awhile.”
+
+He spoke with a cheerful inflection of tone, as if the fact designated
+was one that would please her; and his swarthy, seamy face expanded
+into a good-humored, meaning smile. Then without any particular
+rudeness he pushed her back from the door, into the cabin, and stepped
+across the threshold.
+
+“How dare—you!” cried Carley. A hot anger that stirred in her seemed to
+be beaten down and smothered by a cold shaking internal commotion,
+threatening collapse. This man loomed over her, huge, somehow monstrous
+in his brawny uncouth presence. And his knowing smile, and the hard,
+glinting twinkle of his light eyes, devilishly intelligent and keen, in
+no wise lessened the sheer brutal force of him physically. Sight of his
+bulk was enough to terrorize Carley.
+
+“Me! Aw, I’m a darin’ _hombre_ an’ a devil with the wimmin,” he said,
+with a guffaw.
+
+Carley could not collect her wits. The instant of his pushing her back
+into the cabin and following her had shocked her and almost paralyzed
+her will. If she saw him now any the less fearful she could not so
+quickly rally her reason to any advantage.
+
+“Let me out of here,” she demanded.
+
+“Nope. I’m a-goin’ to make a little love to you,” he said, and he
+reached for her with great hairy hands.
+
+Carley saw in them the strength that had so easily swung the sheep. She
+saw, too, that they were dirty, greasy hands. And they made her flesh
+creep.
+
+“Glenn will kill—you,” she panted.
+
+“What fer?” he queried, in real or pretended surprise. “Aw, I know
+wimmin. You’ll never tell him.”
+
+“Yes, I will.”
+
+“Wal, mebbe. I reckon you’re lyin’, Pretty Eyes,” he replied, with a
+grin. “Anyhow, I’ll take a chance.”
+
+“I tell you—he’ll kill you,” repeated Carley, backing away until her
+weak knees came against the couch.
+
+“What fer, I ask you?” he demanded.
+
+“For this—this insult.”
+
+“Huh! I’d like to know who’s insulted you. Can’t a man take an
+invitation to kiss an’ hug a girl—without insultin’ her?”
+
+“Invitation!... Are you crazy?” queried Carley, bewildered.
+
+“Nope, I’m not crazy, an’ I shore said invitation.... I meant thet
+white shimmy dress you wore the night of Flo’s party. Thet’s my
+invitation to get a little fresh with you, Pretty Eyes!”
+
+Carley could only stare at him. His words seemed to have some peculiar,
+unanswerable power.
+
+“Wal, if it wasn’t an invitation, what was it?” he asked, with another
+step that brought him within reach of her. He waited for her answer,
+which was not forthcoming.
+
+“Wal, you’re gettin’ kinda pale around the gills,” he went on,
+derisively. “I reckoned you was a real sport.... Come here.”
+
+He fastened one of his great hands in the front of her coat and gave
+her a pull. So powerful was it that Carley came hard against him,
+almost knocking her breathless. There he held her a moment and then put
+his other arm round her. It seemed to crush both breath and sense out
+of her. Suddenly limp, she sank strengthless. She seemed reeling in
+darkness. Then she felt herself thrust away from him with violence. She
+sank on the couch and her head and shoulders struck the wall.
+
+“Say, if you’re a-goin’ to keel over like thet I pass,” declared Ruff,
+in disgust. “Can’t you Eastern wimmin stand nothin?”
+
+Carley’s eyes opened and beheld this man in an attitude of supremely
+derisive protest.
+
+“You look like a sick kitten,” he added. “When I get me a sweetheart or
+wife I want her to be a wild cat.”
+
+His scorn and repudiation of her gave Carley intense relief. She sat up
+and endeavored to collect her shattered nerves. Ruff gazed down at her
+with great disapproval and even disappointment.
+
+“Say, did you have some fool idee I was a-goin’ to kill you?” he
+queried, gruffly.
+
+“I’m afraid—I did,” faltered Carley. Her relief was a release; it was
+so strange that it was gratefulness.
+
+“Wal, I reckon I wouldn’t have hurt you. None of these flop-over Janes
+for me!... An’ I’ll give you a hunch, Pretty Eyes. You might have run
+acrost a fellar thet was no gentleman!”
+
+Of all the amazing statements that had ever been made to Carley, this
+one seemed the most remarkable.
+
+“What’d you wear thet onnatural white dress fer?” he demanded, as if he
+had a right to be her judge.
+
+“Unnatural?” echoed Carley.
+
+“Shore. Thet’s what I said. Any woman’s dress without top or bottom is
+onnatural. It’s not right. Why, you looked like—like”—here he
+floundered for adequate expression—“like one of the devil’s angels. An’
+I want to hear why you wore it.”
+
+“For the same reason I’d wear any dress,” she felt forced to reply.
+
+“Pretty Eyes, thet’s a lie. An’ you know it’s a lie. You wore thet
+white dress to knock the daylights out of men. Only you ain’t honest
+enough to say so.... Even me or my kind! Even us, who’re dirt under
+your little feet. But all the same we’re men, an’ mebbe better men than
+you think. If you had to put that dress on, why didn’t you stay in your
+room? Naw, you had to come down an’ strut around an’ show off your
+beauty. An’ I ask you—if you’re a nice girl like Flo Hutter—what’d you
+wear it fer?”
+
+Carley not only was mute; she felt rise and burn in her a singular
+shame and surprise.
+
+“I’m only a sheep dipper,” went on Ruff, “but I ain’t no fool. A fellar
+doesn’t have to live East an’ wear swell clothes to have sense. Mebbe
+you’ll learn thet the West is bigger’n you think. A man’s a man East or
+West. But if your Eastern men stand for such dresses as thet white one
+they’d do well to come out West awhile, like your lover, Glenn
+Kilbourne. I’ve been rustlin’ round here ten years, an’ I never before
+seen a dress like yours—an’ I never heerd of a girl bein’ insulted,
+either. Mebbe you think I insulted you. Wal, I didn’t. Fer I reckon
+_nothin_’ could insult you in thet dress.... An’ my last hunch is this,
+Pretty Eyes. You’re not what a _hombre_ like me calls either square or
+game. _Adios_.”
+
+His bulky figure darkened the doorway, passed out, and the light of the
+sky streamed into the cabin again. Carley sat staring. She heard Ruff’s
+spurs tinkle, then the ring of steel on stirrup, a sodden leathery
+sound as he mounted, and after that a rapid pound of hoofs, quickly
+dying away.
+
+He was gone. She had escaped something raw and violent. Dazedly she
+realized it, with unutterable relief. And she sat there slowly
+gathering the nervous force that had been shattered. Every word that he
+had uttered was stamped in startling characters upon her consciousness.
+But she was still under the deadening influence of shock. This raw
+experience was the worst the West had yet dealt her. It brought back
+former states of revulsion and formed them in one whole irrefutable and
+damning judgment that seemed to blot out the vaguely dawning and
+growing happy susceptibilities. It was, perhaps, just as well to have
+her mind reverted to realistic fact. The presence of Haze Ruff, the
+astounding truth of the contact with his huge sheep-defiled hands, had
+been profanation and degradation under which she sickened with fear and
+shame. Yet hovering back of her shame and rising anger seemed to be a
+pale, monstrous, and indefinable thought, insistent and accusing, with
+which she must sooner or later reckon. It might have been the voice of
+the new side of her nature, but at that moment of outraged womanhood,
+and of revolt against the West, she would not listen. It might, too,
+have been the still small voice of conscience. But decision of mind and
+energy coming to her then, she threw off the burden of emotion and
+perplexity, and forced herself into composure before the arrival of
+Glenn.
+
+The dust had ceased to blow, although the wind had by no means died
+away. Sunset marked the west in old rose and gold, a vast flare. Carley
+espied a horseman far down the road, and presently recognized both
+rider and steed. He was coming fast. She went out and, mounting her
+mustang, she rode out to meet Glenn. It did not appeal to her to wait
+for him at the cabin; besides hoof tracks other than those made by her
+mustang might have been noticed by Glenn. Presently he came up to her
+and pulled his loping horse.
+
+“Hello! I sure was worried,” was his greeting, as his gloved hand went
+out to her. “Did you run into that sandstorm?”
+
+“It ran into me, Glenn, and buried me,” she laughed.
+
+His fine eyes lingered on her face with glad and warm glance, and the
+keen, apprehensive penetration of a lover.
+
+“Well, under all that dust you look scared,” he said.
+
+“Scared! I was worse than that. When I first ran into the flying dirt I
+was only afraid I’d lose my way—and my complexion. But when the worst
+of the storm hit me—then I feared I’d lose my breath.”
+
+“Did you face that sand and ride through it all?” he queried.
+
+“No, not all. But enough. I went through the worst of it before I
+reached the cabin,” she replied.
+
+“Wasn’t it great?”
+
+“Yes—great bother and annoyance,” she said, laconically.
+
+Whereupon he reached with long, arm and wrapped it round her as they
+rocked side by side. Demonstrations of this nature were infrequent with
+Glenn. Despite losing one foot out of a stirrup and her seat in the
+saddle Carley rather encouraged it. He kissed her dusty face, and then
+set her back.
+
+“By George! Carley, sometimes I think you’ve changed since you’ve been
+here,” he said, with warmth. “To go through that sandstorm without one
+kick—one knock at my West!”
+
+“Glenn, I always think of what Flo says—the worst is yet to come,”
+replied Carley, trying to hide her unreasonable and tumultuous pleasure
+at words of praise from him.
+
+“Carley Burch, you don’t know yourself,” he declared, enigmatically.
+
+“What woman knows herself? But do you know me?”
+
+“Not I. Yet sometimes I see depths in you—wonderful
+possibilities—submerged under your poise—under your fixed, complacent
+idle attitude toward life.”
+
+This seemed for Carley to be dangerously skating near thin ice, but she
+could not resist a retort:
+
+“Depths in me? Why I am a shallow, transparent stream like your West
+Fork! ... And as for possibilities—may I ask what of them you imagine
+you see?”
+
+“As a girl, before you were claimed by the world, you were earnest at
+heart. You had big hopes and dreams. And you had intellect, too. But
+you have wasted your talents, Carley. Having money, and spending it,
+living for pleasure, you have not realized your powers.... Now, don’t
+look hurt. I’m not censuring you. It’s just the way of modern life. And
+most of your friends have been more careless, thoughtless, useless than
+you. The aim of their existence is to be comfortable, free from work,
+worry, pain. They want pleasure, luxury. And what a pity it is! The
+best of you girls regard marriage as an escape, instead of
+responsibility. You don’t marry to get your shoulders square against
+the old wheel of American progress—to help some man make good—to bring
+a troop of healthy American kids into the world. You bare your
+shoulders to the gaze of the multitude and like it best if you are
+strung with pearls.”
+
+“Glenn, you distress me when you talk like this,” replied Carley,
+soberly. “You did not use to talk so. It seems to me you are bitter
+against women.”
+
+“Oh no, Carley! I am only sad,” he said. “I only see where once I was
+blind. American women are the finest on earth, but as a race, if they
+don’t change, they’re doomed to extinction.”
+
+“How can you say such things?” demanded Carley, with spirit.
+
+“I say them because they are true. Carley, on the level now, tell me
+how many of your immediate friends have children.”
+
+Put to a test, Carley rapidly went over in mind her circle of friends,
+with the result that she was somewhat shocked and amazed to realize how
+few of them were even married, and how the babies of her acquaintance
+were limited to three. It was not easy to admit this to Glenn.
+
+“My dear,” replied he, “if that does not show you the handwriting on
+the wall, nothing ever will.”
+
+“A girl has to find a husband, doesn’t she?” asked Carley, roused to
+defense of her sex. “And if she’s anybody she has to find one in her
+set. Well, husbands are not plentiful. Marriage certainly is not the
+end of existence these days. We have to get along somehow. The high
+cost of living is no inconsderable factor today. Do you know that most
+of the better-class apartment houses in New York will not take
+children? Women are not all to blame. Take the speed mania. Men must
+have automobiles. I know one girl who wanted a baby, but her husband
+wanted a car. They couldn’t afford both.”
+
+“Carley, I’m not blaming women more than men,” returned Glenn. “I don’t
+know that I blame them as a class. But in my own mind I have worked it
+all out. Every man or woman who is genuinely American should read the
+signs of the times, realize the crisis, and meet it in an American way.
+Otherwise we are done as a race. Money is God in the older countries.
+But it should never become God in America. If it does we will make the
+fall of Rome pale into insignificance.”
+
+“Glenn, let’s put off the argument,” appealed Carley. “I’m not—just up
+to fighting you today. Oh—you needn’t smile. I’m not showing a yellow
+streak, as Flo puts it. I’ll fight you some other time.”
+
+“You’re right, Carley,” he assented. “Here we are loafing six or seven
+miles from home. Let’s rustle along.”
+
+Riding fast with Glenn was something Carley had only of late added to
+her achievements. She had greatest pride in it. So she urged her
+mustang to keep pace with Glenn’s horse and gave herself up to the
+thrill of the motion and feel of wind and sense of flying along. At a
+good swinging lope Calico covered ground swiftly and did not tire.
+Carley rode the two miles to the rim of the canyon, keeping alongside
+of Glenn all the way. Indeed, for one long level stretch she and Glenn
+held hands. When they arrived at the descent, which necessitated slow
+and careful riding, she was hot and tingling and breathless, worked by
+the action into an exuberance of pleasure. Glenn complimented her
+riding as well as her rosy cheeks. There was indeed a sweetness in
+working at a task as she had worked to learn to ride in Western
+fashion. Every turn of her mind seemed to confront her with sobering
+antitheses of thought. Why had she come to love to ride down a lonely
+desert road, through ragged cedars where the wind whipped her face with
+fragrant wild breath, if at the same time she hated the West? Could she
+hate a country, however barren and rough, if it had saved the health
+and happiness of her future husband? Verily there were problems for
+Carley to solve.
+
+Early twilight purple lay low in the hollows and clefts of the canyon.
+Over the western rim a pale ghost of the evening star seemed to smile
+at Carley, to bid her look and look. Like a strain of distant music,
+the dreamy hum of falling water, the murmur and melody of the stream,
+came again to Carley’s sensitive ear.
+
+“Do you love this?” asked Glenn, when they reached the green-forested
+canyon floor, with the yellow road winding away into the purple
+shadows.
+
+“Yes, both the ride—and you,” flashed Carley, contrarily. She knew he
+had meant the deep-walled canyon with its brooding solitude.
+
+“But I want you to love Arizona,” he said.
+
+“Glenn, I’m a faithful creature. You should be glad of that. I love New
+York.”
+
+“Very well, then. Arizona to New York,” he said, lightly brushing her
+cheek with his lips. And swerving back into his saddle, he spurred his
+horse and called back over his shoulder: “That mustang and Flo have
+beaten me many a time. Come on.”
+
+It was not so much his words as his tone and look that roused Carley.
+Had he resented her loyalty to the city of her nativity? Always there
+was a little rift in the lute. Had his tone and look meant that Flo
+might catch him if Carley could not? Absurd as the idea was, it spurred
+her to recklessness. Her mustang did not need any more than to know she
+wanted him to run. The road was of soft yellow earth flanked with green
+foliage and overspread by pines. In a moment she was racing at a speed
+she had never before half attained on a horse. Down the winding road
+Glenn’s big steed sped, his head low, his stride tremendous, his action
+beautiful. But Carley saw the distance between them diminishing. Calico
+was overtaking the bay. She cried out in the thrilling excitement of
+the moment. Glenn saw her gaining and pressed his mount to greater
+speed. Still he could not draw away from Calico. Slowly the little
+mustang gained. It seemed to Carley that riding him required no effort
+at all. And at such fast pace, with the wind roaring in her ears, the
+walls of green vague and continuous in her sight, the sting of pine
+tips on cheek and neck, the yellow road streaming toward her, under
+her, there rose out of the depths of her, out of the tumult of her
+breast, a sense of glorious exultation. She closed in on Glenn. From
+the flying hoofs of his horse shot up showers of damp sand and gravel
+that covered Carley’s riding habit and spattered in her face. She had
+to hold up a hand before her eyes. Perhaps this caused her to lose
+something of her confidence, or her swing in the saddle, for suddenly
+she realized she was not riding well. The pace was too fast for her
+inexperience. But nothing could have stopped her then. No fear or
+awkwardness of hers should be allowed to hamper that thoroughbred
+mustang. Carley felt that Calico understood the situation; or at least
+he knew he could catch and pass this big bay horse, and he intended to
+do it. Carley was hard put to it to hang on and keep the flying sand
+from blinding her.
+
+When Calico drew alongside the bay horse and brought Carley breast to
+breast with Glenn, and then inch by inch forged ahead of him, Carley
+pealed out an exultant cry. Either it frightened Calico or inspired
+him, for he shot right ahead of Glenn’s horse. Then he lost the smooth,
+wonderful action. He seemed hurtling through space at the expense of
+tremendous muscular action. Carley could feel it. She lost her
+equilibrium. She seemed rushing through a blurred green and black aisle
+of the forest with a gale in her face. Then, with a sharp jolt, a
+break, Calico plunged to the sand. Carley felt herself propelled
+forward out of the saddle into the air, and down to strike with a
+sliding, stunning force that ended in sudden dark oblivion.
+
+Upon recovering consciousness she first felt a sensation of oppression
+in her chest and a dull numbness of her whole body. When she opened her
+eyes she saw Glenn bending over her, holding her head on his knee. A
+wet, cold, reviving sensation evidently came from the handkerchief with
+which he was mopping her face.
+
+“Carley, you can’t be hurt—really!” he was ejaculating, in eager hope.
+“It was some spill. But you lit on the sand and slid. You can’t be
+hurt.”
+
+The look of his eyes, the tone of his voice, the feel of his hands were
+such that Carley chose for a moment to pretend to be very badly hurt
+indeed. It was worth taking a header to get so much from Glenn
+Kilbourne. But she believed she had suffered no more than a severe
+bruising and scraping.
+
+“Glenn—dear,” she whispered, very low and very eloquently. “I think—my
+back—is broken.... You’ll be free—soon.”
+
+Glenn gave a terrible start and his face turned a deathly white. He
+burst out with quavering, inarticulate speech.
+
+Carley gazed up at him and then closed her eyes. She could not look at
+him while carrying on such deceit. Yet the sight of him and the feel of
+him then were inexpressibly blissful to her. What she needed most was
+assurance of his love. She had it. Beyond doubt, beyond morbid fancy,
+the truth had proclaimed itself, filling her heart with joy.
+
+Suddenly she flung her arms up around his neck. “Oh—Glenn! It was too
+good a chance to miss!... I’m not hurt a bit.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The day came when Carley asked Mrs. Hutter: “Will you please put up a
+nice lunch for Glenn and me? I’m going to walk down to his farm where
+he’s working, and surprise him.”
+
+“That’s a downright fine idea,” declared Mrs. Hutter, and forthwith
+bustled away to comply with Carley’s request.
+
+So presently Carley found herself carrying a bountiful basket on her
+arm, faring forth on an adventure that both thrilled and depressed her.
+Long before this hour something about Glenn’s work had quickened her
+pulse and given rise to an inexplicable admiration. That he was big and
+strong enough to do such labor made her proud; that he might want to go
+on doing it made her ponder and brood.
+
+The morning resembled one of the rare Eastern days in June, when the
+air appeared flooded by rich thick amber light. Only the sun here was
+hotter and the shade cooler.
+
+Carley took to the trail below where West Fork emptied its golden-green
+waters into Oak Creek. The red walls seemed to dream and wait under the
+blaze of the sun; the heat lay like a blanket over the still foliage;
+the birds were quiet; only the murmuring stream broke the silence of
+the canyon. Never had Carley felt more the isolation and solitude of
+Oak Creek Canyon. Far indeed from the madding crowd! Only Carley’s
+stubbornness kept her from acknowledging the sense of peace that
+enveloped her—that and the consciousness of her own discontent. What
+would it be like to come to this canyon—to give up to its enchantments?
+That, like many another disturbing thought, had to go unanswered, to be
+driven into the closed chambers of Carley’s mind, there to germinate
+subconsciously, and stalk forth some day to overwhelm her.
+
+The trail led along the creek, threading a maze of bowlders, passing
+into the shade of cottonwoods, and crossing sun-flecked patches of
+sand. Carley’s every step seemed to become slower. Regrets were
+assailing her. Long indeed had she overstayed her visit to the West.
+She must not linger there indefinitely. And mingled with misgiving was
+a surprise that she had not tired of Oak Creek. In spite of all, and of
+the dislike she vaunted to herself, the truth stared at her—she was not
+tired.
+
+The long-delayed visit to see Glenn working on his own farm must result
+in her talking to him about his work; and in a way not quite clear she
+regretted the necessity for it. To disapprove of Glenn! She received
+faint intimations of wavering, of uncertainty, of vague doubt. But
+these were cried down by the dominant and habitable voice of her
+personality.
+
+Presently through the shaded and shadowed breadth of the belt of forest
+she saw gleams of a sunlit clearing. And crossing this space to the
+border of trees she peered forth, hoping to espy Glenn at his labors.
+She saw an old shack, and irregular lines of rude fence built of poles
+of all sizes and shapes, and several plots of bare yellow ground,
+leading up toward the west side of the canyon wall. Could this clearing
+be Glenn’s farm? Surely she had missed it or had not gone far enough.
+This was not a farm, but a slash in the forested level of the canyon
+floor, bare and somehow hideous. Dead trees were standing in the lots.
+They had been ringed deeply at the base by an ax, to kill them, and so
+prevent their foliage from shading the soil. Carley saw a long pile of
+rocks that evidently had been carried from the plowed ground. There was
+no neatness, no regularity, although there was abundant evidence of
+toil. To clear that rugged space, to fence it, and plow it, appeared at
+once to Carley an extremely strenuous and useless task. Carley
+persuaded herself that this must be the plot of ground belonging to the
+herder Charley, and she was about to turn on down the creek when far up
+under the bluff she espied a man. He was stalking along and bending
+down, stalking along and bending down. She recognized Glenn. He was
+planting something in the yellow soil.
+
+Curiously Carley watched him, and did not allow her mind to become
+concerned with a somewhat painful swell of her heart. What a stride he
+had! How vigorous he looked, and earnest! He was as intent upon this
+job as if he had been a rustic. He might have been failing to do it
+well, but he most certainly was doing it conscientiously. Once he had
+said to her that a man should never be judged by the result of his
+labors, but by the nature of his effort. A man might strive with all
+his heart and strength, yet fail. Carley watched him striding along and
+bending down, absorbed in his task, unmindful of the glaring hot sun,
+and somehow to her singularly detached from the life wherein he had
+once moved and to which she yearned to take him back. Suddenly an
+unaccountable flashing query assailed her conscience: How dare she want
+to take him back? She seemed as shocked as if some stranger had
+accosted her. What was this dimming of her eye, this inward
+tremulousness; this dammed tide beating at an unknown and riveted gate
+of her intelligence? She felt more then than she dared to face. She
+struggled against something in herself. The old habit of mind
+instinctively resisted the new, the strange. But she did not come off
+wholly victorious. The Carley Burch whom she recognized as of old,
+passionately hated this life and work of Glenn Kilbourne’s, but the
+rebel self, an unaccountable and defiant Carley, loved him all the
+better for them.
+
+Carley drew a long deep breath before she called Glenn. This meeting
+would be momentous and she felt no absolute surety of herself.
+
+Manifestly he was surprised to hear her call, and, dropping his sack
+and implement, he hurried across the tilled ground, sending up puffs of
+dust. He vaulted the rude fence of poles, and upon sight of her called
+out lustily. How big and virile he looked! Yet he was gaunt and
+strained. It struck Carley that he had not looked so upon her arrival
+at Oak Creek. Had she worried him? The query gave her a pang.
+
+“Sir Tiller of the Fields,” said Carley, gayly, “see, your dinner! _I_
+brought it and _I_ am going to share it.”
+
+“You old darling!” he replied, and gave her an embrace that left her
+cheek moist with the sweat of his. He smelled of dust and earth and his
+body was hot. “I wish to God it could be true for always!”
+
+His loving, bearish onslaught and his words quite silenced Carley. How
+at critical moments he always said the thing that hurt her or inhibited
+her! She essayed a smile as she drew back from him.
+
+“It’s sure good of you,” he said, taking the basket. “I was thinking
+I’d be through work sooner today, and was sorry I had not made a date
+with you. Come, we’ll find a place to sit.”
+
+Whereupon he led her back under the trees to a half-sunny, half-shady
+bench of rock overhanging the stream. Great pines overshadowed a still,
+eddying pool. A number of brown butterflies hovered over the water, and
+small trout floated like spotted feathers just under the surface.
+Drowsy summer enfolded the sylvan scene.
+
+Glenn knelt at the edge of the brook, and, plunging his hands in, he
+splashed like a huge dog and bathed his hot face and head, and then
+turned to Carley with gay words and laughter, while he wiped himself
+dry with a large red scarf. Carley was not proof against the virility
+of him then, and at the moment, no matter what it was that had made him
+the man he looked, she loved it.
+
+“I’ll sit in the sun,” he said, designating a place. “When you’re hot
+you mustn’t rest in the shade, unless you’ve coat or sweater. But you
+sit here in the shade.”
+
+“Glenn, that’ll put us too far apart,” complained Carley. “I’ll sit in
+the sun with you.”
+
+The delightful simplicity and happiness of the ensuing hour was
+something Carley believed she would never forget.
+
+“There! we’ve licked the platter clean,” she said. “What starved bears
+we were!.... I wonder if I shall enjoy eating—when I get home. I used
+to be so finnicky and picky.”
+
+“Carley, don’t talk about home,” said Glenn, appealingly.
+
+“You dear old farmer, I’d love to stay here and just dream—forever,”
+replied Carley, earnestly. “But I came on purpose to talk seriously.”
+
+“Oh, you did! About what?” he returned, with some quick, indefinable
+change of tone and expression.
+
+“Well, first about your work. I know I hurt your feelings when I
+wouldn’t listen. But I wasn’t ready. I wanted to—to just be gay with
+you for a while. Don’t think I wasn’t interested. I was. And now, I’m
+ready to hear all about it—and everything.”
+
+She smiled at him bravely, and she knew that unless some unforeseen
+shock upset her composure, she would be able to conceal from him
+anything which might hurt his feelings.
+
+“You do look serious,” he said, with keen eyes on her.
+
+“Just what are your business relations with Hutter?” she inquired.
+
+“I’m simply working for him,” replied Glenn. “My aim is to get an
+interest in his sheep, and I expect to, some day. We have some plans.
+And one of them is the development of that Deep Lake section. You
+remember—you were with us. The day Spillbeans spilled you?”
+
+“Yes, I remember. It was a pretty place,” she replied.
+
+Carley did not tell him that for a month past she had owned the Deep
+Lake section of six hundred and forty acres. She had, in fact,
+instructed Hutter to purchase it, and to keep the transaction a secret
+for the present. Carley had never been able to understand the impulse
+that prompted her to do it. But as Hutter had assured her it was a
+remarkably good investment on very little capital, she had tried to
+persuade herself of its advantages. Back of it all had been an
+irresistible desire to be able some day to present to Glenn this ranch
+site he loved. She had concluded he would never wholly dissociate
+himself from this West; and as he would visit it now and then, she had
+already begun forming plans of her own. She could stand a month in
+Arizona at long intervals.
+
+“Hutter and I will go into cattle raising some day,” went on Glenn.
+“And that Deep Lake place is what I want for myself.”
+
+“What work are you doing for Hutter?” asked Carley.
+
+“Anything from building fence to cutting timber,” laughed Glenn. “I’ve
+not yet the experience to be a foreman like Lee Stanton. Besides, I
+have a little business all my own. I put all my money in that.”
+
+“You mean here—this—this farm?”
+
+“Yes. And the stock I’m raisin’. You see I have to feed corn. And
+believe me, Carley, those cornfields represent some job.”
+
+“I can well believe that,” replied Carley. “You—you looked it.”
+
+“Oh, the hard work is over. All I have to do now it to plant and keep
+the weeds out.”
+
+“Glenn, do sheep eat corn?”
+
+“I plant corn to feed my hogs.”
+
+“Hogs?” she echoed, vaguely.
+
+“Yes, hogs,” he said, with quiet gravity. “The first day you visited my
+cabin I told you I raised hogs, and I fried my own ham for your
+dinner.”
+
+“Is that what you—put your money in?”
+
+“Yes. And Hutter says I’ve done well.”
+
+“_Hogs!_” ejaculated Carley, aghast.
+
+“My dear, are you growin’ dull of comprehension?” retorted Glenn.
+“H-o-g-s.” He spelled the word out. “I’m in the hog-raising business,
+and pretty blamed well pleased over my success so far.”
+
+Carley caught herself in time to quell outwardly a shock of amaze and
+revulsion. She laughed, and exclaimed against her stupidity. The look
+of Glenn was no less astounding than the content of his words. He was
+actually proud of his work. Moreover, he showed not the least sign that
+he had any idea such information might be startlingly obnoxious to his
+fiancée.
+
+“Glenn! It’s so—so queer,” she ejaculated. “That you—Glenn
+Kilbourne-should ever go in for—for hogs!... It’s unbelievable. How’d
+you ever—ever happen to do it?”
+
+“By Heaven! you’re hard on me!” he burst out, in sudden dark, fierce
+passion. “How’d I ever happen to do it?... _What_ was there left for
+me? I gave my soul and heart and body to the government—to fight for my
+country. I came home a wreck. _What_ did my government do for me?
+_What_ did my employers do for me? _What_ did the people I fought for
+do for me?... Nothing—so help me God—_nothing!_... I got a ribbon and a
+bouquet—a little applause for an hour—and then the sight of me sickened
+my countrymen. I was broken and used. I was absolutely forgotten....
+But my body, my life, my soul meant _all_ to me. My future was ruined,
+but I wanted to live. I had killed men who never harmed me—I was not
+fit to die.... I _tried_ to live. So I fought out my battle alone.
+Alone!... No one understood. No one cared. I came West to keep from
+dying of consumption in sight of the indifferent mob for whom I had
+sacrificed myself. I chose to die on my feet away off alone
+somewhere.... But I got well. And what _made_ me well—and _saved_ my
+soul—was the first work that offered. _Raising and tending hogs!_”
+
+The dead whiteness of Glenn’s face, the lightning scorn of his eyes,
+the grim, stark strangeness of him then had for Carley a terrible
+harmony with this passionate denunciation of her, of her kind, of the
+America for whom he had lost all.
+
+“Oh, Glenn!—forgive—me!” she faltered. “I was only—talking. What do I
+know? Oh, I am blind—blind and little!”
+
+She could not bear to face him for a moment, and she hung her head. Her
+intelligence seemed concentrating swift, wild thoughts round the shock
+to her consciousness. By that terrible expression of his face, by those
+thundering words of scorn, would she come to realize the mighty truth
+of his descent into the abyss and his rise to the heights. Vaguely she
+began to see. An awful sense of her deadness, of her soul-blighting
+selfishness, began to dawn upon her as something monstrous out of dim,
+gray obscurity. She trembled under the reality of thoughts that were
+not new. How she had babbled about Glenn and the crippled soldiers! How
+she had imagined she sympathized! But she had only been a vain,
+worldly, complacent, effusive little fool. She had here the shock of
+her life, and she sensed a greater one, impossible to grasp.
+
+“Carley, that was coming to you,” said Glenn, presently, with deep,
+heavy expulsion of breath.
+
+“I only know I love you—more—more,” she cried, wildly, looking up and
+wanting desperately to throw herself in his arms.
+
+“I guess you do—a little,” he replied. “Sometimes I feel you are a kid.
+Then again you represent the world—your world with its age-old
+custom—its unalterable.... But, Carley, let’s get back to my work.”
+
+“Yes—yes,” exclaimed Carley, gladly. “I’m ready to—to go pet your
+hogs—anything.”
+
+“By George! I’ll take you up,” he declared. “I’ll bet you won’t go near
+one of my hogpens.”
+
+“Lead me to it!” she replied, with a hilarity that was only a nervous
+reversion of her state.
+
+“Well, maybe I’d better hedge on the bet,” he said, laughing again.
+“You have more in you than I suspect. You sure fooled me when you stood
+for the sheep-dip. But, come on, I’ll take you anyway.”
+
+So that was how Carley found herself walking arm in arm with Glenn down
+the canyon trail. A few moments of action gave her at least an
+appearance of outward composure. And the state of her emotion was so
+strained and intense that her slightest show of interest must deceive
+Glenn into thinking her eager, responsive, enthusiastic. It certainly
+appeared to loosen his tongue. But Carley knew she was farther from
+normal than ever before in her life, and that the subtle, inscrutable
+woman’s intuition of her presaged another shock. Just as she had seemed
+to change, so had the aspects of the canyon undergone some illusive
+transformation. The beauty of green foliage and amber stream and brown
+tree trunks and gray rocks and red walls was there; and the summer
+drowsiness and languor lay as deep; and the loneliness and solitude
+brooded with its same eternal significance. But some nameless
+enchantment, perhaps of hope, seemed no longer to encompass her. A blow
+had fallen upon her, the nature of which only time could divulge.
+
+Glenn led her around the clearing and up to the base of the west wall,
+where against a shelving portion of the cliff had been constructed a
+rude fence of poles. It formed three sides of a pen, and the fourth
+side was solid rock. A bushy cedar tree stood in the center. Water
+flowed from under the cliff, which accounted for the boggy condition of
+the red earth. This pen was occupied by a huge sow and a litter of
+pigs.
+
+Carley climbed on the fence and sat there while Glenn leaned over the
+top pole and began to wax eloquent on a subject evidently dear to his
+heart. Today of all days Carley made an inspiring listener. Even the
+shiny, muddy, suspicious old sow in no wise daunted her fictitious
+courage. That filthy pen of mud a foot deep, and of odor rancid, had no
+terrors for her. With an arm round Glenn’s shoulder she watched the
+rooting and squealing little pigs, and was amused and interested, as if
+they were far removed from the vital issue of the hour. But all the
+time as she looked and laughed, and encouraged Glenn to talk, there
+seemed to be a strange, solemn, oppressive knocking at her heart. Was
+it only the beat-beat-beat of blood?
+
+“There were twelve pigs in that litter,” Glenn was saying, “and now you
+see there are only nine. I’ve lost three. Mountain lions, bears,
+coyotes, wild cats are all likely to steal a pig. And at first I was
+sure one of these varmints had been robbing me. But as I could not find
+any tracks, I knew I had to lay the blame on something else. So I kept
+watch pretty closely in daytime, and at night I shut the pigs up in the
+corner there, where you see I’ve built a pen. Yesterday I heard
+squealing—and, by George! I saw an eagle flying off with one of my
+pigs. Say, I was mad. A great old bald-headed eagle—the regal bird you
+see with America’s stars and stripes had degraded himself to the level
+of a coyote. I ran for my rifle, and I took some quick shots at him as
+he flew up. Tried to hit him, too, but I failed. And the old rascal
+hung on to my pig. I watched him carry it to that sharp crag way up
+there on the rim.”
+
+“Poor little piggy!” exclaimed Carley. “To think of our American
+emblem—our stately bird of noble warlike mien—our symbol of lonely
+grandeur and freedom of the heights—think of him being a robber of
+pigpens!—Glenn, I begin to appreciate the many-sidedness of things.
+Even my hide-bound narrowness is susceptible to change. It’s never too
+late to learn. This should apply to the Society for the Preservation of
+the American Eagle.”
+
+Glenn led her along the base of the wall to three other pens, in each
+of which was a fat old sow with a litter. And at the last enclosure,
+that owing to dry soil was not so dirty, Glenn picked up a little pig
+and held it squealing out to Carley as she leaned over the fence. It
+was fairly white and clean, a little pink and fuzzy, and certainly cute
+with its curled tall.
+
+“Carley Burch, take it in your hands,” commanded Glenn.
+
+The feat seemed monstrous and impossible of accomplishment for Carley.
+Yet such was her temper at the moment that she would have undertaken
+anything.
+
+“Why, shore I will, as Flo says,” replied Carley, extending her
+ungloved hands. “Come here, piggy. I christen you Pinky.” And hiding an
+almost insupportable squeamishness from Glenn, she took the pig in her
+hands and fondled it.
+
+“By George!” exclaimed Glenn, in huge delight. “I wouldn’t have
+believed it. Carley, I hope you tell your fastidious and immaculate
+Morrison that you held one of my pigs in your beautiful hands.”
+
+“Wouldn’t it please you more to tell him yourself?” asked Carley.
+
+“Yes, it would,” declared Glenn, grimly.
+
+This incident inspired Glenn to a Homeric narration of his hog-raising
+experience. In spite of herself the content of his talk interested her.
+And as for the effect upon her of his singular enthusiasm, it was deep
+and compelling. The little-boned Berkshire razorback hogs grew so large
+and fat and heavy that their bones broke under their weight. The Duroc
+jerseys were the best breed in that latitude, owing to their larger and
+stronger bones, that enabled them to stand up under the greatest
+accumulation of fat.
+
+Glenn told of his droves of pigs running wild in the canyon below. In
+summertime they fed upon vegetation, and at other seasons on acorns,
+roots, bugs, and grubs. Acorns, particularly, were good and fattening
+feed. They ate cedar and juniper berries, and pinyon nuts. And
+therefore they lived off the land, at little or no expense to the
+owner. The only loss was from beasts and birds of prey. Glenn showed
+Carley how a profitable business could soon be established. He meant to
+fence off side canyons and to segregate droves of his hogs, and to
+raise abundance of corn for winter feed. At that time there was a
+splendid market for hogs, a condition Hutter claimed would continue
+indefinitely in a growing country. In conclusion Glenn eloquently told
+how in his necessity he had accepted gratefully the humblest of labors,
+to find in the hard pursuit of it a rejuvenation of body and mind, and
+a promise of independence and prosperity.
+
+When he had finished, and excused himself to go repair a weak place in
+the corral fence, Carley sat silent, wrapped in strange meditation.
+
+Whither had faded the vulgarity and ignominy she had attached to
+Glenn’s raising of hogs? Gone—like other miasmas of her narrow mind!
+Partly she understood him now. She shirked consideration of his
+sacrifice to his country. That must wait. But she thought of his work,
+and the more she thought the less she wondered.
+
+First he had labored with his hands. What infinite meaning lay
+unfolding to her vision! Somewhere out of it all came the conception
+that man was intended to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. But
+there was more to it than that. By that toil and sweat, by the friction
+of horny palms, by the expansion and contraction of muscle, by the
+acceleration of blood, something great and enduring, something physical
+and spiritual, came to a man. She understood then why she would have
+wanted to surrender herself to a man made manly by toil; she understood
+how a woman instinctively leaned toward the protection of a man who had
+used his hands—who had strength and red blood and virility who could
+fight like the progenitors of the race. Any toil was splendid that
+served this end for any man. It all went back to the survival of the
+fittest. And suddenly Carley thought of Morrison. He could dance and
+dangle attendance upon her, and amuse her—but how would he have
+acquitted himself in a moment of peril? She had her doubts. Most
+assuredly he could not have beaten down for her a ruffian like Haze
+Ruff. What then should be the significance of a man for a woman?
+
+Carley’s querying and answering mind reverted to Glenn. He had found a
+secret in this seeking for something through the labor of hands. All
+development of body must come through exercise of muscles. The virility
+of cell in tissue and bone depended upon that. Thus he had found in
+toil the pleasure and reward athletes had in their desultory training.
+But when a man learned this secret the need of work must become
+permanent. Did this explain the law of the Persians that every man was
+required to sweat every day?
+
+Carley tried to picture to herself Glenn’s attitude of mind when he had
+first gone to work here in the West. Resolutely she now denied her
+shrinking, cowardly sensitiveness. She would go to the root of this
+matter, if she had intelligence enough. Crippled, ruined in health,
+wrecked and broken by an inexplicable war, soul-blighted by the
+heartless, callous neglect of government and public, on the verge of
+madness at the insupportable facts, he had yet been wonderful enough,
+true enough to himself and God, to fight for life with the instinct of
+a man, to fight for his mind with a noble and unquenchable faith. Alone
+indeed he had been alone! And by some miracle beyond the power of
+understanding he had found day by day in his painful efforts some hope
+and strength to go on. He could not have had any illusions. For Glenn
+Kilbourne the health and happiness and success most men held so dear
+must have seemed impossible. His slow, daily, tragic, and terrible task
+must have been something he owed himself. Not for Carley Burch! She
+like all the others had failed him. How Carley shuddered in confession
+of that! Not for the country which had used him and cast him off!
+Carley divined now, as if by a flash of lightning, the meaning of
+Glenn’s strange, cold, scornful, and aloof manner when he had
+encountered young men of his station, as capable and as strong as he,
+who had escaped the service of the army. For him these men did not
+exist. They were less than nothing. They had waxed fat on lucrative
+jobs; they had basked in the presence of girls whose brothers and
+lovers were in the trenches or on the turbulent sea, exposed to the
+ceaseless dread and almost ceaseless toil of war. If Glenn’s spirit had
+lifted him to endurance of war for the sake of others, how then could
+it fail him in a precious duty of fidelity to himself? Carley could see
+him day by day toiling in his lonely canyon—plodding to his lonely
+cabin. He had been playing the game—fighting it out alone as surely he
+knew his brothers of like misfortune were fighting.
+
+So Glenn Kilbourne loomed heroically in Carley’s transfigured sight. He
+was one of Carlyle’s battle-scarred warriors. Out of his travail he had
+climbed on stepping-stones of his dead self. _Resurgam!_ That had been
+his unquenchable cry. Who had heard it? Only the solitude of his lonely
+canyon, only the waiting, dreaming, watching walls, only the silent
+midnight shadows, only the white, blinking, passionless stars, only the
+wild creatures of his haunts, only the moaning wind in the pines—only
+these had been with him in his agony. How near were these things to
+God?
+
+Carley’s heart seemed full to bursting. Not another single moment could
+her mounting love abide in a heart that held a double purpose. How
+bitter the assurance that she had not come West to help him! It was
+self, self, all self that had actuated her. Unworthy indeed was she of
+the love of this man. Only a lifetime of devotion to him could acquit
+her in the eyes of her better self. Sweetly and madly raced the thrill
+and tumult of her blood. There must be only one outcome to her romance.
+Yet the next instant there came a dull throbbing—an oppression which
+was pain—an impondering vague thought of catastrophe. Only the
+fearfulness of love perhaps!
+
+She saw him complete his task and wipe his brown moist face and stride
+toward her, coming nearer, tall and erect with something added to his
+soldierly bearing, with a light in his eyes she could no longer bear.
+
+The moment for which she had waited more than two months had come at
+last.
+
+“Glenn—when will you go back East?” she asked, tensely and low.
+
+The instant the words were spent upon her lips she realized that he had
+always been waiting and prepared for this question that had been so
+terrible for her to ask.
+
+“Carley,” he replied gently, though his voice rang, “I am never going
+back East.”
+
+An inward quivering hindered her articulation.
+
+“_Never?_” she whispered.
+
+“Never to live, or stay any while,” he went on. “I might go some time
+for a little visit.... But never to live.”
+
+“Oh—Glenn!” she gasped, and her hands fluttered out to him. The shock
+was driving home. No amaze, no incredulity succeeded her reception of
+the fact. It was a slow stab. Carley felt the cold blanch of her skin.
+“Then—this is it—the something I felt strange between us?”
+
+“Yes, I knew—and you never asked me,” he replied.
+
+“That was it? All the time you knew,” she whispered, huskily. “You
+knew. ... _I’d never—marry you—never live out here?_”
+
+“Yes, Carley, I knew you’d never be woman enough—_American enough_—to
+help me reconstruct my broken life out here in the West,” he replied,
+with a sad and bitter smile.
+
+That flayed her. An insupportable shame and wounded vanity and
+clamoring love contended for dominance of her emotions. Love beat down
+all else.
+
+“Dearest—I beg of you—don’t break my heart,” she implored.
+
+“I love you, Carley,” he answered, steadily, with piercing eyes on
+hers.
+
+“Then come back—home—home with me.”
+
+“No. If you love me you will be my wife.”
+
+“Love you! Glenn, I worship you,” she broke out, passionately. “But I
+could not live here—_I could not_.”
+
+“Carley, did you ever read of the woman who said, ‘Whither thou goest,
+there will I go’...”
+
+“Oh, don’t be ruthless! Don’t judge me.... I never dreamed of this. I
+came West to take you back.”
+
+“My dear, it was a mistake,” he said, gently, softening to her
+distress. “I’m sorry I did not write you more plainly. But, Carley, I
+could not ask you to share this—this wilderness home with me. I don’t
+ask it now. I always knew you couldn’t do it. Yet you’ve changed
+so—that I hoped against hope. Love makes us blind even to what we see.”
+
+“Don’t try to spare me. I’m slight and miserable. I stand abased in my
+own eyes. I thought I loved you. But I must love best the
+crowd—people—luxury—fashion—the damned round of things I was born to.”
+
+“Carley, you will realize their insufficiency too late,” he replied,
+earnestly. “The things you were born to are love, work, children,
+happiness.”
+
+“Don’t! don’t!... they are hollow mockery for me,” she cried,
+passionately. “Glenn, it is the end. It must come—quickly.... You are
+free.”
+
+“I do not ask to be free. Wait. Go home and look at it again with
+different eyes. Think things over. Remember what came to me out of the
+West. I will always love you—and I will be here—hoping—”
+
+“I—I cannot listen,” she returned, brokenly, and she clenched her hands
+tightly to keep from wringing them. “I—I cannot face you.... Here
+is—your ring.... You—are—free.... Don’t stop me—don’t come.... Oh,
+Glenn, good-by!”
+
+With breaking heart she whirled away from him and hurried down the
+slope toward the trail. The shade of the forest enveloped her. Peering
+back through the trees, she saw Glenn standing where she had left him,
+as if already stricken by the loneliness that must be his lot. A sob
+broke from Carley’s throat. She hated herself. She was in a terrible
+state of conflict. Decision had been wrenched from her, but she sensed
+unending strife. She dared not look back again. Stumbling and
+breathless, she hurried on. How changed the atmosphere and sunlight and
+shadow of the canyon! The looming walls had pitiless eyes for her
+flight. When she crossed the mouth of West Fork an almost irresistible
+force breathed to her from under the stately pines.
+
+An hour later she had bidden farewell to the weeping Mrs. Hutter, and
+to the white-faced Flo, and Lolomi Lodge, and the murmuring waterfall,
+and the haunting loneliness of Oak Creek Canyon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+At Flagstaff, where Carley arrived a few minutes before train time, she
+was too busily engaged with tickets and baggage to think of herself or
+of the significance of leaving Arizona. But as she walked into the
+Pullman she overheard a passenger remark, “Regular old Arizona sunset,”
+and that shook her heart. Suddenly she realized she had come to love
+the colorful sunsets, to watch and wait for them. And bitterly she
+thought how that was her way to learn the value of something when it
+was gone.
+
+The jerk and start of the train affected her with singular depressing
+shock. She had burned her last bridge behind her. Had she unconsciously
+hoped for some incredible reversion of Glenn’s mind or of her own? A
+sense of irreparable loss flooded over her—the first check to shame and
+humiliation.
+
+From her window she looked out to the southwest. Somewhere across the
+cedar and pine-greened uplands lay Oak Creek Canyon, going to sleep in
+its purple and gold shadows of sunset. Banks of broken clouds hung to
+the horizon, like continents and islands and reefs set in a turquoise
+sea. Shafts of sunlight streaked down through creamy-edged and
+purple-centered clouds. Vast flare of gold dominated the sunset
+background.
+
+When the train rounded a curve Carley’s strained vision became filled
+with the upheaved bulk of the San Francisco Mountains. Ragged gray
+grass slopes and green forests on end, and black fringed sky lines, all
+pointed to the sharp clear peaks spearing the sky. And as she watched,
+the peaks slowly flushed with sunset hues, and the sky flared golden,
+and the strength of the eternal mountains stood out in sculptured
+sublimity. Every day for two months and more Carley had watched these
+peaks, at all hours, in every mood; and they had unconsciously become a
+part of her thought. The train was relentlessly whirling her eastward.
+Soon they must become a memory. Tears blurred her sight. Poignant
+regret seemed added to the anguish she was suffering. Why had she not
+learned sooner to see the glory of the mountains, to appreciate the
+beauty and solitude? Why had she not understood herself?
+
+The next day through New Mexico she followed magnificent ranges and
+valleys—so different from the country she had seen coming West—so
+supremely beautiful that she wondered if she had only acquired the
+harvest of a seeing eye.
+
+But it was at sunset of the following day, when the train was speeding
+down the continental slope of prairie land beyond the Rockies, that the
+West took its ruthless revenge.
+
+Masses of strange cloud and singular light upon the green prairie, and
+a luminosity in the sky, drew Carley to the platform of her car, which
+was the last of the train. There she stood, gripping the iron gate,
+feeling the wind whip her hair and the iron-tracked ground speed from
+under her, spellbound and stricken at the sheer wonder and glory of the
+firmament, and the mountain range that it canopied so exquisitely.
+
+A rich and mellow light, singularly clear, seemed to flood out of some
+unknown source. For the sun was hidden. The clouds just above Carley
+hung low, and they were like thick, heavy smoke, mushrooming,
+coalescing, forming and massing, of strange yellow cast of nature. It
+shaded westward into heliotrope and this into a purple so royal, so
+matchless and rare that Carley understood why the purple of the heavens
+could never be reproduced in paint. Here the cloud mass thinned and
+paled, and a tint of rose began to flush the billowy, flowery, creamy
+white. Then came the surpassing splendor of this cloud pageant—a vast
+canopy of shell pink, a sun-fired surface like an opal sea, rippled and
+webbed, with the exquisite texture of an Oriental fabric, pure,
+delicate, lovely—as no work of human hands could be. It mirrored all
+the warm, pearly tints of the inside whorl of the tropic nautilus. And
+it ended abruptly, a rounded depth of bank, on a broad stream of clear
+sky, intensely blue, transparently blue, as if through the lambent
+depths shone the infinite firmament. The lower edge of this stream took
+the golden lightning of the sunset and was notched for all its
+horizon-long length by the wondrous white glistening-peaked range of
+the Rockies. Far to the north, standing aloof from the range, loomed up
+the grand black bulk and noble white dome of Pikes Peak.
+
+Carley watched the sunset transfiguration of cloud and sky and mountain
+until all were cold and gray. And then she returned to her seat,
+thoughtful and sad, feeling that the West had mockingly flung at her
+one of its transient moments of loveliness.
+
+Nor had the West wholly finished with her. Next day the mellow gold of
+the Kansas wheat fields, endless and boundless as a sunny sea, rich,
+waving in the wind, stretched away before her aching eyes for hours and
+hours. Here was the promise fulfilled, the bountiful harvest of the
+land, the strength of the West. The great middle state had a heart of
+gold.
+
+East of Chicago Carley began to feel that the long days and nights of
+riding, the ceaseless turning of the wheels, the constant and wearing
+stress of emotion, had removed her an immeasurable distance of miles
+and time and feeling from the scene of her catastrophe. Many days
+seemed to have passed. Many had been the hours of her bitter regret and
+anguish.
+
+Indiana and Ohio, with their green pastoral farms, and numberless
+villages, and thriving cities, denoted a country far removed and
+different from the West, and an approach to the populous East. Carley
+felt like a wanderer coming home. She was restlessly and impatiently
+glad. But her weariness of body and mind, and the close atmosphere of
+the car, rendered her extreme discomfort. Summer had laid its hot hand
+on the low country east of the Mississippi.
+
+Carley had wired her aunt and two of her intimate friends to meet her
+at the Grand Central Station. This reunion soon to come affected Carley
+in recurrent emotions of relief, gladness, and shame. She did not sleep
+well, and arose early, and when the train reached Albany she felt that
+she could hardly endure the tedious hours. The majestic Hudson and the
+palatial mansions on the wooded bluffs proclaimed to Carley that she
+was back in the East. How long a time seemed to have passed! Either she
+was not the same or the aspect of everything had changed. But she
+believed that as soon as she got over the ordeal of meeting her
+friends, and was home again, she would soon see things rationally.
+
+At last the train sheered away from the broad Hudson and entered the
+environs of New York. Carley sat perfectly still, to all outward
+appearances a calm, superbly-poised New York woman returning home, but
+inwardly raging with contending tides. In her own sight she was a
+disgraceful failure, a prodigal sneaking back to the ease and
+protection of loyal friends who did not know her truly. Every familiar
+landmark in the approach to the city gave her a thrill, yet a vague
+unsatisfied something lingered after each sensation.
+
+Then the train with rush and roar crossed the Harlem River to enter New
+York City. As one waking from a dream Carley saw the blocks and squares
+of gray apartment houses and red buildings, the miles of roofs and
+chimneys, the long hot glaring streets full of playing children and
+cars. Then above the roar of the train sounded the high notes of a
+hurdy-gurdy. Indeed she was home. Next to startle her was the dark
+tunnel, and then the slowing of the train to a stop. As she walked
+behind a porter up the long incline toward the station gate her legs
+seemed to be dead.
+
+In the circle of expectant faces beyond the gate she saw her aunt’s,
+eager and agitated, then the handsome pale face of Eleanor Harmon, and
+beside her the sweet thin one of Beatrice Lovell. As they saw her how
+quick the change from expectancy to joy! It seemed they all rushed upon
+her, and embraced her, and exclaimed over her together. Carley never
+recalled what she said. But her heart was full.
+
+“Oh, how perfectly stunning you look!” cried Eleanor, backing away from
+Carley and gazing with glad, surprised eyes.
+
+“Carley!” gasped Beatrice. “You wonderful golden-skinned goddess!...
+You’re _young_ again, like you were in our school days.”
+
+It was before Aunt Mary’s shrewd, penetrating, loving gaze that Carley
+quailed.
+
+“Yes, Carley, you look well—better than I ever saw you, but—but—”
+
+“But I don’t look happy,” interrupted Carley. “I am happy to get
+home—to see you all... But—my—my heart is broken!”
+
+A little shocked silence ensued, then Carley found herself being led
+across the lower level and up the wide stairway. As she mounted to the
+vast-domed cathedral-like chamber of the station a strange sensation
+pierced her with a pang. Not the old thrill of leaving New York or
+returning! Nor was it the welcome sight of the hurrying, well-dressed
+throng of travelers and commuters, nor the stately beauty of the
+station. Carley shut her eyes, and then she knew. The dim light of vast
+space above, the looming gray walls, shadowy with tracery of figures,
+the lofty dome like the blue sky, brought back to her the walls of Oak
+Creek Canyon and the great caverns under the ramparts. As suddenly as
+she had shut her eyes Carley opened them to face her friends.
+
+“Let me get it over—quickly,” she burst out, with hot blood surging to
+her face. “I—I hated the West. It was so raw—so violent—so big. I think
+I hate it more—now.... But it changed me—made me over physically—and
+did something to my soul—God knows what.... And it has saved Glenn. Oh!
+he is wonderful! You would never know him.... For long I had not the
+courage to tell him I came to bring him back East. I kept putting it
+off. And I rode, I climbed, I camped, I lived outdoors. At first it
+nearly killed me. Then it grew bearable, and easier, until I forgot. I
+wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit now that somehow I had a wonderful
+time, in spite of all.... Glenn’s business is raising hogs. He has a
+hog ranch. Doesn’t it sound sordid? But things are not always what they
+sound—or seem. Glenn is absorbed in his work. I hated it—I expected to
+ridicule it. But I ended by infinitely respecting him. I learned
+through his hog-raising the real nobility of work.... Well, at last I
+found courage to ask him when he was coming back to New York. He said
+‘_never!_’... I realized then my blindness, my selfishness. I could not
+be his wife and live there. I could not. I was too small, too
+miserable, too comfort-loving—too spoiled. And all the time he knew
+this—_knew_ I’d never be big enough to marry him.... That broke my
+heart. I left him free—and here I am.... I beg you—don’t ask me any
+more—and never to mention it to me—so I can forget.”
+
+The tender unspoken sympathy of women who loved her proved comforting
+in that trying hour. With the confession ruthlessly made the hard
+compression in Carley’s breast subsided, and her eyes cleared of a
+hateful dimness. When they reached the taxi stand outside the station
+Carley felt a rush of hot devitalized air from the street. She seemed
+not to be able to get air into her lungs.
+
+“Isn’t it dreadfully hot?” she asked.
+
+“This is a cool spell to what we had last week,” replied Eleanor.
+
+“Cool!” exclaimed Carley, as she wiped her moist face. “I wonder if you
+Easterners know the real significance of words.”
+
+Then they entered a taxi, to be whisked away apparently through a
+labyrinthine maze of cars and streets, where pedestrians had to run and
+jump for their lives. A congestion of traffic at Fifth Avenue and
+Forty-second Street halted their taxi for a few moments, and here in
+the thick of it Carley had full assurance that she was back in the
+metropolis. Her sore heart eased somewhat at sight of the streams of
+people passing to and fro. How they rushed! Where were they going? What
+was their story? And all the while her aunt held her hand, and Beatrice
+and Eleanor talked as fast as their tongues could wag. Then the taxi
+clattered on up the Avenue, to turn down a side street and presently
+stop at Carley’s home. It was a modest three-story brown-stone house.
+Carley had been so benumbed by sensations that she did not imagine she
+could experience a new one. But peering out of the taxi, she gazed
+dubiously at the brownish-red stone steps and front of her home.
+
+“I’m going to have it painted,” she muttered, as if to herself.
+
+Her aunt and her friends laughed, glad and relieved to hear such a
+practical remark from Carley. How were they to divine that this
+brownish-red stone was the color of desert rocks and canyon walls?
+
+In a few more moments Carley was inside the house, feeling a sense of
+protection in the familiar rooms that had been her home for seventeen
+years. Once in the sanctity of her room, which was exactly as she had
+left it, her first action was to look in the mirror at her weary,
+dusty, heated face. Neither the brownness of it nor the shadow appeared
+to harmonize with the image of her that haunted the mirror.
+
+“Now!” she whispered low. “It’s done. I’m home. The old life—or a new
+life? How to meet either. Now!”
+
+Thus she challenged her spirit. And her intelligence rang at her the
+imperative necessity for action, for excitement, for effort that left
+no time for rest or memory or wakefulness. She accepted the issue. She
+was glad of the stern fight ahead of her. She set her will and steeled
+her heart with all the pride and vanity and fury of a woman who had
+been defeated but who scorned defeat. She was what birth and breeding
+and circumstance had made her. She would seek what the old life held.
+
+What with unpacking and chatting and telephoning and lunching, the day
+soon passed. Carley went to dinner with friends and later to a roof
+garden. The color and light, the gayety and music, the news of
+acquaintances, the humor of the actors—all, in fact, except the
+unaccustomed heat and noise, were most welcome and diverting. That
+night she slept the sleep of weariness.
+
+Awakening early, she inaugurated a habit of getting up at once, instead
+of lolling in bed, and breakfasting there, and reading her mail, as had
+been her wont before going West. Then she went over business matters
+with her aunt, called on her lawyer and banker, took lunch with Rose
+Maynard, and spent the afternoon shopping. Strong as she was, the
+unaccustomed heat and the hard pavements and the jostle of shoppers and
+the continual rush of sensations wore her out so completely that she
+did not want any dinner. She talked to her aunt a while, then went to
+bed.
+
+Next day Carley motored through Central Park, and out of town into
+Westchester County, finding some relief from the stiffing heat. But she
+seemed to look at the dusty trees and the worn greens without really
+seeing them. In the afternoon she called on friends, and had dinner at
+home with her aunt, and then went to a theatre. The musical comedy was
+good, but the almost unbearable heat and the vitiated air spoiled her
+enjoyment. That night upon arriving home at midnight she stepped out of
+the taxi, and involuntarily, without thought, looked up to see the
+stars. But there were no stars. A murky yellow-tinged blackness hung
+low over the city. Carley recollected that stars, and sunrises and
+sunsets, and untainted air, and silence were not for city dwellers. She
+checked any continuation of the thought.
+
+A few days sufficed to swing her into the old life. Many of Carley’s
+friends had neither the leisure nor the means to go away from the city
+during the summer. Some there were who might have afforded that if they
+had seen fit to live in less showy apartments, or to dispense with
+cars. Other of her best friends were on their summer outings in the
+Adirondacks. Carley decided to go with her aunt to Lake Placid about
+the first of August. Meanwhile she would keep going and doing.
+
+She had been a week in town before Morrison telephoned her and added
+his welcome. Despite the gay gladness of his voice, it irritated her.
+Really, she scarcely wanted to see him. But a meeting was inevitable,
+and besides, going out with him was in accordance with the plan she had
+adopted. So she made an engagement to meet him at the Plaza for dinner.
+When with slow and pondering action she hung up the receiver it
+occurred to her that she resented the idea of going to the Plaza. She
+did not dwell on the reason why.
+
+When Carley went into the reception room of the Plaza that night
+Morrison was waiting for her—the same slim, fastidious, elegant,
+sallow-faced Morrison whose image she had in mind, yet somehow
+different. He had what Carley called the New York masculine face, blasé
+and lined, with eyes that gleamed, yet had no fire. But at sight of her
+his face lighted up.
+
+“By Jove! but you’ve come back a peach!” he exclaimed, clasping her
+extended hand. “Eleanor told me you looked great. It’s worth missing
+you to see you like this.”
+
+“Thanks, Larry,” she replied. “I must look pretty well to win that
+compliment from you. And how are you feeling? You don’t seem robust for
+a golfer and horseman. But then I’m used to husky Westerners.”
+
+“Oh, I’m fagged with the daily grind,” he said. “I’ll be glad to get up
+in the mountains next month. Let’s go down to dinner.”
+
+They descended the spiral stairway to the grillroom, where an orchestra
+was playing jazz, and dancers gyrated on a polished floor, and diners
+in evening dress looked on over their cigarettes.
+
+“Well, Carley, are you still finicky about the eats?” he queried,
+consulting the menu.
+
+“No. But I prefer plain food,” she replied.
+
+“Have a cigarette,” he said, holding out his silver monogrammed case.
+
+“Thanks, Larry. I—I guess I’ll not take up smoking again. You see,
+while I was West I got out of the habit.”
+
+“Yes, they told me you had changed,” he returned. “How about drinking?”
+
+“Why, I thought New York had gone dry!” she said, forcing a laugh.
+
+“Only on the surface. Underneath it’s wetter than ever.”
+
+“Well, I’ll obey the law.”
+
+He ordered a rather elaborate dinner, and then turning his attention to
+Carley, gave her closer scrutiny. Carley knew then that he had become
+acquainted with the fact of her broken engagement. It was a relief not
+to need to tell him.
+
+“How’s that big stiff, Kilbourne?” asked Morrison, suddenly. “Is it
+true he got well?”
+
+“Oh—yes! He’s fine,” replied Carley with eyes cast down. A hot knot
+seemed to form deep within her and threatened to break and steal along
+her veins. “But if you please—I do not care to talk of him.”
+
+“Naturally. But I must tell you that one man’s loss is another’s gain.”
+
+Carley had rather expected renewed courtship from Morrison. She had
+not, however, been prepared for the beat of her pulse, the quiver of
+her nerves, the uprising of hot resentment at the mere mention of
+Kilbourne. It was only natural that Glenn’s former rivals should speak
+of him, and perhaps disparagingly. But from this man Carley could not
+bear even a casual reference. Morrison had escaped the army service. He
+had been given a high-salaried post at the ship-yards—the duties of
+which, if there had been any, he performed wherever he happened to be.
+Morrison’s father had made a fortune in leather during the war. And
+Carley remembered Glenn telling her he had seen two whole blocks in
+Paris piled twenty feet deep with leather army goods that were never
+used and probably had never been intended to be used. Morrison
+represented the not inconsiderable number of young men in New York who
+had gained at the expense of the valiant legion who had lost. But what
+had Morrison gained? Carley raised her eyes to gaze steadily at him. He
+looked well-fed, indolent, rich, effete, and supremely self-satisfied.
+She could not see that he had gained anything. She would rather have
+been a crippled ruined soldier.
+
+“Larry, I fear gain and loss are mere words,” she said. “The thing that
+counts with me is what you _are_.”
+
+He stared in well-bred surprise, and presently talked of a new dance
+which had lately come into vogue. And from that he passed on to gossip
+of the theatres. Once between courses of the dinner he asked Carley to
+dance, and she complied. The music would have stimulated an Egyptian
+mummy, Carley thought, and the subdued rose lights, the murmur of gay
+voices, the glide and grace and distortion of the dancers, were
+exciting and pleasurable. Morrison had the suppleness and skill of a
+dancing-master. But he held Carley too tightly, and so she told him,
+and added, “I imbibed some fresh pure air while I was out
+West—something you haven’t here—and I don’t want it all squeezed out of
+me.”
+
+
+The latter days of July Carley made busy—so busy that she lost her tan
+and appetite, and something of her splendid resistance to the dragging
+heat and late hours. Seldom was she without some of her friends. She
+accepted almost any kind of an invitation, and went even to Coney
+Island, to baseball games, to the motion pictures, which were three
+forms of amusement not customary with her. At Coney Island, which she
+visited with two of her younger girl friends, she had the best time
+since her arrival home. What had put her in accord with ordinary
+people? The baseball games, likewise pleased her. The running of the
+players and the screaming of the spectators amused and excited her. But
+she hated the motion pictures with their salacious and absurd
+misrepresentations of life, in some cases capably acted by skillful
+actors, and in others a silly series of scenes featuring some
+doll-faced girl.
+
+But she refused to go horseback riding in Central Park. She refused to
+go to the Plaza. And these refusals she made deliberately, without
+asking herself why.
+
+On August 1st she accompanied her aunt and several friends to Lake
+Placid, where they established themselves at a hotel. How welcome to
+Carley’s strained eyes were the green of mountains, the soft gleam of
+amber water! How sweet and refreshing a breath of cool pure air! The
+change from New York’s glare and heat and dirt, and iron-red insulating
+walls, and thronging millions of people, and ceaseless roar and rush,
+was tremendously relieving to Carley. She had burned the candle at both
+ends. But the beauty of the hills and vales, the quiet of the forest,
+the sight of the stars, made it harder to forget. She had to rest. And
+when she rested she could not always converse, or read, or write.
+
+For the most part her days held variety and pleasure. The place was
+beautiful, the weather pleasant, the people congenial. She motored over
+the forest roads, she canoed along the margin of the lake, she played
+golf and tennis. She wore exquisite gowns to dinner and danced during
+the evenings. But she seldom walked anywhere on the trails and, never
+alone, and she never climbed the mountains and never rode a horse.
+
+Morrison arrived and added his attentions to those of other men. Carley
+neither accepted nor repelled them. She favored the association with
+married couples and older people, and rather shunned the pairing off
+peculiar to vacationists at summer hotels. She had always loved to play
+and romp with children, but here she found herself growing to avoid
+them, somehow hurt by sound of pattering feet and joyous laughter. She
+filled the days as best she could, and usually earned quick slumber at
+night. She staked all on present occupation and the truth of flying
+time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The latter part of September Carley returned to New York.
+
+Soon after her arrival she received by letter a formal proposal of
+marriage from Elbert Harrington, who had been quietly attentive to her
+during her sojourn at Lake Placid. He was a lawyer of distinction,
+somewhat older than most of her friends, and a man of means and fine
+family. Carley was quite surprised. Harrington was really one of the
+few of her acquaintances whom she regarded as somewhat behind the
+times, and liked him the better for that. But she could not marry him,
+and replied to his letter in as kindly a manner as possible. Then he
+called personally.
+
+“Carley, I’ve come to ask you to reconsider,” he said, with a smile in
+his gray eyes. He was not a tall or handsome man, but he had what women
+called a nice strong face.
+
+“Elbert, you embarrass me,” she replied, trying to laugh it out.
+“Indeed I feel honored, and I thank you. But I can’t marry you.”
+
+“Why not?” he asked, quietly.
+
+“Because I don’t love you,” she replied.
+
+“I did not expect you to,” he said. “I hoped in time you might come to
+care. I’ve known you a good many years, Carley. Forgive me if I tell
+you I see you are breaking—wearing yourself down. Maybe it is not a
+husband you need so much now, but you do need a home and children. You
+are wasting your life.”
+
+“All you say may be true, my friend,” replied Carley, with a helpless
+little upflinging of hands. “Yet it does not alter my feelings.”
+
+“But you will marry sooner or later?” he queried, persistently.
+
+This straightforward question struck Carley as singularly as if it was
+one she might never have encountered. It forced her to think of things
+she had buried.
+
+“I don’t believe I ever will,” she answered, thoughtfully.
+
+“That is nonsense, Carley,” he went on. “You’ll have to marry. What
+else can you do? With all due respect to your feelings—that affair with
+Kilbourne is ended—and you’re not the wishy-washy heartbreak kind of a
+girl.”
+
+“You can never tell what a woman will do,” she said, somewhat coldly.
+
+“Certainly not. That’s why I refuse to take no. Carley, be reasonable.
+You like me—respect me, do you not?”
+
+“Why, of course I do!”
+
+“I’m only thirty-five, and I could give you all any sensible woman
+wants,” he said. “Let’s make a real American home. Have you thought at
+all about that, Carley? Something is wrong today. Men are not marrying.
+Wives are not having children. Of all the friends I have, not one has a
+real American home. Why, it is a terrible fact! But, Carley, you are
+not a sentimentalist, or a melancholiac. Nor are you a waster. You have
+fine qualities. You need something to do, some one to care for.”
+
+“Pray do not think me ungrateful, Elbert,” she replied, “nor insensible
+to the truth of what you say. But my answer is no!”
+
+When Harrington had gone Carley went to her room, and precisely as upon
+her return from Arizona she faced her mirror skeptically and
+relentlessly. “I am such a liar that I’ll do well to look at myself,”
+she meditated. “Here I am again. Now! The world expects me to marry.
+But _what_ do I expect?”
+
+There was a raw unheated wound in Carley’s heart. Seldom had she
+permitted herself to think about it, let alone to probe it with hard
+materialistic queries. But custom to her was as inexorable as life. If
+she chose to live in the world she must conform to its customs. For a
+woman marriage was the aim and the end and the all of existence.
+Nevertheless, for Carley it could not be without love. Before she had
+gone West she might have had many of the conventional modern ideas
+about women and marriage. But because out there in the wilds her love
+and perception had broadened, now her arraignment of herself and her
+sex was bigger, sterner, more exacting. The months she had been home
+seemed fuller than all the months of her life. She had tried to forget
+and enjoy; she had not succeeded; but she had looked with far-seeing
+eyes at her world. Glenn Kilbourne’s tragic fate had opened her eyes.
+
+Either the world was all wrong or the people in it were. But if that
+were an extravagant and erroneous supposition, there certainly was
+proof positive that her own small individual world was wrong. The women
+did not do any real work; they did not bear children; they lived on
+excitement and luxury. They had no ideals. How greatly were men to
+blame? Carley doubted her judgment here. But as men could not live
+without the smiles and comradeship and love of women, it was only
+natural that they should give the women what they wanted. Indeed, they
+had no choice. It was give or go without. How much of real love entered
+into the marriages among her acquaintances? Before marriage Carley
+wanted a girl to be sweet, proud, aloof, with a heart of golden fire.
+Not attainable except through love! It would be better that no children
+be born at all unless born of such beautiful love. Perhaps that was why
+so few children were born. Nature’s balance and revenge! In Arizona
+Carley had learned something of the ruthlessness and inevitableness of
+nature. She was finding out she had learned this with many other
+staggering facts.
+
+“I love Glenn still,” she whispered, passionately, with trembling lips,
+as she faced the tragic-eyed image of herself in the mirror. “I love
+him more—more. Oh, my God! If I were honest I’d cry out the truth! It
+is terrible. ... I will always love him. How then could I marry any
+other man? I would be a lie, a cheat. If I could only forget him—only
+kill that love. Then I might love another man—and if I did love him—no
+matter what I had felt or done before, I would be worthy. I could feel
+worthy. I could give him just as much. But without such love I’d give
+only a husk—a body without soul.”
+
+Love, then, was the sacred and holy flame of life that sanctioned the
+begetting of children. Marriage might be a necessity of modern time,
+but it was not the vital issue. Carley’s anguish revealed strange and
+hidden truths. In some inexplicable way Nature struck a terrible
+balance—revenged herself upon a people who had no children, or who
+brought into the world children not created by the divinity of love,
+unyearned for, and therefore somehow doomed to carry on the blunders
+and burdens of life.
+
+Carley realized how right and true it might be for her to throw herself
+away upon an inferior man, even a fool or a knave, if she loved him
+with that great and natural love of woman; likewise it dawned upon her
+how false and wrong and sinful it would be to marry the greatest or the
+richest or the noblest man unless she had that supreme love to give
+him, and knew it was reciprocated.
+
+“What am I going to do with my life?” she asked, bitterly and aghast.
+“I have been—I am a waster. I’ve lived for nothing but pleasurable
+sensation. I’m utterly useless. I do absolutely no good on earth.”
+
+Thus she saw how Harrington’s words rang true—how they had precipitated
+a crisis for which her unconscious brooding had long made preparation.
+
+“Why not give up ideals and be like the rest of my kind?” she
+soliloquized.
+
+That was one of the things which seemed wrong with modern life. She
+thrust the thought from her with passionate scorn. If poor, broken,
+ruined Glenn Kilbourne could cling to an ideal and fight for it, could
+not she, who had all the world esteemed worth while, be woman enough to
+do the same? The direction of her thought seemed to have changed. She
+had been ready for rebellion. Three months of the old life had shown
+her that for her it was empty, vain, farcical, without one redeeming
+feature. The naked truth was brutal, but it cut clean to wholesome
+consciousness. Such so-called social life as she had plunged into
+deliberately to forget her unhappiness had failed her utterly. If she
+had been shallow and frivolous it might have done otherwise. Stripped
+of all guise, her actions must have been construed by a penetrating and
+impartial judge as a mere parading of her decorated person before a
+number of males with the purpose of ultimate selection.
+
+“I’ve got to find some work,” she muttered, soberly.
+
+At the moment she heard the postman’s whistle outside; and a little
+later the servant brought up her mail. The first letter, large, soiled,
+thick, bore the postmark Flagstaff, and her address in Glenn
+Kilbourne’s writing.
+
+Carley stared at it. Her heart gave a great leap. Her hand shook. She
+sat down suddenly as if the strength of her legs was inadequate to
+uphold her.
+
+“Glenn has—written me!” she whispered, in slow, halting realization.
+“For what? Oh, why?”
+
+The other letters fell off her lap, to lie unnoticed. This big thick
+envelope fascinated her. It was one of the stamped envelopes she had
+seen in his cabin. It contained a letter that had been written on his
+rude table, before the open fire, in the light of the doorway, in that
+little log-cabin under the spreading pines of West Ford Canyon. Dared
+she read it? The shock to her heart passed; and with mounting swell,
+seemingly too full for her breast, it began to beat and throb a wild
+gladness through all her being. She tore the envelope apart and read:
+
+
+DEAR CARLEY:
+
+I’m surely glad for a good excuse to write you.
+
+Once in a blue moon I get a letter, and today Hutter brought me one
+from a soldier pard of mine who was with me in the Argonne. His name is
+Virgil Rust—queer name, don’t you think?—and he’s from Wisconsin. Just
+a rough-diamond sort of chap, but fairly well educated. He and I were
+in some pretty hot places, and it was he who pulled me out of a shell
+crater. I’d “gone west” sure then if it hadn’t been for Rust.
+
+Well, he did all sorts of big things during the war. Was down several
+times with wounds. He liked to fight and he was a holy terror. We all
+thought he’d get medals and promotion. But he didn’t get either. These
+much-desired things did not always go where they were best deserved.
+
+Rust is now lying in a hospital in Bedford Park. His letter is pretty
+blue. All he says about why he’s there is that he’s knocked out. But he
+wrote a heap about his girl. It seems he was in love with a girl in his
+home town—a pretty, big-eyed lass whose picture I’ve seen—and while he
+was overseas she married one of the chaps who got out of fighting.
+Evidently Rust is deeply hurt. He wrote: “I’d not care so... if she’d
+thrown me down to marry an old man or a boy who couldn’t have gone to
+war.” You see, Carley, service men feel queer about that sort of thing.
+It’s something we got over there, and none of us will ever outlive it.
+Now, the point of this is that I am asking you to go see Rust, and
+cheer him up, and do what you can for the poor devil. It’s a good deal
+to ask of you, I know, especially as Rust saw _your_ picture many a
+time and knows you were my girl. But you needn’t tell him that you—we
+couldn’t make a go of it.
+
+And, as I am writing this to you, I see no reason why I shouldn’t go on
+in behalf of myself.
+
+The fact is, Carley, I miss writing to you more than I miss anything of
+my old life. I’ll bet you have a trunkful of letters from me—unless
+you’ve destroyed them. I’m not going to say how I miss _your_ letters.
+But I will say you wrote the most charming and fascinating letters of
+anyone I ever knew, quite aside from any sentiment. You knew, of
+course, that I had no other girl correspondent. Well, I got along
+fairly well before you came West, but I’d be an awful liar if I denied
+I didn’t get lonely for you and your letters. It’s different now that
+you’ve been to Oak Creek. I’m alone most of the time and I dream a lot,
+and I’m afraid I see you here in my cabin, and along the brook, and
+under the pines, and riding Calico—which you came to do well—and on my
+hogpen fence—and, oh, everywhere! I don’t want you to think I’m down in
+the mouth, for I’m not. I’ll take my medicine. But, Carley, you spoiled
+me, and I miss hearing from you, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t be all
+right for you to send me a friendly letter occasionally.
+
+It is autumn now. I wish you could see Arizona canyons in their
+gorgeous colors. We have had frost right along and the mornings are
+great. There’s a broad zigzag belt of gold halfway up the San Francisco
+peaks, and that is the aspen thickets taking on their fall coat. Here
+in the canyon you’d think there was blazing fire everywhere. The vines
+and the maples are red, scarlet, carmine, cerise, magenta, all the hues
+of flame. The oak leaves are turning russet gold, and the sycamores are
+yellow green. Up on the desert the other day I rode across a patch of
+asters, lilac and lavender, almost purple. I had to get off and pluck a
+handful. And then what do you think? I dug up the whole bunch, roots
+and all, and planted them on the sunny side of my cabin. I rather guess
+your love of flowers engendered this remarkable susceptibility in me.
+
+I’m home early most every afternoon now, and I like the couple of hours
+loafing around. Guess it’s bad for me, though. You know I seldom hunt,
+and the trout in the pool here are so tame now they’ll almost eat out
+of my hand. I haven’t the heart to fish for them. The squirrels, too,
+have grown tame and friendly. There’s a red squirrel that climbs up on
+my table. And there’s a chipmunk who lives in my cabin and runs over my
+bed. I’ve a new pet—the little pig you christened Pinky. After he had
+the wonderful good fortune to be caressed and named by you I couldn’t
+think of letting him grow up in an ordinary piglike manner. So I
+fetched him home. My dog, Moze, was jealous at first and did not like
+this intrusion, but now they are good friends and sleep together. Flo
+has a kitten she’s going to give me, and then, as Hutter says, I’ll be
+“Jake.”
+
+My occupation during these leisure hours perhaps would strike my old
+friends East as idle, silly, mawkish. But I believe you will understand
+me.
+
+I have the pleasure of doing nothing, and of catching now and then a
+glimpse of supreme joy in the strange state of _thinking_ nothing.
+Tennyson came close to this in his “Lotus Eaters.” Only to see—only to
+feel is enough!
+
+Sprawled on the warm sweet pine needles, I breathe through them the
+breath of the earth and am somehow no longer lonely. I cannot, of
+course, see the sunset, but I watch for its coming on the eastern wall
+of the canyon. I see the shadow slowly creep up, driving the gold
+before it, until at last the canyon rim and pines are turned to golden
+fire. I watch the sailing eagles as they streak across the gold, and
+swoop up into the blue, and pass out of sight. I watch the golden flush
+fade to gray, and then, the canyon slowly fills with purple shadows.
+This hour of twilight is the silent and melancholy one. Seldom is there
+any sound save the soft rush of the water over the stones, and that
+seems to die away. For a moment, perhaps, I am Hiawatha alone in his
+forest home, or a more primitive savage, feeling the great, silent
+pulse of nature, happy in unconsciousness, like a beast of the wild.
+But only for an instant do I ever catch this fleeting state. Next I am
+Glenn Kilbourne of West Fork, doomed and haunted by memories of the
+past. The great looming walls then become no longer blank. They are
+vast pages of the history of my life, with its past and present, and,
+alas! its future. Everything time does is written on the stones. And my
+stream seems to murmur the sad and ceaseless flow of human life, with
+its music and its misery.
+
+Then, descending from the sublime to the humdrum and necessary, I heave
+a sigh, and pull myself together, and go in to make biscuits and fry
+ham. But I should not forget to tell you that before I do go in, very
+often my looming, wonderful walls and crags weave in strange shadowy
+characters the beautiful and unforgettable face of Carley Burch!
+
+
+I append what little news Oak Creek affords.
+
+That blamed old bald eagle stole another of my pigs.
+
+I am doing so well with my hog-raising that Hutter wants to come in
+with me, giving me an interest in his sheep.
+
+It is rumored some one has bought the Deep Lake section I wanted for a
+ranch. I don’t know who. Hutter was rather noncommittal.
+
+Charley, the herder, had one of his queer spells the other day, and
+swore to me he had a letter from you. He told the blamed lie with a
+sincere and placid eye, and even a smile of pride. Queer guy, that
+Charley!
+
+Flo and Lee Stanton had another quarrel—the worst yet, Lee tells me.
+Flo asked a girl friend out from Flag and threw her in Lee’s way, so to
+speak, and when Lee retaliated by making love to the girl Flo got mad.
+Funny creatures, you girls! Flo rode with me from High Falls to West
+Fork, and never showed the slightest sign of trouble. In fact she was
+delightfully gay. She rode Calico, and beat me bad in a race.
+
+
+_Adios_, Carley. Won’t you write me?
+GLENN.
+
+
+No sooner had Carley read the letter through to the end than she began
+it all over again, and on this second perusal she lingered over
+passages—only to reread them. That suggestion of her face sculptured by
+shadows on the canyon walls seemed to thrill her very soul.
+
+She leaped up from the reading to cry out something that was
+unutterable. All the intervening weeks of shame and anguish and fury
+and strife and pathos, and the endless striving to forget, were as if
+by the magic of a letter made nothing but vain oblations.
+
+“He loves me still!” she whispered, and pressed her breast with
+clenching hands, and laughed in wild exultance, and paced her room like
+a caged lioness. It was as if she had just awakened to the assurance
+she was beloved. That was the shibboleth—the cry by which she sounded
+the closed depths of her love and called to the stricken life of a
+woman’s insatiate vanity.
+
+Then she snatched up the letter, to scan it again, and, suddenly
+grasping the import of Glenn’s request, she hurried to the telephone to
+find the number of the hospital in Bedford Park. A nurse informed her
+that visitors were received at certain hours and that any attention to
+disabled soldiers was most welcome.
+
+Carley motored out there to find the hospital merely a long one-story
+frame structure, a barracks hastily thrown up for the care of invalided
+men of the service. The chauffeur informed her that it had been used
+for that purpose during the training period of the army, and later when
+injured soldiers began to arrive from France.
+
+A nurse admitted Carley into a small bare anteroom. Carley made known
+her errand.
+
+“I’m glad it’s Rust you want to see,” replied the nurse. “Some of these
+boys are going to die. And some will be worse off if they live. But
+Rust may get well if he’ll only behave. You are a relative—or friend?”
+
+“I don’t know him,” answered Carley. “But I have a friend who was with
+him in France.”
+
+The nurse led Carley into a long narrow room with a line of single beds
+down each side, a stove at each end, and a few chairs. Each bed
+appeared to have an occupant and those nearest Carley lay singularly
+quiet. At the far end of the room were soldiers on crutches, wearing
+bandages on their beads, carrying their arms in slings. Their merry
+voices contrasted discordantly with their sad appearance.
+
+Presently Carley stood beside a bed and looked down upon a gaunt,
+haggard young man who lay propped up on pillows.
+
+“Rust—a lady to see you,” announced the nurse.
+
+Carley had difficulty in introducing herself. Had Glenn ever looked
+like this? What a face! It’s healed scar only emphasized the pallor and
+furrows of pain that assuredly came from present wounds. He had
+unnaturally bright dark eyes, and a flush of fever in his hollow
+cheeks.
+
+“How do!” he said, with a wan smile. “Who’re you?”
+
+“I’m Glenn Kilbourne’s fiancée,” she replied, holding out her hand.
+
+“Say, I ought to’ve known you,” he said, eagerly, and a warmth of light
+changed the gray shade of his face. “You’re the girl Carley! You’re
+almost like my—my own girl. By golly! You’re some looker! It was good
+of you to come. Tell me about Glenn.”
+
+Carley took the chair brought by the nurse, and pulling it close to the
+bed, she smiled down upon him and said: “I’ll be glad to tell you all I
+know—presently. But first you tell me about yourself. Are you in pain?
+What is your trouble? You must let me do everything I can for you, and
+these other men.”
+
+Carley spent a poignant and depth-stirring hour at the bedside of
+Glenn’s comrade. At last she learned from loyal lips the nature of
+Glenn Kilbourne’s service to his country. How Carley clasped to her
+sore heart the praise of the man she loved—the simple proofs of his
+noble disregard of self! Rust said little about his own service to
+country or to comrade. But Carley saw enough in his face. He had been
+like Glenn. By these two Carley grasped the compelling truth of the
+spirit and sacrifice of the legion of boys who had upheld American
+traditions. Their children and their children’s children, as the years
+rolled by into the future, would hold their heads higher and prouder.
+Some things could never die in the hearts and the blood of a race.
+These boys, and the girls who had the supreme glory of being loved by
+them, must be the ones to revive the Americanism of their forefathers.
+Nature and God would take care of the slackers, the cowards who cloaked
+their shame with bland excuses of home service, of disability, and of
+dependence.
+
+Carley saw two forces in life—the destructive and constructive. On the
+one side greed, selfishness, materialism: on the other generosity,
+sacrifice, and idealism. Which of them builded for the future? She saw
+men as wolves, sharks, snakes, vermin, and opposed to them men as lions
+and eagles. She saw women who did not inspire men to fare forth to
+seek, to imagine, to dream, to hope, to work, to fight. She began to
+have a glimmering of what a woman might be.
+
+
+That night she wrote swiftly and feverishly, page after page, to Glenn,
+only to destroy what she had written. She could not keep her heart out
+of her words, nor a hint of what was becoming a sleepless and eternal
+regret. She wrote until a late hour, and at last composed a letter she
+knew did not ring true, so stilted and restrained was it in all
+passages save those concerning news of Glenn’s comrade and of her own
+friends. “I’ll never—never write him again,” she averred with stiff
+lips, and next moment could have laughed in mockery at the bitter
+truth. If she had ever had any courage, Glenn’s letter had destroyed
+it. But had it not been a kind of selfish, false courage, roused to
+hide her hurt, to save her own future? Courage should have a thought of
+others. Yet shamed one moment at the consciousness she would write
+Glenn again and again, and exultant the next with the clamouring love,
+she seemed to have climbed beyond the self that had striven to forget.
+She would remember and think though she died of longing.
+
+Carley, like a drowning woman, caught at straws. What a relief and joy
+to give up that endless nagging at her mind! For months she had kept
+ceaselessly active, by associations which were of no help to her and
+which did not make her happy, in her determination to forget. Suddenly
+then she gave up to remembrance. She would cease trying to get over her
+love for Glenn, and think of him and dream about him as much as memory
+dictated. This must constitute the only happiness she could have.
+
+The change from strife to surrender was so novel and sweet that for
+days she felt renewed. It was augmented by her visits to the hospital
+in Bedford Park. Through her bountiful presence Virgil Rust and his
+comrades had many dull hours of pain and weariness alleviated and
+brightened. Interesting herself in the condition of the seriously
+disabled soldiers and possibility of their future took time and work
+Carley gave willingly and gladly. At first she endeavored to get
+acquaintances with means and leisure to help the boys, but these
+overtures met with such little success that she quit wasting valuable
+time she could herself devote to their interests.
+
+Thus several weeks swiftly passed by. Several soldiers who had been
+more seriously injured than Rust improved to the extent that they were
+discharged. But Rust gained little or nothing. The nurse and doctor
+both informed Carley that Rust brightened for her, but when she was
+gone he lapsed into somber indifference. He did not care whether he ate
+or not, or whether he got well or died.
+
+“If I do pull out, where’ll I go and what’ll I do?” he once asked the
+nurse.
+
+Carley knew that Rust’s hurt was more than loss of a leg, and she
+decided to talk earnestly to him and try to win him to hope and effort.
+He had come to have a sort of reverence for her. So, biding her time,
+she at length found opportunity to approach his bed while his comrades
+were asleep or out of hearing. He endeavored to laugh her off, and then
+tried subterfuge, and lastly he cast off his mask and let her see his
+naked soul.
+
+“Carley, I don’t want your money or that of your kind friends—whoever
+they are—you say will help me to get into business,” he said. “God
+knows I thank you and it warms me inside to find _some one_ who
+appreciates what I’ve given. But I don’t want charity.... And I guess
+I’m pretty sick of the game. I’m sorry the Boches didn’t do the job
+right.”
+
+“Rust, that is morbid talk,” replied Carley. “You’re ill and you just
+can’t see any hope. You must cheer up—fight _yourself;_ and look at the
+brighter side. It’s a horrible pity you must be a cripple, but Rust,
+indeed life can be worth living if you make it so.”
+
+“How could there be a brighter side when a man’s only half a man—” he
+queried, bitterly.
+
+“You can be just as much a man as ever,” persisted Carley, trying to
+smile when she wanted to cry.
+
+“Could you care for a man with only one leg?” he asked, deliberately.
+
+“What a question! Why, of course I could!”
+
+“Well, maybe you are different. Glenn always swore even if he was
+killed no slacker or no rich guy left at home could ever get you. Maybe
+you haven’t any idea how much it means to us fellows to know there
+_are_ true and faithful girls. But I’ll tell you, Carley, we fellows
+who went across got to see things strange when we came home. The good
+old U. S. needs a lot of faithful girls just now, believe me.”
+
+“Indeed that’s true,” replied Carley. “It’s a hard time for everybody,
+and particularly you boys who have lost so—so much.”
+
+“I lost _all_, except my life—and I wish to God I’d lost that,” he
+replied, gloomily.
+
+“Oh, don’t talk so!” implored Carley in distress. “Forgive me, Rust, if
+I hurt you. But I must tell you—that—that Glenn wrote me—you’d lost
+your girl. Oh, I’m sorry! It is dreadful for you now. But if you got
+well—and went to work—and took up life where you left it—why soon your
+pain would grow easier. And you’d find some happiness yet.”
+
+“Never for me in this world.”
+
+“But why, Rust, _why?_ You’re no—no—Oh! I mean you have intelligence
+and courage. Why isn’t there anything left for you?”
+
+“Because something here’s been killed,” he replied, and put his hand to
+his heart.
+
+“Your faith? Your love of—of everything? Did the war kill it?”
+
+“I’d gotten over that, maybe,” he said, drearily, with his somber eyes
+on space that seemed lettered for him. “But _she_ half murdered it—and
+_they_ did the rest.”
+
+“They? Whom do you mean, Rust?”
+
+“Why, Carley, I mean the people I lost my leg for!” he replied, with
+terrible softness.
+
+“The British? The French?” she queried, in bewilderment.
+
+“_No!_” he cried, and turned his face to the wall.
+
+Carley dared not ask him more. She was shocked. How helplessly impotent
+all her earnest sympathy! No longer could she feel an impersonal,
+however kindly, interest in this man. His last ringing word had linked
+her also to his misfortune and his suffering. Suddenly he turned away
+from the wall. She saw him swallow laboriously. How tragic that thin,
+shadowed face of agony! Carley saw it differently. But for the
+beautiful softness of light in his eyes, she would have been unable to
+endure gazing longer.
+
+“Carley, I’m bitter,” he said, “but I’m not rancorous and callous, like
+some of the boys. I know if you’d been my girl you’d have stuck to me.”
+
+“Yes,” Carley whispered.
+
+“That makes a difference,” he went on, with a sad smile. “You see, we
+soldiers all had feelings. And in one thing we all felt alike. That was
+we were going to fight for our homes and our women. I should say women
+first. No matter what we read or heard about standing by our allies,
+fighting for liberty or civilization, the truth was we all felt the
+same, even if we never breathed it.... Glenn fought for you. I fought
+for Nell.... We were not going to let the Huns treat you as they
+treated French and Belgian girls.... And think! Nell was engaged to
+me—she _loved_ me—and, by God! She married a slacker when I lay half
+dead on the battlefield!”
+
+“She was not worth loving or fighting for,” said Carley, with
+agitation.
+
+“Ah! now you’ve said something,” he declared. “If I can only hold to
+that truth! What does one girl amount to? _I_ do not count. It is the
+sum that counts. We love America—our homes—our women!... Carley, I’ve
+had comfort and strength come to me through you. Glenn will have his
+reward in your love. Somehow I seem to share it, a little. Poor Glenn!
+He got his, too. Why, Carley, that guy wouldn’t _let_ you do what he
+could do _for you_. He was cut to pieces—”
+
+“Please—Rust—don’t say any more. I am unstrung,” she pleaded.
+
+“Why not? It’s due you to know how splendid Glenn was.... I tell you,
+Carley, all the boys here love you for the way you’ve stuck to Glenn.
+Some of them knew him, and I’ve told the rest. We thought he’d never
+pull through. But he has, and we know how you helped. Going West to see
+him! He didn’t write it to me, but I know.... I’m wise. I’m happy for
+him—the lucky dog. Next time you go West—”
+
+“Hush!” cried Carley. She could endure no more. She could no longer be
+a lie.
+
+“You’re white—you’re shaking,” exclaimed Rust, in concern. “Oh, I—what
+did I say? Forgive me—”
+
+“Rust, I am no more worth loving and fighting for than your Nell.”
+
+“What!” he ejaculated.
+
+“I have not told you the truth,” she said, swiftly. “I have let you
+believe a lie.... I shall never marry Glenn. I broke my engagement to
+him.”
+
+Slowly Rust sank back upon the pillow, his large luminous eyes
+piercingly fixed upon her, as if he would read her soul.
+
+“I went West—yes—” continued Carley. “But it was selfishly. I wanted
+Glenn to come back here.... He had suffered as you have. He nearly
+died. But he fought—he fought—Oh! he went through hell! And after a
+long, slow, horrible struggle he began to mend. He worked. He went to
+raising hogs. He lived alone. He worked harder and harder.... The West
+and his work saved him, body and soul.... He had learned to love both
+the West and his work. I did not blame him. But I could not live out
+there. He needed me. But I was too little—too selfish. I could not
+marry him. I gave him up. ... I left—him—alone!”
+
+Carley shrank under the scorn in Rust’s eyes.
+
+“And there’s another man,” he said, “a clean, straight, unscarred
+fellow who wouldn’t fight!”
+
+“Oh, no—I—I swear there’s not,” whispered Carley.
+
+“You, too,” he replied, thickly. Then slowly he turned that worn dark
+face to the wall. His frail breast heaved. And his lean hand made her a
+slight gesture of dismissal, significant and imperious.
+
+Carley fled. She could scarcely see to find the car. All her internal
+being seemed convulsed, and a deadly faintness made her sick and cold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Carley’s edifice of hopes, dreams, aspirations, and struggles fell in
+ruins about her. It had been built upon false sands. It had no ideal
+for foundation. It had to fall.
+
+Something inevitable had forced her confession to Rust. Dissimulation
+had been a habit of her mind; it was more a habit of her class than
+sincerity. But she had reached a point in her mental strife where she
+could not stand before Rust and let him believe she was noble and
+faithful when she knew she was neither. Would not the next step in this
+painful metamorphosis of her character be a fierce and passionate
+repudiation of herself and all she represented?
+
+She went home and locked herself in her room, deaf to telephone and
+servants. There she gave up to her shame. Scorned—despised—dismissed by
+that poor crippled flame-spirited Virgil Rust! He had reverenced her,
+and the truth had earned his hate. Would she ever forget his
+look—incredulous—shocked—bitter—and blazing with unutterable contempt?
+Carley Burch was only another Nell—a jilt—a mocker of the manhood of
+soldiers! Would she ever cease to shudder at memory of Rust’s slight
+movement of hand? Go! Get out of my sight! Leave me to my agony as you
+left Glenn Kilbourne alone to fight his! Men such as I am do not want
+the smile of your face, the touch of your hand! We gave for womanhood!
+Pass on to lesser men who loved the fleshpots and who would buy your
+charms! So Carley interpreted that slight gesture, and writhed in her
+abasement.
+
+Rust threw a white, illuminating light upon her desertion of Glenn. She
+had betrayed him. She had left him alone. Dwarfed and stunted was her
+narrow soul! To a man who had given all for her she had returned
+nothing. Stone for bread! Betrayal for love! Cowardice for courage!
+
+The hours of contending passions gave birth to vague, slow-forming
+revolt.
+
+She became haunted by memory pictures and sounds and smells of Oak
+Creek Canyon. As from afar she saw the great sculptured rent in the
+earth, green and red and brown, with its shining, flashing ribbons of
+waterfalls and streams. The mighty pines stood up magnificent and
+stately. The walls loomed high, shadowed under the shelves, gleaming in
+the sunlight, and they seemed dreaming, waiting, watching. For what?
+For her return to their serene fastnesses—to the little gray log cabin.
+The thought stormed Carley’s soul.
+
+Vivid and intense shone the images before her shut eyes. She saw the
+winding forest floor, green with grass and fern, colorful with flower
+and rock. A thousand aisles, glades, nooks, and caverns called her to
+come. Nature was every woman’s mother. The populated city was a
+delusion. Disease and death and corruption stalked in the shadows of
+the streets. But her canyon promised hard work, playful hours, dreaming
+idleness, beauty, health, fragrance, loneliness, peace, wisdom, love,
+children, and long life. In the hateful shut-in isolation of her room
+Carley stretched forth her arms as if to embrace the vision. Pale close
+walls, gleaming placid stretches of brook, churning amber and white
+rapids, mossy banks and pine-matted ledges, the towers and turrets and
+ramparts where the eagles wheeled—she saw them all as beloved images
+lost to her save in anguished memory.
+
+She heard the murmur of flowing water, soft, low, now loud, and again
+lulling, hollow and eager, tinkling over rocks, bellowing into the deep
+pools, washing with silky seep of wind-swept waves the hanging willows.
+Shrill and piercing and far-aloft pealed the scream of the eagle. And
+she seemed to listen to a mocking bird while he mocked her with his
+melody of many birds. The bees hummed, the wind moaned, the leaves
+rustled, the waterfall murmured. Then came the sharp rare note of a
+canyon swift, most mysterious of birds, significant of the heights.
+
+A breath of fragrance seemed to blow with her shifting senses. The dry,
+sweet, tangy canyon smells returned to her—of fresh-cut timber, of wood
+smoke, of the cabin fire with its steaming pots, of flowers and earth,
+and of the wet stones, of the redolent pines and the pungent cedars.
+
+And suddenly, clearly, amazingly, Carley beheld in her mind’s sight the
+hard features, the bold eyes, the slight smile, the coarse face of Haze
+Ruff. She had forgotten him. But he now returned. And with memory of
+him flashed a revelation as to his meaning in her life. He had appeared
+merely a clout, a ruffian, an animal with man’s shape and intelligence.
+But he was the embodiment of the raw, crude violence of the West. He
+was the eyes of the natural primitive man, believing what he saw. He
+had seen in Carley Burch the paraded charm, the unashamed and serene
+front, the woman seeking man. Haze Ruff had been neither vile nor base
+nor unnatural. It had been her subjection to the decadence of feminine
+dress that had been unnatural. But Ruff had found her a lie. She
+invited what she did not want. And his scorn had been commensurate with
+the falsehood of her. So might any man have been justified in his
+insult to her, in his rejection of her. Haze Ruff had found her unfit
+for his idea of dalliance. Virgil Rust had found her false to the
+ideals of womanhood for which he had sacrificed all but life itself.
+What then had Glenn Kilbourne found her? He possessed the greatness of
+noble love. He had loved her before the dark and changeful tide of war
+had come between them. How had he judged her? That last sight of him
+standing alone, leaning with head bowed, a solitary figure trenchant
+with suggestion of tragic resignation and strength, returned to flay
+Carley. He had loved, trusted, and hoped. She saw now what his hope had
+been—that she would have instilled into her blood the subtle, red, and
+revivifying essence of calling life in the open, the strength of the
+wives of earlier years, an emanation from canyon, desert, mountain,
+forest, of health, of spirit, of forward-gazing natural love, of the
+mysterious saving instinct he had gotten out of the West. And she had
+been too little too steeped in the indulgence of luxurious life too
+slight-natured and pale-blooded! And suddenly there pierced into the
+black storm of Carley’s mind a blazing, white-streaked thought—she had
+left Glenn to the Western girl, Flo Hutter. Humiliated, and abased in
+her own sight, Carley fell prey to a fury of jealousy.
+
+
+She went back to the old life. But it was in a bitter, restless,
+critical spirit, conscious of the fact that she could derive neither
+forgetfulness nor pleasure from it, nor see any release from the habit
+of years.
+
+One afternoon, late in the fall, she motored out to a Long Island club
+where the last of the season’s golf was being enjoyed by some of her
+most intimate friends. Carley did not play. Aimlessly she walked around
+the grounds, finding the autumn colors subdued and drab, like her mind.
+The air held a promise of early winter. She thought that she would go
+South before the cold came. Always trying to escape anything rigorous,
+hard, painful, or disagreeable! Later she returned to the clubhouse to
+find her party assembled on an inclosed porch, chatting and partaking
+of refreshment. Morrison was there. He had not taken kindly to her late
+habit of denying herself to him.
+
+During a lull in the idle conversation Morrison addressed Carley
+pointedly. “Well, Carley, how’s your Arizona hog-raiser?” he queried,
+with a little gleam in his usually lusterless eyes.
+
+“I have not heard lately,” she replied, coldly.
+
+The assembled company suddenly quieted with a portent inimical to their
+leisurely content of the moment. Carley felt them all looking at her,
+and underneath the exterior she preserved with extreme difficulty,
+there burned so fierce an anger that she seemed to have swelling veins
+of fire.
+
+“Queer how Kilbourne went into raising hogs,” observed Morrison. “Such
+a low-down sort of work, you know.”
+
+“He had no choice,” replied Carley. “Glenn didn’t have a father who
+made tainted millions out of the war. He had to work. And I must differ
+with you about its being low-down. No honest work is that. It is
+idleness that is low down.”
+
+“But so foolish of Glenn when he might have married money,” rejoined
+Morrison, sarcastcally.
+
+“The honor of soldiers is beyond your ken, Mr. Morrison.”
+
+He flushed darkly and bit his lip.
+
+“You women make a man sick with this rot about soldiers,” he said, the
+gleam in his eye growing ugly. “A uniform goes to a woman’s head no
+matter what’s inside it. I don’t see where your vaunted honor of
+soldiers comes in considering how they accepted the let-down of women
+during and after the war.”
+
+“How could you see when you stayed comfortably at home?” retorted
+Carley.
+
+“All I could see was women falling into soldiers’ arms,” he said,
+sullenly.
+
+“Certainly. Could an American girl desire any greater happiness—or
+opportunity to prove her gratitude?” flashed Carley, with proud uplift
+of head.
+
+“It didn’t look like gratitude to me,” returned Morrison.
+
+“Well, it _was_ gratitude,” declared Carley, ringingly. “If women of
+America did throw themselves at soldiers it was not owing to the moral
+lapse of the day. It was woman’s instinct to save the race! Always, in
+every war, women have sacrificed themselves to the future. Not vile,
+but noble!... You insult both soldiers and women, Mr. Morrison. I
+wonder—did any American girls throw themselves at _you?_”
+
+Morrison turned a dead white, and his mouth twisted to a distorted
+checking of speech, disagreeable to see.
+
+“No, you were a slacker,” went on Carley, with scathing scorn. “You let
+the other men go fight for American girls. Do you imagine one of them
+will ever _marry_ you?... All your life, Mr. Morrison, you will be a
+marked man—outside the pale of friendship with real American men and
+the respect of real American girls.”
+
+Morrison leaped up, almost knocking the table over, and he glared at
+Carley as he gathered up his hat and cane. She turned her back upon
+him. From that moment he ceased to exist for Carley. She never spoke to
+him again.
+
+
+Next day Carley called upon her dearest friend, whom she had not seen
+for some time.
+
+“Carley dear, you don’t look so very well,” said Eleanor, after
+greetings had been exchanged.
+
+“Oh, what does it matter how I look?” queried Carley, impatiently.
+
+“You were so wonderful when you got home from Arizona.”
+
+“If I was wonderful and am now commonplace you can thank your old New
+York for it.”
+
+“Carley, don’t you care for New York any more?” asked Eleanor.
+
+“Oh, New York is all right, I suppose. It’s I who am wrong.”
+
+“My dear, you puzzle me these days. You’ve changed. I’m sorry. I’m
+afraid you’re unhappy.”
+
+“Me? Oh, impossible! I’m in a seventh heaven,” replied Carley, with a
+hard little laugh. “What ’re you doing this afternoon? Let’s go
+out—riding—or somewhere.”
+
+“I’m expecting the dressmaker.”
+
+“Where are you going to-night?”
+
+“Dinner and theater. It’s a party, or I’d ask you.”
+
+“What did you do yesterday and the day before, and the days before
+that?”
+
+Eleanor laughed indulgently, and acquainted Carley with a record of her
+social wanderings during the last few days.
+
+“The same old things—over and over again! Eleanor don’t you get sick of
+it?” queried Carley.
+
+“Oh yes, to tell the truth,” returned Eleanor, thoughtfully. “But
+there’s nothing else to do.”
+
+“Eleanor, I’m no better than you,” said Carley, with disdain. “I’m as
+useless and idle. But I’m beginning to see myself—and you—and all this
+rotten crowd of ours. We’re no good. But you’re married, Eleanor.
+You’re settled in life. You ought to _do something_. I’m single and at
+loose ends. Oh, I’m in revolt!... Think, Eleanor, just think. Your
+husband works hard to keep you in this expensive apartment. You have a
+car. He dresses you in silks and satins. You wear diamonds. You eat
+your breakfast in bed. You loll around in a pink dressing gown all
+morning. You dress for lunch or tea. You ride or golf or worse than
+waste your time on some lounge lizard, dancing till time to come home
+to dress for dinner. You let other men make love to you. Oh, don’t get
+sore. You do.... And so goes the round of your life. What good on earth
+are you, anyhow? You’re just a—a gratification to the senses of your
+husband. And at that you don’t see much of _him_.”
+
+“Carley, how you rave!” exclaimed her friend. “What has gotten into you
+lately? Why, everybody tells me you’re—you’re queer! The way you
+insulted Morrison—how unlike you, Carley!”
+
+“I’m glad I found the nerve to do it. What do you think, Eleanor?”
+
+“Oh, I despise him. But you can’t say the things you feel.”
+
+“You’d be bigger and truer if you did. Some day I’ll break out and flay
+you and your friends alive.”
+
+“But, Carley, you’re my friend and you’re just exactly like we are. Or
+you were, quite recently.”
+
+“Of course, I’m your friend. I’ve always loved you, Eleanor,” went on
+Carley, earnestly. “I’m as deep in this—this damned stagnant muck as
+you, or anyone. But I’m no longer _blind_. There’s something terribly
+wrong with us women, and it’s not what Morrison hinted.”
+
+“Carley, the only thing wrong with you is that you jilted poor
+Glenn—and are breaking your heart over him still.”
+
+“Don’t—don’t!” cried Carley, shrinking. “God knows that is true. But
+there’s more wrong with me than a blighted love affair.”
+
+“Yes, you mean the modern feminine unrest?”
+
+“Eleanor, I positively hate that phrase ‘modern feminine unrest!’ It
+smacks of ultra—ultra—Oh! I don’t know what. That phrase ought to be
+translated by a Western acquaintance of mine—one Haze Ruff. I’d not
+like to hurt your sensitive feelings with what he’d say. But this
+unrest means speed-mad, excitement-mad, fad-mad, dress-mad, or I should
+say _un_dress-mad, culture-mad, and Heaven only knows what else. The
+women of our set are idle, luxurious, selfish, pleasure-craving, lazy,
+useless, work-and-children shirking, absolutely no good.”
+
+“Well, if we are, who’s to blame?” rejoined Eleanor, spiritedly. “Now,
+Carley Burch, you listen to me. I think the twentieth-century girl in
+America is the most wonderful female creation of all the ages of the
+universe. I admit it. That is why we are a prey to the evils attending
+greatness. Listen. Here is a crying sin—an infernal paradox. Take this
+twentieth-century girl, this American girl who is the finest creation
+of the ages. A young and healthy girl, the most perfect type of culture
+possible to the freest and greatest city on earth—New York! She holds
+absolutely an unreal, untrue position in the scheme of existence.
+Surrounded by parents, relatives, friends, suitors, and instructive
+schools of every kind, colleges, institutions, is she really happy, is
+she really living?”
+
+“Eleanor,” interrupted Carley, earnestly, “she is _not_.... And I’ve
+been trying to tell you why.”
+
+“My dear, let me get a word in, will you,” complained Eleanor. “You
+don’t know it all. There are as many different points of view as there
+are people.... Well, if this girl happened to have a new frock, and a
+new beau to show it to, she’d say, ‘I’m the happiest girl in the
+world.’ But she is nothing of the kind. Only she doesn’t know that. She
+approaches marriage, or, for that matter, a more matured life, having
+had too much, having been too well taken care of, _knowing too much_.
+Her masculine satellites—father, brothers, uncles, friends, lovers—all
+utterly spoil her. Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle
+class—which is to say the largest and best class of Americans. We are
+spoiled.... This girl marries. And life goes on smoothly, as if its aim
+was to exclude friction and effort. Her husband makes it too easy for
+her. She is an ornament, or a toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage. To
+soil her pretty hands would be disgraceful! Even if she can’t afford a
+maid, the modern devices of science make the care of her four-room
+apartment a farce. Electric dish-washer, clothes-washer,
+vacuum-cleaner, and the near-by delicatessen and the caterer simply rob
+a young wife of her housewifely heritage. If she has a baby—which
+happens occasionally, Carley, in spite of your assertion—it very soon
+goes to the kindergarten. Then what does she find to do with hours and
+hours? If she is not married, what on earth _can_ she find to do?”
+
+“She can work,” replied Carley, bluntly.
+
+“Oh yes, she can, but she doesn’t,” went on Eleanor. “_You_ don’t work.
+I never did. We both hated the idea. You’re calling spades spades,
+Carley, but you seem to be riding a morbid, impractical thesis. Well,
+our young American girl or bride goes in for being rushed or she goes
+in for fads, the ultra stuff you mentioned. New York City gets all the
+great artists, lecturers, and surely the great fakirs. The New York
+women support them. The men laugh, but they furnish the money. They
+take the women to the theaters, but they cut out the reception to a
+Polish princess, a lecture by an Indian magician and mystic, or a
+benefit luncheon for a Home for Friendless Cats. The truth is most of
+our young girls or brides have a wonderful enthusiasm worthy of a
+better cause. What is to become of their surplus energy, the
+bottled-lightning spirit so characteristic of modern girls? Where is
+the outlet for intense feelings? What use can they make of education or
+of gifts? They just can’t, that’s all. I’m not taking into
+consideration the new-woman species, the faddist or the reformer. I
+mean normal girls like you and me. Just think, Carley. A girl’s every
+wish, every need, is almost instantly satisfied without the slightest
+effort on her part to obtain it. No struggle, let alone work! If women
+crave to achieve something outside of the arts, you know, something
+universal and helpful which will make men acknowledge her worth, if not
+the equality, where is the opportunity?”
+
+“Opportunities should be _made_,” replied Carley.
+
+“There are a million sides to this question of the modern young
+woman—the _fin-de-siècle_ girl. I’m for her!”
+
+“How about the extreme of style in dress for this
+remarkably-to-be-pitied American girl you champion so eloquently?”
+queried Carley, sarcastically.
+
+“Immoral!” exclaimed Eleanor with frank disgust.
+
+“You admit it?”
+
+“To my shame, I do.”
+
+“Why do women wear extreme clothes? Why do you and I wear open-work
+silk stockings, skirts to our knees, gowns without sleeves or bodices?”
+
+“We’re slaves to fashion,” replied Eleanor, “That’s the popular
+excuse.”
+
+“Bah!” exclaimed Carley.
+
+Eleanor laughed in spite of being half nettled. “Are you going to stop
+wearing what all the other women wear—and be looked at askance? Are you
+going to be dowdy and frumpy and old-fashioned?”
+
+“No. But I’ll never wear anything again that can be called immoral. I
+want to be able to say _why_ I wear a dress. You haven’t answered my
+question yet. Why do you wear what you frankly admit is disgusting?”
+
+“I don’t know, Carley,” replied Eleanor, helplessly. “How you harp on
+things! We must dress to make other women jealous and to attract men.
+To be a sensation! Perhaps the word ‘immoral’ is not what I mean. A
+woman will be shocking in her obsession to attract, but hardly more
+than that, if she knows it.”
+
+“Ah! So few women realize how they actually do look. Haze Ruff could
+tell them.”
+
+“Haze Ruff. Who in the world is he or she?” asked Eleanor.
+
+“Haze Ruff is a he, all right,” replied Carley, grimly.
+
+“Well, who is he?”
+
+“A sheep-dipper in Arizona,” answered Carley, dreamily.
+
+“Humph! And what can Mr. Ruff tell us?”
+
+“He told _me_ I looked like one of the devil’s angels—and that I
+dressed to knock the daylights out of men.”
+
+“Well, Carley Burch, if that isn’t rich!” exclaimed Eleanor, with a
+peal of laughter. “I dare say you appreciate that as an original
+compliment.”
+
+“No.... I wonder what Ruff would say about jazz—I just wonder,”
+murmured Carley.
+
+“Well, I wouldn’t care what he said, and I don’t care what _you_ say,”
+returned Eleanor. “The preachers and reformers and bishops and rabbis
+make me sick. They rave about jazz. Jazz—the discordant note of our
+decadence! Jazz—the harmonious expression of our musicless, mindless,
+soulless materialism!—The idiots! If they could be women for a while
+they would realize the error of their ways. But they will never, never
+abolish jazz—_never_, for it is the grandest, the most wonderful, the
+most absolutely necessary thing for women in this terrible age of
+smotheration.”
+
+“All right, Eleanor, we understand each other, even if we do not
+agree,” said Carley. “You leave the future of women to chance, to life,
+to materialism, not to their own conscious efforts. I want to leave it
+to free will and idealism.”
+
+“Carley, you are getting a little beyond me,” declared Eleanor,
+dubiously.
+
+“What are you going to _do?_ It all comes home to each individual
+woman. Her attitude toward life.”
+
+“I’ll drift along with the current, Carley, and be a good sport,”
+replied Eleanor, smiling.
+
+“You don’t care about the women and children of the future? You’ll not
+deny yourself now, and think and work, and suffer a little, in the
+interest of future humanity?”
+
+“How you put things, Carley!” exclaimed Eleanor, wearily. “Of course I
+care—when you make me think of such things. But what have _I_ to do
+with the lives of people in the years to come?”
+
+“Everything. America for Americans! While you dawdle, the life blood is
+being sucked out of our great nation. It is a man’s job to fight; it is
+a woman’s to save.... I think you’ve made your choice, though you don’t
+realize it. I’m praying to God that I’ll rise to mine.”
+
+
+Carley had a visitor one morning earlier than the usual or conventional
+time for calls.
+
+“He wouldn’t give no name,” said the maid. “He wears soldier clothes,
+ma’am, and he’s pale, and walks with a cane.”
+
+“Tell him I’ll be right down,” replied Carley.
+
+Her hands trembled while she hurriedly dressed. Could this caller be
+Virgil Rust? She hoped so, but she doubted.
+
+As she entered the parlor a tall young man in worn khaki rose to meet
+her. At first glance she could not name him, though she recognized the
+pale face and light-blue eyes, direct and steady.
+
+“Good morning, Miss Burch,” he said. “I hope you’ll excuse so early a
+call. You remember me, don’t you? I’m George Burton, who had the bunk
+next to Rust’s.”
+
+“Surely I remember you, Mr. Burton, and I’m glad to see you,” replied
+Carley, shaking hands with him. “Please sit down. Your being here must
+mean you’re discharged from the hospital.”
+
+“Yes, I was discharged, all right,” he said.
+
+“Which means you’re well again. That is fine. I’m very glad.”
+
+“I was put out to make room for a fellow in bad shape. I’m still shaky
+and weak,” he replied. “But I’m glad to go. I’ve pulled through pretty
+good, and it’ll not be long until I’m strong again. It was the ‘flu’
+that kept me down.”
+
+“You must be careful. May I ask where you’re going and what you expect
+to do?”
+
+“Yes, that’s what I came to tell you,” he replied, frankly. “I want you
+to help me a little. I’m from Illinois and my people aren’t so badly
+off. But I don’t want to go back to my home town down and out, you
+know. Besides, the winters are cold there. The doctor advises me to go
+to a little milder climate. You see, I was gassed, and got the ‘flu’
+afterward. But I know I’ll be all right if I’m careful.... Well, I’ve
+always had a leaning toward agriculture, and I want to go to Kansas.
+Southern Kansas. I want to travel around till I find a place I like,
+and there I’ll get a job. Not too hard a job at first—that’s why I’ll
+need a little money. I know what to do. I want to lose myself in the
+wheat country and forget the—the war. I’ll not be afraid of work,
+presently.... Now, Miss Burch, you’ve been so kind—I’m going to ask you
+to lend me a little money. I’ll pay it back. I can’t promise just when.
+But some day. Will you?”
+
+“Assuredly I will,” she replied, heartily. “I’m happy to have the
+opportunity to help you. How much will you need for immediate use? Five
+hundred dollars?”
+
+“Oh no, not so much as that,” he replied. “Just railroad fare home, and
+then to Kansas, and to pay board while I get well, you know, and look
+around.”
+
+“We’ll make it five hundred, anyway,” she replied, and, rising, she
+went toward the library. “Excuse me a moment.” She wrote the check and,
+returning, gave it to him.
+
+“You’re very good,” he said, rather low.
+
+“Not at all,” replied Carley. “You have no idea how much it means to me
+to be permitted to help you. Before I forget, I must ask you, can you
+cash that check here in New York?”
+
+“Not unless you identify me,” he said, ruefully, “I don’t know anyone I
+could ask.”
+
+“Well, when you leave here go at once to my bank—it’s on Thirty-fourth
+Street—and I’ll telephone the cashier. So you’ll not have any
+difficulty. Will you leave New York at once?”
+
+“I surely will. It’s an awful place. Two years ago when I came here
+with my company I thought it was grand. But I guess I lost something
+over there. ... I want to be where it’s quiet. Where I won’t see many
+people.”
+
+“I think I understand,” returned Carley. “Then I suppose you’re in a
+hurry to get home? Of course you have a girl you’re just dying to see?”
+
+“No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t,” he replied, simply. “I was glad I
+didn’t have to leave a sweetheart behind, when I went to France. But it
+wouldn’t be so bad to have one to go back to now.”
+
+“Don’t you worry!” exclaimed Carley. “You can take your choice
+presently. You have the open sesame to every real American girl’s
+heart.”
+
+“And what is that?” he asked, with a blush.
+
+“Your service to your country,” she said, gravely.
+
+“Well,” he said, with a singular bluntness, “considering I didn’t get
+any medals or bonuses, I’d like to draw a nice girl.”
+
+“You will,” replied Carley, and made haste to change the subject. “By
+the way, did you meet Glenn Kilbourne in France?”
+
+“Not that I remember,” rejoined Burton, as he got up, rising rather
+stiffly by aid of his cane. “I must go, Miss Burch. Really I can’t
+thank you enough. And I’ll never forget it.”
+
+“Will you write me how you are getting along?” asked Carley, offering
+her hand.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Carley moved with him out into the hall and to the door. There was a
+question she wanted to ask, but found it strangely difficult of
+utterance. At the door Burton fixed a rather penetrating gaze upon her.
+
+“You didn’t ask me about Rust,” he said.
+
+“No, I—I didn’t think of him—until now, in fact,” Carley lied.
+
+“Of course then you couldn’t have heard about him. I was wondering.”
+
+“I have heard nothing.”
+
+“It was Rust who told me to come to you,” said Burton. “We were talking
+one day, and he—well, he thought you were true blue. He said he knew
+you’d trust me and lend me money. I couldn’t have asked you but for
+him.”
+
+“True blue! He believed that. I’m glad.... Has he spoken of me to you
+since I was last at the hospital?”
+
+“Hardly,” replied Burton, with the straight, strange glance on her
+again.
+
+Carley met this glance and suddenly a coldness seemed to envelop her.
+It did not seem to come from within though her heart stopped beating.
+Burton had not changed—the warmth, the gratitude still lingered about
+him. But the light of his eyes! Carley had seen it in Glenn’s, in
+Rust’s—a strange, questioning, far-off light, infinitely aloof and
+unutterably sad. Then there came a lift of her heart that released a
+pang. She whispered with dread, with a tremor, with an instinct of
+calamity.
+
+“How about—Rust?”
+
+“He’s dead.”
+
+
+The winter came, with its bleak sea winds and cold rains and blizzards
+of snow. Carley did not go South. She read and brooded, and gradually
+avoided all save those true friends who tolerated her.
+
+She went to the theater a good deal, showing preference for the drama
+of strife, and she did not go anywhere for amusement. Distraction and
+amusement seemed to be dead issues for her. But she could become
+absorbed in any argument on the good or evil of the present day.
+Socialism reached into her mind, to be rejected. She had never
+understood it clearly, but it seemed to her a state of mind where
+dissatisfied men and women wanted to share what harder working or more
+gifted people possessed. There were a few who had too much of the
+world’s goods and many who had too little. A readjustment of such
+inequality and injustice must come, but Carley did not see the remedy
+in Socialism.
+
+She devoured books on the war with a morbid curiosity and hope that she
+would find some illuminating truth as to the uselessness of sacrificing
+young men in the glory and prime of their lives. To her war appeared a
+matter of human nature rather than politics. Hate really was an effect
+of war. In her judgment future wars could be avoided only in two
+ways—by men becoming honest and just or by women refusing to have
+children to be sacrificed. As there seemed no indication whatever of
+the former, she wondered how soon all women of all races would meet on
+a common height, with the mounting spirit that consumed her own heart.
+Such time must come. She granted every argument for war and flung
+against it one ringing passionate truth—agony of mangled soldiers and
+agony of women and children. There was no justification for offensive
+war. It was monstrous and hideous. If nature and evolution proved the
+absolute need of strife, war, blood, and death in the progress of
+animal and man toward perfection, then it would be better to abandon
+this Christless code and let the race of man die out.
+
+All through these weeks she longed for a letter from Glenn. But it did
+not come. Had he finally roused to the sweetness and worth and love of
+the western girl, Flo Hutter? Carley knew absolutely, through both
+intelligence and intuition, that Glenn Kilbourne would never love Flo.
+Yet such was her intensity and stress at times, especially in the
+darkness of waking hours, that jealousy overcame her and insidiously
+worked its havoc. Peace and a strange kind of joy came to her in dreams
+of her walks and rides and climbs in Arizona, of the lonely canyon
+where it always seemed afternoon, of the tremendous colored vastness of
+that Painted Desert. But she resisted these dreams now because when she
+awoke from them she suffered such a yearning that it became unbearable.
+Then she knew the feeling of the loneliness and solitude of the hills.
+Then she knew the sweetness of the murmur of falling water, the wind in
+the pines, the song of birds, the white radiance of the stars, the
+break of day and its gold-flushed close. But she had not yet divined
+their meaning. It was not all love for Glenn Kilbourne. Had city life
+palled upon her solely because of the absence of her lover? So Carley
+plodded on, like one groping in the night, fighting shadows.
+
+One day she received a card from an old schoolmate, a girl who had
+married out of Carley’s set, and had been ostracized. She was living
+down on Long Island, at a little country place named Wading River. Her
+husband was an electrician—something of an inventor. He worked hard. A
+baby boy had just come to them. Would not Carley run down on the train
+to see the youngster?
+
+That was a strong and trenchant call. Carley went. She found indeed a
+country village, and on the outskirts of it a little cottage that must
+have been pretty in summer, when the green was on vines and trees. Her
+old schoolmate was rosy, plump, bright-eyed, and happy. She saw in
+Carley no change—a fact that somehow rebounded sweetly on Carley’s
+consciousness. Elsie prattled of herself and her husband and how they
+had worked to earn this little home, and then the baby.
+
+When Carley saw the adorable dark-eyed, pink-toed, curly-fisted baby
+she understood Elsie’s happiness and reveled in it. When she felt the
+soft, warm, living little body in her arms, against her breast, then
+she absorbed some incalculable and mysterious strength. What were the
+trivial, sordid, and selfish feelings that kept her in tumult compared
+to this welling emotion? Had she the secret in her arms? Babies and
+Carley had never become closely acquainted in those infrequent meetings
+that were usually the result of chance. But Elsie’s baby nestled to her
+breast and cooed to her and clung to her finger. When at length the
+youngster was laid in his crib it seemed to Carley that the fragrance
+and the soul of him remained with her.
+
+“A real American boy!” she murmured.
+
+“You can just bet he is,” replied Elsie. “Carley, you ought to see his
+dad.”
+
+“I’d like to meet him,” said Carley, thoughtfully. “Elsie, was he in
+the service?”
+
+“Yes. He was on one of the navy transports that took munitions to
+France. Think of me, carrying this baby, with my husband on a boat full
+of explosives and with German submarines roaming the ocean! Oh, it was
+horrible!”
+
+“But he came back, and now all’s well with you,” said Carley, with a
+smile of earnestness. “I’m very glad, Elsie.”
+
+“Yes—but I shudder when I think of a possible war in the future. I’m
+going to raise boys, and girls, too, I hope—and the thought of war is
+torturing.”
+
+Carley found her return train somewhat late, and she took advantage of
+the delay to walk out to the wooded headlands above the Sound.
+
+It was a raw March day, with a steely sun going down in a pale-gray
+sky. Patches of snow lingered in sheltered brushy places. This bit of
+woodland had a floor of soft sand that dragged at Carley’s feet. There
+were sere and brown leaves still fluttering on the scrub-oaks. At
+length Carley came out on the edge of the bluff with the gray expanse
+of sea beneath her, and a long wandering shore line, ragged with
+wreckage or driftwood. The surge of water rolled in—a long, low, white,
+creeping line that softly roared on the beach and dragged the pebbles
+gratingly back. There was neither boat nor living creature in sight.
+
+Carley felt the scene ease a clutching hand within her breast. Here was
+loneliness and solitude vastly different from that of Oak Creek Canyon,
+yet it held the same intangible power to soothe. The swish of the surf,
+the moan of the wind in the evergreens, were voices that called to her.
+How many more miles of lonely land than peopled cities! Then the
+sea—how vast! And over that the illimitable and infinite sky, and
+beyond, the endless realms of space. It helped her somehow to see and
+hear and feel the eternal presence of nature. In communion with nature
+the significance of life might be realized. She remembered Glenn
+quoting: “The world is too much with us. ... Getting and spending, we
+lay waste our powers.” What were our powers? What did God intend men to
+do with hands and bodies and gifts and souls? She gazed back over the
+bleak land and then out across the broad sea. Only a millionth part of
+the surface of the unsubmerged earth knew the populous abodes of man.
+And the lonely sea, inhospitable to stable homes of men, was thrice the
+area of the land. Were men intended, then, to congregate in few places,
+to squabble and to bicker and breed the discontents that led to
+injustice, hatred, and war? What a mystery it all was! But Nature was
+neither false nor little, however cruel she might be.
+
+
+Once again Carley fell under the fury of her ordeal. Wavering now,
+restless and sleepless, given to violent starts and slow spells of
+apathy, she was wearing to defeat.
+
+That spring day, one year from the day she had left New York for
+Arizona, she wished to spend alone. But her thoughts grew unbearable.
+She summed up the endless year. Could she live another like it?
+Something must break within her.
+
+She went out. The air was warm and balmy, carrying that subtle current
+which caused the mild madness of spring fever. In the Park the greening
+of the grass, the opening of buds, the singing of birds, the gladness
+of children, the light on the water, the warm sun—all seemed to
+reproach her. Carley fled from the Park to the home of Beatrice Lovell;
+and there, unhappily, she encountered those of her acquaintance with
+whom she had least patience. They forced her to think too keenly of
+herself. They appeared carefree while she was miserable.
+
+Over teacups there were waging gossip and argument and criticism. When
+Carley entered with Beatrice there was a sudden hush and then a murmur.
+
+“Hello, Carley! Now say it to our faces,” called out Geralda Conners, a
+fair, handsome young woman of thirty, exquisitely gowned in the latest
+mode, and whose brilliantly tinted complexion was not the natural one
+of health.
+
+“Say what, Geralda?” asked Carley. “I certainly would not say anything
+behind your backs that I wouldn’t repeat here.”
+
+“Eleanor has been telling us how you simply burned us up.”
+
+“We did have an argument. And I’m not sure I said all I wanted to.”
+
+“Say the rest here,” drawled a lazy, mellow voice. “For Heaven’s sake,
+stir us up. If I could get a kick out of _anything_ I’d bless it.”
+
+“Carley, go on the stage,” advised another. “You’ve got Elsie Ferguson
+tied to the mast for looks. And lately you’re surely tragic enough.”
+
+“I wish you’d go somewhere far off!” observed a third. “My husband is
+dippy about you.”
+
+“Girls, do you know that you actually have not one sensible idea in
+your heads?” retorted Carley.
+
+“Sensible? I should hope not. Who wants to be sensible?”
+
+Geralda battered her teacup on a saucer. “Listen,” she called. “I
+wasn’t kidding Carley. I am good and sore. She goes around knocking
+everybody and saying New York backs Sodom off the boards. I want her to
+come out with it right here.”
+
+“I dare say I’ve talked too much,” returned Carley. “It’s been a rather
+hard winter on me. Perhaps, indeed, I’ve tried the patience of my
+friends.”
+
+“See here, Carley,” said Geralda, deliberately, “just because you’ve
+had life turn to bitter ashes in your mouth you’ve no right to poison
+it for us. We all find it pretty sweet. You’re an _un_satisfied woman
+and if you don’t marry somebody you’ll end by being a reformer or
+fanatic.”
+
+“I’d rather end that way than rot in a shell,” retorted Carley.
+
+“I declare, you make me see red, Carley,” flashed Geralda, angrily. “No
+wonder Morrison roasts you to everybody. He says Glenn Kilbourne threw
+you down for some Western girl. If that’s true it’s pretty small of you
+to vent your spleen on us.”
+
+Carley felt the gathering of a mighty resistless force, But Geralda
+Conners was nothing to her except the target for a thunderbolt.
+
+“I have no spleen,” she replied, with a dignity of passion. “I have
+only pity. I was as blind as you. If heartbreak tore the scales from my
+eyes, perhaps that is well for me. For I see something terribly wrong
+in myself, in you, in all of us, in the life of today.”
+
+“You keep your pity to yourself. You need it,” answered Geralda, with
+heat. “There’s nothing wrong with me or my friends or life in good old
+New York.”
+
+“Nothing wrong!” cried Carley. “Listen. Nothing wrong in you or life
+today—nothing for you women to make right? You are blind as bats—as
+dead to living truth as if you were buried. Nothing wrong when
+thousands of crippled soldiers have no homes—no money—no friends—no
+work—in many cases no food or bed?... Splendid young men who went away
+in their prime to fight for _you_ and came back ruined, suffering!
+Nothing wrong when sane women with the vote might rid politics of
+partisanship, greed, crookedness? Nothing wrong when prohibition is
+mocked by women—when the greatest boon ever granted this country is
+derided and beaten down and cheated? Nothing wrong when there are half
+a million defective children in this city? Nothing wrong when there are
+not enough schools and teachers to educate our boys and girls, when
+those teachers are shamefully underpaid? Nothing wrong when the mothers
+of this great country let their youngsters go to the dark motion
+picture halls and night after night in thousands of towns over all this
+broad land see pictures that the juvenile court and the educators and
+keepers of reform schools say make burglars, crooks, and murderers of
+our boys and vampires of our girls? Nothing wrong when these young
+adolescent girls ape _you_ and wear stockings rolled under their knees
+below their skirts and use a lip stick and paint their faces and darken
+their eyes and pluck their eyebrows and absolutely do not know what
+shame is? Nothing wrong when you may find in any city women standing at
+street corners distributing booklets on birth control? Nothing wrong
+when great magazines print no page or picture without its sex appeal?
+Nothing wrong when the automobile, so convenient for the innocent
+little run out of town, presents the greatest evil that ever menaced
+American girls! Nothing wrong when money is god—when luxury, pleasure,
+excitement, speed are the striven for? Nothing wrong when some of your
+husbands spend more of their time with other women than with you?
+Nothing wrong with jazz—where the lights go out in the dance hall and
+the dancers jiggle and toddle and wiggle in a frenzy? Nothing wrong in
+a country where the greatest college cannot report birth of one child
+to each graduate in ten years? Nothing wrong with race suicide and the
+incoming horde of foreigners?... Nothing wrong with you women who
+cannot or will not stand childbirth? Nothing wrong with most of you,
+when if you _did_ have a child, you could not nurse it?... Oh, my God,
+there’s nothing wrong with America except that she staggers under a
+Titanic burden that only mothers of sons can remove!... You doll women,
+you parasites, you toys of men, you silken-wrapped geisha girls, you
+painted, idle, purring cats, you parody of the females of your
+species—find brains enough if you can to see the doom hanging over you
+and revolt before it is too late!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Carley burst in upon her aunt.
+
+“Look at me, Aunt Mary!” she cried, radiant and exultant. “I’m going
+back out West to marry Glenn and live his life!”
+
+The keen old eyes of her aunt softened and dimmed. “Dear Carley, I’ve
+known that for a long time. You’ve found yourself at last.”
+
+Then Carley breathlessly babbled her hastily formed plans, every word
+of which seemed to rush her onward.
+
+“You’re going to surprise Glenn again?” queried Aunt Mary.
+
+“Oh, I must! I want to see his face when I tell him.”
+
+“Well, I hope he won’t surprise _you_,” declared the old lady. “When
+did you hear from him last?”
+
+“In January. It seems ages—but—Aunt Mary, you don’t imagine Glenn—”
+
+“I imagine nothing,” interposed her aunt. “It will turn out happily and
+I’ll have some peace in my old age. But, Carley, what’s to become of
+me?”
+
+“Oh, I never thought!” replied Carley, blankly. “It will be lonely for
+you. Auntie, I’ll come back in the fall for a few weeks. Glenn will let
+me.”
+
+“_Let_ you? Ye gods! So you’ve come to that? Imperious Carley Burch!...
+Thank Heaven, you’ll now be satisfied to be let do things.”
+
+“I’d—I’d crawl for him,” breathed Carley.
+
+“Well, child, as you can’t be practical, I’ll have to be,” replied Aunt
+Mary, seriously. “Fortunately for you I am a woman of quick decision.
+Listen. I’ll go West with you. I want to see the Grand Canyon. Then
+I’ll go on to California, where I have old friends I’ve not seen for
+years. When you get your new home all fixed up I’ll spend awhile with
+you. And if I want to come back to New York now and then I’ll go to a
+hotel. It is settled. I think the change will benefit me.”
+
+“Auntie, you make me very happy. I could ask no more,” said Carley.
+
+
+Swiftly as endless tasks could make them the days passed. But those on
+the train dragged interminably.
+
+Carley sent her aunt through to the Canyon while she stopped off at
+Flagstaff to store innumerable trunks and bags. The first news she
+heard of Glenn and the Hutters was that they had gone to the Tonto
+Basin to buy hogs and would be absent at least a month. This gave birth
+to a new plan in Carley’s mind. She would doubly surprise Glenn.
+Wherefore she took council with some Flagstaff business men and engaged
+them to set a force of men at work on the Deep Lake property, making
+the improvements she desired, and hauling lumber, cement, bricks,
+machinery, supplies—all the necessaries for building construction. Also
+she instructed them to throw up a tent house for her to live in during
+the work, and to engage a reliable Mexican man with his wife for
+servants. When she left for the Canyon she was happier than ever before
+in her life.
+
+
+It was near the coming of sunset when Carley first looked down into the
+Grand Canyon. She had forgotten Glenn’s tribute to this place. In her
+rapturous excitement of preparation and travel the Canyon had been
+merely a name. But now she saw it and she was stunned.
+
+What a stupendous chasm, gorgeous in sunset color on the heights,
+purpling into mystic shadows in the depths! There was a wonderful
+brightness of all the millions of red and yellow and gray surfaces
+still exposed to the sun. Carley did not feel a thrill, because feeling
+seemed inhibited. She looked and looked, yet was reluctant to keep on
+looking. She possessed no image in mind with which to compare this
+grand and mystic spectacle. A transformation of color and shade
+appeared to be going on swiftly, as if gods were changing the scenes of
+a Titanic stage. As she gazed the dark fringed line of the north rim
+turned to burnished gold, and she watched that with fascinated eyes. It
+turned rose, it lost its fire, it faded to quiet cold gray. The sun had
+set.
+
+Then the wind blew cool through the pinyons on the rim. There was a
+sweet tang of cedar and sage on the air and that indefinable fragrance
+peculiar to the canyon country of Arizona. How it brought back to
+Carley remembrance of Oak Creek! In the west, across the purple notches
+of the abyss, a dull gold flare showed where the sun had gone down.
+
+In the morning at eight o’clock there were great irregular black
+shadows under the domes and peaks and escarpments. Bright Angel Canyon
+was all dark, showing dimly its ragged lines. At noon there were no
+shadows and all the colossal gorge lay glaring under the sun. In the
+evening Carley watched the Canyon as again the sun was setting.
+
+Deep dark-blue shadows, like purple sails of immense ships, in
+wonderful contrast with the bright sunlit slopes, grew and rose toward
+the east, down the canyons and up the walls that faced the west. For a
+long while there was no red color, and the first indication of it was a
+dull bronze. Carley looked down into the void, at the sailing birds, at
+the precipitous slopes, and the dwarf spruces and the weathered old
+yellow cliffs. When she looked up again the shadows out there were no
+longer dark. They were clear. The slopes and depths and ribs of rock
+could be seen through them. Then the tips of the highest peaks and
+domes turned bright red. Far to the east she discerned a strange
+shadow, slowly turning purple. One instant it grew vivid, then began to
+fade. Soon after that all the colors darkened and slowly the pale gray
+stole over all.
+
+At night Carley gazed over and into the black void. But for the awful
+sense of depth she would not have known the Canyon to be there. A
+soundless movement of wind passed under her. The chasm seemed a grave
+of silence. It was as mysterious as the stars and as aloof and as
+inevitable. It had held her senses of beauty and proportion in
+abeyance.
+
+At another sunrise the crown of the rim, a broad belt of bare rock,
+turned pale gold under its fringed dark line of pines. The tips of the
+peak gleamed opal. There was no sunrise red, no fire. The light in the
+east was a pale gold under a steely green-blue sky. All the abyss of
+the Canyon was soft, gray, transparent, and the belt of gold broadened
+downward, making shadows on the west slopes of the mesas and
+escarpments. Far down in the shadows she discerned the river, yellow,
+turgid, palely gleaming. By straining her ears Carley heard a low dull
+roar as of distant storm. She stood fearfully at the extreme edge of a
+stupendous cliff, where it sheered dark and forbidding, down and down,
+into what seemed red and boundless depths of Hades. She saw gold spots
+of sunlight on the dark shadows, proving that somewhere, impossible to
+discover, the sun was shining through wind-worn holes in the sharp
+ridges. Every instant Carley grasped a different effect. Her studied
+gaze absorbed an endless changing. And at last she realized that sun
+and light and stars and moon and night and shade, all working
+incessantly and mutably over shapes and lines and angles and surfaces
+too numerous and too great for the sight of man to hold, made an
+ever-changing spectacle of supreme beauty and colorful grandeur.
+
+She talked very little while at the Canyon. It silenced her. She had
+come to see it at the critical time of her life and in the right mood.
+The superficialities of the world shrunk to their proper
+insignificance. Once she asked her aunt: “Why did not Glenn bring me
+here?” As if this Canyon proved the nature of all things!
+
+But in the end Carley found that the rending strife of the
+transformation of her attitude toward life had insensibly ceased. It
+had ceased during the long watching of this cataclysm of nature, this
+canyon of gold-banded black-fringed ramparts, and red-walled mountains
+which sloped down to be lost in purple depths. That was final proof of
+the strength of nature to soothe, to clarify, to stabilize the tried
+and weary and upward-gazing soul. Stronger than the recorded deeds of
+saints, stronger than the eloquence of the gifted uplifters of men,
+stronger than any words ever written, was the grand, brooding,
+sculptured aspect of nature. And it must have been so because thousands
+of years before the age of saints or preachers—before the fret and
+symbol and figure were cut in stone—man must have watched with
+thought-developing sight the wonders of the earth, the monuments of
+time, the glooming of the dark-blue sea, the handiwork of God.
+
+
+In May, Carley returned to Flagstaff to take up with earnest
+inspiration the labors of homebuilding in a primitive land.
+
+It required two trucks to transport her baggage and purchases out to
+Deep Lake. The road was good for eighteen miles of the distance, until
+it branched off to reach her land, and from there it was desert rock
+and sand. But eventually they made it; and Carley found herself and
+belongings dumped out into the windy and sunny open. The moment was
+singularly thrilling and full of transport. She was free. She had
+shaken off the shackles. She faced lonely, wild, barren desert that
+must be made habitable by the genius of her direction and the labor of
+her hands. Always a thought of Glenn hovered tenderly, dreamily in the
+back of her consciousness, but she welcomed the opportunity to have a
+few weeks of work and activity and solitude before taking up her life
+with him. She wanted to adapt herself to the metamorphosis that had
+been wrought in her.
+
+To her amazement and delight, a very considerable progress had been
+made with her plans. Under a sheltered red cliff among the cedars had
+been erected the tents where she expected to live until the house was
+completed. These tents were large, with broad floors high off the
+ground, and there were four of them. Her living tent had a porch under
+a wide canvas awning. The bed was a boxlike affair, raised off the
+floor two feet, and it contained a great, fragrant mass of cedar boughs
+upon which the blankets were to be spread. At one end was a dresser
+with large mirror, and a chiffonier. There were table and lamp, a low
+rocking chair, a shelf for books, a row of hooks upon which to hang
+things, a washstand with its necessary accessories, a little stove and
+a neat stack of cedar chips and sticks. Navajo rugs on the floor lent
+brightness and comfort.
+
+Carley heard the rustling of cedar branches over her head, and saw
+where they brushed against the tent roof. It appeared warm and fragrant
+inside, and protected from the wind, and a subdued white light filtered
+through the canvas. Almost she felt like reproving herself for the
+comfort surrounding her. For she had come West to welcome the hard
+knocks of primitive life.
+
+It took less than an hour to have her trunks stored in one of the spare
+tents, and to unpack clothes and necessaries for immediate use. Carley
+donned the comfortable and somewhat shabby outdoor garb she had worn at
+Oak Creek the year before; and it seemed to be the last thing needed to
+make her fully realize the glorious truth of the present.
+
+“I’m here,” she said to her pale, yet happy face in the mirror. “The
+impossible has happened. I have accepted Glenn’s life. I have answered
+that strange call out of the West.”
+
+She wanted to throw herself on the sunlit woolly blankets of her bed
+and hug them, to think and think of the bewildering present happiness,
+to dream of the future, but she could not lie or sit still, nor keep
+her mind from grasping at actualities and possibilities of this place,
+nor her hands from itching to do things.
+
+It developed, presently, that she could not have idled away the time
+even if she had wanted to, for the Mexican woman came for her, with
+smiling gesticulation and jabber that manifestly meant dinner. Carley
+could not understand many Mexican words, and herein she saw another
+task. This swarthy woman and her sloe-eyed husband favorably impressed
+Carley.
+
+Next to claim her was Hoyle, the superintendent. “Miss Burch,” he said,
+“in the early days we could run up a log cabin in a jiffy. Axes,
+horses, strong arms, and a few pegs—that was all we needed. But this
+house you’ve planned is different. It’s good you’ve come to take the
+responsibility.”
+
+Carley had chosen the site for her home on top of the knoll where Glenn
+had taken her to show her the magnificent view of mountains and desert.
+Carley climbed it now with beating heart and mingled emotions. A
+thousand times already that day, it seemed, she had turned to gaze up
+at the noble white-clad peaks. They were closer now, apparently looming
+over her, and she felt a great sense of peace and protection in the
+thought that they would always be there. But she had not yet seen the
+desert that had haunted her for a year. When she reached the summit of
+the knoll and gazed out across the open space it seemed that she must
+stand spellbound. How green the cedared foreground—how gray and barren
+the downward slope—how wonderful the painted steppes! The vision that
+had lived in her memory shrank to nothingness. The reality was immense,
+more than beautiful, appalling in its isolation, beyond comprehension
+with its lure and strength to uplift.
+
+But the superintendent drew her attention to the business at hand.
+
+Carley had planned an L-shaped house of one story. Some of her ideas
+appeared to be impractical, and these she abandoned. The framework was
+up and half a dozen carpenters were lustily at work with saw and
+hammer.
+
+“We’d made better progress if this house was in an ordinary place,”
+explained Hoyle. “But you see the wind blows here, so the framework had
+to be made as solid and strong as possible. In fact, it’s bolted to the
+sills.”
+
+Both living room and sleeping room were arranged so that the Painted
+Desert could be seen from one window, and on the other side the whole
+of the San Francisco Mountains. Both rooms were to have open
+fireplaces. Carley’s idea was for service and durability. She thought
+of comfort in the severe winters of that high latitude, but elegance
+and luxury had no more significance in her life.
+
+Hoyle made his suggestions as to changes and adaptations, and,
+receiving her approval, he went on to show her what had been already
+accomplished. Back on higher ground a reservoir of concrete was being
+constructed near an ever-flowing spring of snow water from the peaks.
+This water was being piped by gravity to the house, and was a matter of
+greatest satisfaction to Hoyle, for he claimed that it would never
+freeze in winter, and would be cold and abundant during the hottest and
+driest of summers. This assurance solved the most difficult and serious
+problem of ranch life in the desert.
+
+Next Hoyle led Carley down off the knoll to the wide cedar valley
+adjacent to the lake. He was enthusiastic over its possibilities. Two
+small corrals and a large one had been erected, the latter having a low
+flat barn connected with it. Ground was already being cleared along the
+lake where alfalfa and hay were to be raised. Carley saw the blue and
+yellow smoke from burning brush, and the fragrant odor thrilled her.
+Mexicans were chopping the cleared cedars into firewood for winter use.
+
+The day was spent before she realized it. At sunset the carpenters and
+mechanics left in two old Ford cars for town. The Mexicans had a camp
+in the cedars, and the Hoyles had theirs at the spring under the knoll
+where Carley had camped with Glenn and the Hutters. Carley watched the
+golden rosy sunset, and as the day ended she breathed deeply as if in
+unutterable relief. Supper found her with appetite she had long since
+lost. Twilight brought cold wind, the staccato bark of coyotes, the
+flicker of camp fires through the cedars. She tried to embrace all her
+sensations, but they were so rapid and many that she failed.
+
+The cold, clear, silent night brought back the charm of the desert. How
+flaming white the stars! The great spire-pointed peaks lifted cold
+pale-gray outlines up into the deep star-studded sky. Carley walked a
+little to and fro, loath to go to her tent, though tired. She wanted
+calm. But instead of achieving calmness she grew more and more towards
+a strange state of exultation.
+
+Westward, only a matter of twenty or thirty miles, lay the deep rent in
+the level desert—Oak Creek Canyon. If Glenn had been there this night
+would have been perfect, yet almost unendurable. She was again grateful
+for his absence. What a surprise she had in store for him! And she
+imagined his face in its change of expression when she met him. If only
+he never learned of her presence in Arizona until she made it known in
+person! That she most longed for. Chances were against it, but then her
+luck had changed. She looked to the eastward where a pale luminosity of
+afterglow shone in the heavens. Far distant seemed the home of her
+childhood, the friends she had scorned and forsaken, the city of
+complaining and striving millions. If only some miracle might illumine
+the minds of her friends, as she felt that hers was to be illumined
+here in the solitude. But she well realized that not all problems could
+be solved by a call out of the West. Any open and lonely land that
+might have saved Glenn Kilbourne would have sufficed for her. It was
+the spirit of the thing and not the letter. It was work of any kind and
+not only that of ranch life. Not only the raising of hogs!
+
+Carley directed stumbling steps toward the light of her tent. Her eyes
+had not been used to such black shadow along the ground. She had, too,
+squeamish feminine fears of hydrophobia skunks, and nameless animals or
+reptiles that were imagined denizens of the darkness. She gained her
+tent and entered. The Mexican, Gino, as he called himself, had lighted
+her lamp and fire. Carley was chilled through, and the tent felt so
+warm and cozy that she could scarcely believe it. She fastened the
+screen door, laced the flaps across it, except at the top, and then
+gave herself up to the lulling and comforting heat.
+
+There were plans to perfect; innumerable things to remember; a car and
+accessories, horses, saddles, outfits to buy. Carley knew she should
+sit down at her table and write and figure, but she could not do it
+then.
+
+For a long time she sat over the little stove, toasting her knees and
+hands, adding some chips now and then to the red coals. And her mind
+seemed a kaleidoscope of changing visions, thoughts, feelings. At last
+she undressed and blew out the lamp and went to bed.
+
+Instantly a thick blackness seemed to enfold her and silence as of a
+dead world settled down upon her. Drowsy as she was, she could not
+close her eyes nor refrain from listening. Darkness and silence were
+tangible things. She felt them. And they seemed suddenly potent with
+magic charm to still the tumult of her, to soothe and rest, to create
+thoughts she had never thought before. Rest was more than selfish
+indulgence. Loneliness was necessary to gain consciousness of the soul.
+Already far back in the past seemed Carley’s other life.
+
+By and by the dead stillness awoke to faint sounds not before
+perceptible to her—a low, mournful sough of the wind in the cedars,
+then the faint far-distant note of a coyote, sad as the night and
+infinitely wild.
+
+
+Days passed. Carley worked in the mornings with her hands and her
+brains. In the afternoons she rode and walked and climbed with a double
+object, to work herself into fit physical condition and to explore
+every nook and corner of her six hundred and forty acres.
+
+Then what she had expected and deliberately induced by her efforts
+quickly came to pass. Just as the year before she had suffered
+excruciating pain from aching muscles, and saddle blisters, and walking
+blisters, and a very rending of her bones, so now she fell victim to
+them again. In sunshine and rain she faced the desert. Sunburn and
+sting of sleet were equally to be endured. And that abomination, the
+hateful blinding sandstorm, did not daunt her. But the weary hours of
+abnegation to this physical torture at least held one consoling
+recompense as compared with her experience of last year, and it was
+that there was no one interested to watch for her weaknesses and
+failures and blunders. She could fight it out alone.
+
+Three weeks of this self-imposed strenuous training wore by before
+Carley was free enough from weariness and pain to experience other
+sensations. Her general health, evidently, had not been so good as when
+she had first visited Arizona. She caught cold and suffered other ills
+attendant upon an abrupt change of climate and condition. But doggedly
+she kept at her task. She rode when she should have been in bed; she
+walked when she should have ridden; she climbed when she should have
+kept to level ground. And finally by degrees so gradual as not to be
+noticed except in the sum of them she began to mend.
+
+Meanwhile the construction of her house went on with uninterrupted
+rapidity. When the low, slanting, wide-eaved roof was completed Carley
+lost further concern about rainstorms. Let them come. When the plumbing
+was all in and Carley saw verification of Hoyle’s assurance that it
+would mean a gravity supply of water ample and continual, she lost her
+last concern as to the practicability of the work. That, and the
+earning of her endurance, seemed to bring closer a wonderful reward,
+still nameless and spiritual, that had been unattainable, but now
+breathed to her on the fragrant desert wind and in the brooding
+silence.
+
+
+The time came when each afternoon’s ride or climb called to Carley with
+increasing delight. But the fact that she must soon reveal to Glenn her
+presence and transformation did not seem to be all the cause. She could
+ride without pain, walk without losing her breath, work without
+blistering her hands; and in this there was compensation. The building
+of the house that was to become a home, the development of water
+resources and land that meant the making of a ranch—these did not
+altogether constitute the anticipation of content. To be active, to
+accomplish things, to recall to mind her knowledge of manual training,
+of domestic science, of designing and painting, to learn to cook—these
+were indeed measures full of reward, but they were not all. In her
+wondering, pondering meditation she arrived at the point where she
+tried to assign to her love the growing fullness of her life. This,
+too, splendid and all-pervading as it was, she had to reject. Some
+exceedingly illusive and vital significance of life had insidiously
+come to Carley.
+
+One afternoon, with the sky full of white and black rolling clouds and
+a cold wind sweeping through the cedars, she halted to rest and escape
+the chilling gale for a while. In a sunny place, under the lee of a
+gravel bank, she sought refuge. It was warm here because of the
+reflected sunlight and the absence of wind. The sand at the bottom of
+the bank held a heat that felt good to her cold hands. All about her
+and over her swept the keen wind, rustling the sage, seeping the sand,
+swishing the cedars, but she was out of it, protected and insulated.
+The sky above showed blue between the threatening clouds. There were no
+birds or living creatures in sight. Certainly the place had little of
+color or beauty or grace, nor could she see beyond a few rods. Lying
+there, without any particular reason that she was conscious of, she
+suddenly felt shot through and through with exhilaration.
+
+Another day, the warmest of the spring so far, she rode a Navajo
+mustang she had recently bought from a passing trader; and at the
+farthest end of her section, in rough wooded and ridged ground she had
+not explored, she found a canyon with red walls and pine trees and
+gleaming streamlet and glades of grass and jumbles of rock. It was a
+miniature canyon, to be sure, only a quarter of a mile long, and as
+deep as the height of a lofty pine, and so narrow that it seemed only
+the width of a lane, but it had all the features of Oak Creek Canyon,
+and so sufficed for the exultant joy of possession. She explored it.
+The willow brakes and oak thickets harbored rabbits and birds. She saw
+the white flags of deer running away down the open. Up at the head
+where the canyon boxed she flushed a flock of wild turkeys. They ran
+like ostriches and flew like great brown chickens. In a cavern Carley
+found the den of a bear, and in another place the bleached bones of a
+steer.
+
+She lingered here in the shaded depths with a feeling as if she were
+indeed lost to the world. These big brown and seamy-barked pines with
+their spreading gnarled arms and webs of green needles belonged to her,
+as also the tiny brook, the blue bells smiling out of the ferns, the
+single stalk of mescal on a rocky ledge.
+
+Never had sun and earth, tree and rock, seemed a part of her being
+until then. She would become a sun-worshiper and a lover of the earth.
+That canyon had opened there to sky and light for millions of years;
+and doubtless it had harbored sheep herders, Indians, cliff dwellers,
+barbarians. She was a woman with white skin and a cultivated mind, but
+the affinity for them existed in her. She felt it, and that an
+understanding of it would be good for body and soul.
+
+Another day she found a little grove of jack pines growing on a flat
+mesa-like bluff, the highest point on her land. The trees were small
+and close together, mingling their green needles overhead and their
+discarded brown ones on the ground. From here Carley could see afar to
+all points of the compass—the slow green descent to the south and the
+climb to the black-timbered distance; the ridged and canyoned country
+to the west, red vents choked with green and rimmed with gray; to the
+north the grand upflung mountain kingdom crowned with snow; and to the
+east the vastness of illimitable space, the openness and wildness, the
+chased and beaten mosaic of colored sands and rocks.
+
+Again and again she visited this lookout and came to love its
+isolation, its command of wondrous prospects, its power of suggestion
+to her thoughts. She became a creative being, in harmony with the live
+things around her. The great life-dispensing sun poured its rays down
+upon her, as if to ripen her; and the earth seemed warm, motherly,
+immense with its all-embracing arms. She no longer plucked the
+bluebells to press to her face, but leaned to them. Every blade of
+gramma grass, with its shining bronze-tufted seed head, had
+significance for her. The scents of the desert began to have meaning
+for her. She sensed within her the working of a great leveling process
+through which supreme happiness would come.
+
+June! The rich, thick, amber light, like a transparent reflection from
+some intense golden medium, seemed to float in the warm air. The sky
+became an azure blue. In the still noontides, when the bees hummed
+drowsily and the flies buzzed, vast creamy-white columnar clouds rolled
+up from the horizon, like colossal ships with bulging sails. And summer
+with its rush of growing things was at hand.
+
+Carley rode afar, seeking in strange places the secret that eluded her.
+Only a few days now until she would ride down to Oak Creek Canyon!
+There was a low, singing melody of wind in the cedars. The earth became
+too beautiful in her magnified sight. A great truth was dawning upon
+her—that the sacrifice of what she had held as necessary to the
+enjoyment of life—that the strain of conflict, the labor of hands, the
+forcing of weary body, the enduring of pain, the contact with the
+earth—had served somehow to rejuvenate her blood, quicken her pulse,
+intensify her sensorial faculties, thrill her very soul, lead her into
+the realm of enchantment.
+
+One afternoon a dull, lead-black-colored cinder knoll tempted her to
+explore its bare heights. She rode up until her mustang sank to his
+knees and could climb no farther. From there she essayed the ascent on
+foot. It took labor. But at last she gained the summit, burning,
+sweating, panting.
+
+The cinder hill was an extinct crater of a volcano. In the center of it
+lay a deep bowl, wondrously symmetrical, and of a dark lusterless hue.
+Not a blade of grass was there, nor a plant. Carley conceived a desire
+to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of
+the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she had
+overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of
+daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started
+down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an
+exhilarating emotion consumed her. If there were danger, it mattered
+not. She strode down with giant steps, she plunged, she started
+avalanches to ride them until they stopped, she leaped, and lastly she
+fell, to roll over the soft cinders to the pit.
+
+There she lay. It seemed a comfortable resting place. The pit was
+scarcely six feet across. She gazed upward and was astounded. How steep
+was the rounded slope on all sides! There were no sides; it was a
+circle. She looked up at a round lake of deep translucent sky. Such
+depth of blue, such exquisite rare color! Carley imagined she could
+gaze through it to the infinite beyond.
+
+She closed her eyes and rested. Soon the laboring of heart and breath
+calmed to normal, so that she could not hear them. Then she lay
+perfectly motionless. With eyes shut she seemed still to look, and what
+she saw was the sunlight through the blood and flesh of her eyelids. It
+was red, as rare a hue as the blue of sky. So piercing did it grow that
+she had to shade her eyes with her arm.
+
+Again the strange, rapt glow suffused her body. Never in all her life
+had she been so absolutely alone. She might as well have been in her
+grave. She might have been dead to all earthy things and reveling in
+spirit in the glory of the physical that had escaped her in life. And
+she abandoned herself to this influence.
+
+She loved these dry, dusty cinders; she loved the crater here hidden
+from all save birds; she loved the desert, the earth—above all, the
+sun. She was a product of the earth—a creation of the sun. She had been
+an infinitesimal atom of inert something that had quickened to life
+under the blazing magic of the sun. Soon her spirit would abandon her
+body and go on, while her flesh and bone returned to dust. This frame
+of hers, that carried the divine spark, belonged to the earth. She had
+only been ignorant, mindless, feelingless, absorbed in the seeking of
+gain, blind to the truth. She had to give. She had been created a
+woman; she belonged to nature; she was nothing save a mother of the
+future. She had loved neither Glenn Kilbourne nor life itself. False
+education, false standards, false environment had developed her into a
+woman who imagined she must feed her body on the milk and honey of
+indulgence.
+
+She was abased now—woman as animal, though saved and uplifted by her
+power of immortality. Transcendental was her female power to link life
+with the future. The power of the plant seed, the power of the earth,
+the heat of the sun, the inscrutable creation-spirit of nature, almost
+the divinity of God—these were all hers because she was a woman. That
+was the great secret, aloof so long. That was what had been wrong with
+life—the woman blind to her meaning, her power, her mastery.
+
+So she abandoned herself to the woman within her. She held out her arms
+to the blue abyss of heaven as if to embrace the universe. She was
+Nature. She kissed the dusty cinders and pressed her breast against the
+warm slope. Her heart swelled to bursting with a glorious and
+unutterable happiness.
+
+
+That afternoon as the sun was setting under a gold-white scroll of
+cloud Carley got back to Deep Lake.
+
+A familiar lounging figure crossed her sight. It approached to where
+she had dismounted. Charley, the sheep herder of Oak Creek!
+
+“Howdy!” he drawled, with his queer smile. “So it was you-all who had
+this Deep Lake section?”
+
+“Yes. And how are you, Charley?” she replied, shaking hands with him.
+
+“Me? Aw, I’m tip-top. I’m shore glad you got this ranch. Reckon I’ll
+hit you for a job.”
+
+“I’d give it to you. But aren’t you working for the Hutters?”
+
+“Nope. Not any more. Me an’ Stanton had a row with them.”
+
+How droll and dry he was! His lean, olive-brown face, with its
+guileless clear eyes and his lanky figure in blue jeans vividly
+recalled Oak Creek to Carley.
+
+“Oh, I’m sorry,” returned she haltingly, somehow checked in her warm
+rush of thought. “Stanton?... Did he quit too?”
+
+“Yep. He sure did.”
+
+“What was the trouble?”
+
+“Reckon because Flo made up to Kilbourne,” replied Charley, with a
+grin.
+
+“Ah! I—I see,” murmured Carley. A blankness seemed to wave over her. It
+extended to the air without, to the sense of the golden sunset. It
+passed. What should she ask—what out of a thousand sudden flashing
+queries? “Are—are the Hutters back?”
+
+“Sure. Been back several days. I reckoned Hoyle told you. Mebbe he
+didn’t know, though. For nobody’s been to town.”
+
+“How is—how are they all?” faltered Carley. There was a strange wall
+here between her thought and her utterance.
+
+“Everybody satisfied, I reckon,” replied Charley.
+
+“Flo—how is she?” burst out Carley.
+
+“Aw, Flo’s loony over her husband,” drawled Charley, his clear eyes on
+Carley’s.
+
+“Husband!” she gasped.
+
+“Sure. Flo’s gone an’ went an’ done what I swore on.”
+
+“_Who?_” whispered Carley, and the query was a terrible blade piercing
+her heart.
+
+“Now who’d you reckon on?” asked Charley, with his slow grin.
+
+Carley’s lips were mute.
+
+“Wal, it was your old beau thet you wouldn’t have,” returned Charley,
+as he gathered up his long frame, evidently to leave. “Kilbourne! He
+an’ Flo came back from the Tonto all hitched up.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Vague sense of movement, of darkness, and of cold attended Carley’s
+consciousness for what seemed endless time.
+
+A fall over rocks and a severe thrust from a sharp branch brought an
+acute appreciation of her position, if not of her mental state. Night
+had fallen. The stars were out. She had stumbled over a low ledge.
+Evidently she had wandered around, dazedly and aimlessly, until brought
+to her senses by pain. But for a gleam of campfires through the cedars
+she would have been lost. It did not matter. She was lost, anyhow. What
+was it that had happened?
+
+Charley, the sheep herder! Then the thunderbolt of his words burst upon
+her, and she collapsed to the cold stones. She lay quivering from head
+to toe. She dug her fingers into the moss and lichen. “Oh, God, to
+think—after all—it happened!” she moaned. There had been a rending
+within her breast, as of physical violence, from which she now suffered
+anguish. There were a thousand stinging nerves. There was a mortal
+sickness of horror, of insupportable heartbreaking loss. She could not
+endure it. She could not live under it.
+
+She lay there until energy supplanted shock. Then she rose to rush into
+the darkest shadows of the cedars, to grope here and there, hanging her
+head, wringing her hands, beating her breast. “It can’t be true,” she
+cried. “Not after my struggle—my victory—not _now!_” But there had been
+no victory. And now it was too late. She was betrayed, ruined, lost.
+That wonderful love had wrought transformation in her—and now havoc.
+Once she fell against the branches of a thick cedar that upheld her.
+The fragrance which had been sweet was now bitter. Life that had been
+bliss was now hateful! She could not keep still for a single moment.
+
+Black night, cedars, brush, rocks, washes, seemed not to obstruct her.
+In a frenzy she rushed on, tearing her dress, her hands, her hair.
+Violence of some kind was imperative. All at once a pale gleaming open
+space, shimmering under the stars, lay before her. It was water. Deep
+Lake! And instantly a hideous terrible longing to destroy herself
+obsessed her. She had no fear. She could have welcomed the cold, slimy
+depths that meant oblivion. But could they really bring oblivion? A
+year ago she would have believed so, and would no longer have endured
+such agony. She had changed. A cursed strength had come to her, and it
+was this strength that now augmented her torture. She flung wide her
+arms to the pitiless white stars and looked up at them. “My hope, my
+faith, my love have failed me,” she whispered. “They have been a lie. I
+went through hell for them. And now I’ve nothing to live for.... Oh,
+let me end it all!”
+
+If she prayed to the stars for mercy, it was denied her. Passionlessly
+they blazed on. But she could not kill herself. In that hour death
+would have been the only relief and peace left to her. Stricken by the
+cruelty of her fate, she fell back against the stones and gave up to
+grief. Nothing was left but fierce pain. The youth and vitality and
+intensity of her then locked arms with anguish and torment and a
+cheated, unsatisfied love. Strength of mind and body involuntarily
+resisted the ravages of this catastrophe. Will power seemed nothing,
+but the flesh of her, that medium of exquisite sensation, so full of
+life, so prone to joy, refused to surrender. The part of her that felt
+fought terribly for its heritage.
+
+All night long Carley lay there. The crescent moon went down, the stars
+moved on their course, the coyotes ceased to wail, the wind died away,
+the lapping of the waves along the lake shore wore to gentle splash,
+the whispering of the insects stopped as the cold of dawn approached.
+The darkest hour fell—hour of silence, solitude, and melancholy, when
+the desert lay tranced, cold, waiting, mournful without light of moon
+or stars or sun.
+
+In the gray dawn Carley dragged her bruised and aching body back to her
+tent, and, fastening the door, she threw off wet clothes and boots and
+fell upon her bed. Slumber of exhaustion came to her.
+
+When she awoke the tent was light and the moving shadows of cedar
+boughs on the white canvas told that the sun was straight above. Carley
+ached as never before. A deep pang seemed invested in every bone. Her
+heart felt swollen out of proportion to its space in her breast. Her
+breathing came slow and it hurt. Her blood was sluggish. Suddenly she
+shut her eyes. She loathed the light of day. What was it that had
+happened?
+
+Then the brutal truth flashed over her again, in aspect new, with all
+the old bitterness. For an instant she experienced a suffocating
+sensation as if the canvas had sagged under the burden of heavy air and
+was crushing her breast and heart. Then wave after wave of emotion
+swept over her. The storm winds of grief and passion were loosened
+again. And she writhed in her misery.
+
+Some one knocked on her door. The Mexican woman called anxiously.
+Carley awoke to the fact that her presence was not solitary on the
+physical earth, even if her soul seemed stricken to eternal loneliness.
+Even in the desert there was a world to consider. Vanity that had bled
+to death, pride that had been crushed, availed her not here. But
+something else came to her support. The lesson of the West had been to
+endure, not to shirk—to face an issue, not to hide. Carley got up,
+bathed, dressed, brushed and arranged her dishevelled hair. The face
+she saw in the mirror excited her amaze and pity. Then she went out in
+answer to the call for dinner. But she could not eat. The ordinary
+functions of life appeared to be deadened.
+
+The day happened to be Sunday, and therefore the workmen were absent.
+Carley had the place to herself. How the half-completed house mocked
+her! She could not bear to look at it. What use could she make of it
+now? Flo Hutter had become the working comrade of Glenn Kilbourne, the
+mistress of his cabin. She was his wife and she would be the mother of
+his children.
+
+That thought gave birth to the darkest hour of Carley Burch’s life. She
+became possessed as by a thousand devils. She became merely a female
+robbed of her mate. Reason was not in her, nor charity, nor justice.
+All that was abnormal in human nature seemed coalesced in her,
+dominant, passionate, savage, terrible. She hated with an incredible
+and insane ferocity. In the seclusion of her tent, crouched on her bed,
+silent, locked, motionless, she yet was the embodiment of all terrible
+strife and storm in nature. Her heart was a maelstrom and would have
+whirled and sucked down to hell all the beings that were men. Her soul
+was a bottomless gulf, filled with the gales and the fires of jealousy,
+superhuman to destroy.
+
+That fury consumed all her remaining strength, and from the relapse she
+sank to sleep.
+
+Morning brought the inevitable reaction. However long her other
+struggles, this monumental and final one would be brief. She realized
+that, yet was unable to understand how it could be possible, unless
+shock or death or mental aberration ended the fight. An eternity of
+emotion lay back between this awakening of intelligence and the hour of
+her fall into the clutches of primitive passion.
+
+That morning she faced herself in the mirror and asked, “Now—what do I
+owe _you?_” It was not her voice that answered. It was beyond her. But
+it said: “Go on! You are cut adrift. You are alone. You owe none but
+yourself!... Go on! Not backward—not to the depths—but up—upward!”
+
+She shuddered at such a decree. How impossible for her! All animal, all
+woman, all emotion, how could she live on the cold, pure heights? Yet
+she owed something intangible and inscrutable to herself. Was it the
+thing that woman lacked physically, yet contained hidden in her soul?
+An element of eternal spirit to rise! Because of heartbreak and ruin
+and irreparable loss must she fall? Was loss of love and husband and
+children only a test? The present hour would be swallowed in the sum of
+life’s trials. She could not go back. She would not go down. There was
+wrenched from her tried and sore heart an unalterable and unquenchable
+decision—to make her own soul prove the evolution of woman. Vessel of
+blood and flesh she might be, doomed by nature to the reproduction of
+her kind, but she had in her the supreme spirit and power to carry on
+the progress of the ages—the climb of woman out of the darkness.
+
+Carley went out to the workmen. The house should be completed and she
+would live in it. Always there was the stretching and illimitable
+desert to look at, and the grand heave upward of the mountains. Hoyle
+was full of zest for the practical details of the building. He saw
+nothing of the havoc wrought in her. Nor did the other workmen glance
+more than casually at her. In this Carley lost something of a shirking
+fear that her loss and grief were patent to all eyes.
+
+That afternoon she mounted the most spirited of the mustangs she had
+purchased from the Indians. To govern him and stick on him required all
+her energy. And she rode him hard and far, out across the desert,
+across mile after mile of cedar forest, clear to the foothills. She
+rested there, absorbed in gazing desertward, and upon turning back
+again, she ran him over the level stretches. Wind and branch threshed
+her seemingly to ribbons. Violence seemed good for her. A fall had no
+fear for her now. She reached camp at dusk, hot as fire, breathless and
+strengthless. But she had earned something. Such action required
+constant use of muscle and mind. If need be she could drive both to the
+very furthermost limit. She could ride and ride—until the future, like
+the immensity of the desert there, might swallow her. She changed her
+clothes and rested a while. The call to supper found her hungry. In
+this fact she discovered mockery of her grief. Love was not the food of
+life. Exhausted nature’s need of rest and sleep was no respecter of a
+woman’s emotion.
+
+Next day Carley rode northward, wildly and fearlessly, as if this
+conscious activity was the initiative of an endless number of rides
+that were to save her. As before the foothills called her, and she went
+on until she came to a very high one.
+
+Carley dismounted from her panting horse, answering the familiar
+impulse to attain heights by her own effort.
+
+“Am I only a weakling?” she asked herself. “Only a creature mined by
+the fever of the soul!... Thrown from one emotion to another? Never the
+same. Yearning, suffering, sacrificing, hoping, and changing—forever
+the same! What is it that drives _me?_ A great city with all its
+attractions has failed to help me realize my life. So have friends
+failed. So has the world. What can solitude and grandeur do?... All
+this obsession of mine—all this strange feeling for simple elemental
+earthly things likewise will fail me. Yet I am driven. They would call
+me a mad woman.”
+
+It took Carley a full hour of slow body-bending labor to climb to the
+summit of that hill. High, steep, and rugged, it resisted ascension.
+But at last she surmounted it and sat alone on the heights, with naked
+eyes, and an unconscious prayer on her lips.
+
+What was it that had happened? Could there be here a different answer
+from that which always mocked her?
+
+She had been a girl, not accountable for loss of mother, for choice of
+home and education. She had belonged to a class. She had grown to
+womanhood in it. She had loved, and in loving had escaped the evil of
+her day, if not its taint. She had lived only for herself. Conscience
+had awakened—but, alas! too late. She had overthrown the sordid,
+self-seeking habit of life; she had awakened to real womanhood; she had
+fought the insidious spell of modernity and she had defeated it; she
+had learned the thrill of taking root in new soil, the pain and joy of
+labor, the bliss of solitude, the promise of home and love and
+motherhood. But she had gathered all these marvelous things to her soul
+too late for happiness.
+
+“_Now_ it is answered,” she declared aloud. “That is what has
+happened?... And all that is _past_.... Is there anything left? If so
+_what?_”
+
+She flung her query out to the winds of the desert. But the desert
+seemed too gray, too vast, too remote, too aloof, too measureless. It
+was not concerned with her little life. Then she turned to the mountain
+kingdom.
+
+It seemed overpoweringly near at hand. It loomed above her to pierce
+the fleecy clouds. It was only a stupendous upheaval of earth-crust,
+grown over at the base by leagues and leagues of pine forest, belted
+along the middle by vast slanting zigzag slopes of aspen, rent and
+riven toward the heights into canyon and gorge, bared above to cliffs
+and corners of craggy rock, whitened at the sky-piercing peaks by snow.
+Its beauty and sublimity were lost upon Carley now; she was concerned
+with its travail, its age, its endurance, its strength. And she studied
+it with magnified sight.
+
+What incomprehensible subterranean force had swelled those immense
+slopes and lifted the huge bulk aloft to the clouds? Cataclysm of
+nature—the expanding or shrinking of the earth—vast volcanic action
+under the surface! Whatever it had been, it had left its expression of
+the travail of the universe. This mountain mass had been hot gas when
+flung from the parent sun, and now it was solid granite. What had it
+endured in the making? What indeed had been its dimensions before the
+millions of years of its struggle?
+
+Eruption, earthquake, avalanche, the attrition of glacier, the erosion
+of water, the cracking of frost, the weathering of rain and wind and
+snow—these it had eternally fought and resisted in vain, yet still it
+stood magnificent, frowning, battle-scarred and undefeated. Its
+sky-piercing peaks were as cries for mercy to the Infinite. This old
+mountain realized its doom. It had to go, perhaps to make room for a
+newer and better kingdom. But it endured because of the spirit of
+nature. The great notched circular line of rock below and between the
+peaks, in the body of the mountains, showed where in ages past the
+heart of living granite had blown out, to let loose on all the near
+surrounding desert the streams of black lava and the hills of black
+cinders. Despite its fringe of green it was hoary with age. Every
+looming gray-faced wall, massive and sublime, seemed a monument of its
+mastery over time. Every deep-cut canyon, showing the skeleton ribs,
+the caverns and caves, its avalanche-carved slides, its long,
+fan-shaped, spreading taluses, carried conviction to the spectator that
+it was but a frail bit of rock, that its life was little and brief,
+that upon it had been laid the merciless curse of nature. Change!
+Change must unknit the very knots of the center of the earth. So its
+strength lay in the sublimity of its defiance. It meant to endure to
+the last rolling grain of sand. It was a dead mountain of rock, without
+spirit, yet it taught a grand lesson to the seeing eye.
+
+Life was only a part, perhaps an infinitely small part of nature’s
+plan. Death and decay were just as important to her inscrutable design.
+The universe had not been created for life, ease, pleasure, and
+happiness of a man creature developed from lower organisms. If nature’s
+secret was the developing of a spirit through all time, Carley divined
+that she had it within her. So the present meant little.
+
+“I have no right to be unhappy,” concluded Carley. “I had no right to
+Glenn Kilbourne. I failed him. In that I failed myself. Neither life
+nor nature failed me—nor love. It is no longer a mystery. Unhappiness
+is only a change. Happiness itself is only change. So what does it
+matter? The great thing is to see life—to understand—to feel—to work—to
+fight—to endure. It is not my fault I am here. But it is my fault if I
+leave this strange old earth the poorer for my failure.... I will no
+longer be little. I will find strength. I will endure.... I still have
+eyes, ears, nose, taste. I can feel the sun, the wind, the nip of
+frost. Must I slink like a craven because I’ve lost the love of _one_
+man? Must I hate Flo Hutter because she will make Glenn happy?
+Never!... All of this seems better so, because through it I am changed.
+I might have lived on, a selfish clod!”
+
+Carley turned from the mountain kingdom and faced her future with the
+profound and sad and far-seeing look that had come with her lesson. She
+knew what to give. Sometime and somewhere there would be recompense.
+She would hide her wound in the faith that time would heal it. And the
+ordeal she set herself, to prove her sincerity and strength, was to
+ride down to Oak Creek Canyon.
+
+Carley did not wait many days. Strange how the old vanity held her back
+until something of the havoc in her face should be gone!
+
+One morning she set out early, riding her best horse, and she took a
+sheep trail across country. The distance by road was much farther. The
+June morning was cool, sparkling, fragrant. Mocking birds sang from the
+topmost twig of cedars; doves cooed in the pines; sparrow hawks sailed
+low over the open grassy patches. Desert primroses showed their rounded
+pink clusters in sunny places, and here and there burned the carmine of
+Indian paintbrush. Jack rabbits and cotton-tails bounded and scampered
+away through the sage. The desert had life and color and movement this
+June day. And as always there was the dry fragrance on the air.
+
+Her mustang had been inured to long and consistent travel over the
+desert. Her weight was nothing to him and he kept to the swinging lope
+for miles. As she approached Oak Creek Canyon, however, she drew him to
+a trot, and then a walk. Sight of the deep red-walled and green-floored
+canyon was a shock to her.
+
+The trail came out on the road that led to Ryan’s sheep camp, at a
+point several miles west of the cabin where Carley had encountered Haze
+Ruff. She remembered the curves and stretches, and especially the steep
+jump-off where the road led down off the rim into the canyon. Here she
+dismounted and walked. From the foot of this descent she knew every rod
+of the way would be familiar to her, and, womanlike, she wanted to turn
+away and fly from them. But she kept on and mounted again at level
+ground.
+
+The murmur of the creek suddenly assailed her ears—sweet, sad,
+memorable, strangely powerful to hurt. Yet the sound seemed of long
+ago. Down here summer had advanced. Rich thick foliage overspread the
+winding road of sand. Then out of the shade she passed into the sunnier
+regions of isolated pines. Along here she had raced Calico with Glenn’s
+bay; and here she had caught him, and there was the place she had
+fallen. She halted a moment under the pine tree where Glenn had held
+her in his arms. Tears dimmed her eyes. If only she had known then the
+truth, the reality! But regrets were useless.
+
+By and by a craggy red wall loomed above the trees, and its pipe-organ
+conformation was familiar to Carley. She left the road and turned to go
+down to the creek. Sycamores and maples and great bowlders, and mossy
+ledges overhanging the water, and a huge sentinel pine marked the spot
+where she and Glenn had eaten their lunch that last day. Her mustang
+splashed into the clear water and halted to drink. Beyond, through the
+trees, Carley saw the sunny red-earthed clearing that was Glenn’s farm.
+She looked, and fought herself, and bit her quivering lip until she
+tasted blood. Then she rode out into the open.
+
+The whole west side of the canyon had been cleared and cultivated and
+plowed. But she gazed no farther. She did not want to see the spot
+where she had given Glenn his ring and had parted from him. She rode
+on. If she could pass West Fork she believed her courage would rise to
+the completion of this ordeal. Places were what she feared. Places that
+she had loved while blindly believing she hated! There the narrow gap
+of green and blue split the looming red wall. She was looking into West
+Fork. Up there stood the cabin. How fierce a pang rent her breast! She
+faltered at the crossing of the branch stream, and almost surrendered.
+The water murmured, the leaves rustled, the bees hummed, the birds
+sang—all with some sad sweetness that seemed of the past.
+
+Then the trail leading up West Fork was like a barrier. She saw horse
+tracks in it. Next she descried boot tracks the shape of which was so
+well-remembered that it shook her heart. There were fresh tracks in the
+sand, pointing in the direction of the Lodge. Ah! that was where Glenn
+lived now. Carley strained at her will to keep it fighting her memory.
+The glory and the dream were gone!
+
+A touch of spur urged her mustang into a gallop. The splashing ford of
+the creek—the still, eddying pool beyond—the green orchards—the white
+lacy waterfall—and Lolomi Lodge!
+
+Nothing had altered. But Carley seemed returning after many years.
+Slowly she dismounted—slowly she climbed the porch steps. Was there no
+one at home? Yet the vacant doorway, the silence—something attested to
+the knowledge of Carley’s presence. Then suddenly Mrs. Hutter fluttered
+out with Flo behind her.
+
+“You dear girl—I’m so glad!” cried Mrs. Hutter, her voice trembling.
+
+“I’m glad to see you, too,” said Carley, bending to receive Mrs.
+Hutter’s embrace. Carley saw dim eyes—the stress of agitation, but no
+surprise.
+
+“_Oh, Carley!_” burst out the Western girl, with voice rich and full,
+yet tremulous.
+
+“Flo, I’ve come to wish you happiness,” replied Carley, very low.
+
+Was it the same Flo? This seemed more of a woman—strange now—white and
+strained—beautiful, eager, questioning. A cry of gladness burst from
+her. Carley felt herself enveloped in strong close clasp—and then a
+warm, quick kiss of joy. It shocked her, yet somehow thrilled. Sure was
+the welcome here. Sure was the strained situation, also, but the voice
+rang too glad a note for Carley. It touched her deeply, yet she could
+not understand. She had not measured the depth of Western friendship.
+
+“Have you—seen Glenn?” queried Flo, breathlessly.
+
+“Oh no, indeed not,” replied Carley, slowly gaining composure. The
+nervous agitation of these women had stilled her own. “I just rode up
+the trail. Where is he?”
+
+“He was here—a moment ago,” panted Flo. “Oh, Carley, we sure are
+locoed. ... Why, we only heard an hour ago—that _you_ were at Deep
+Lake.... Charley rode in. He told us.... I thought my heart would
+break. Poor Glenn! When he heard it.... But never mind _me_. Jump your
+horse and run to West Fork!”
+
+The spirit of her was like the strength of her arms as she hurried
+Carley across the porch and shoved her down the steps.
+
+“Climb on and run, Carley,” cried Flo. “If you only knew how glad he’ll
+be that you came!”
+
+Carley leaped into the saddle and wheeled the mustang. But she had no
+answer for the girl’s singular, almost wild exultance. Then like a shot
+the spirited mustang was off down the lane. Carley wondered with
+swelling heart. Was her coming such a wondrous surprise—so unexpected
+and big in generosity—something that would make Kilbourne as glad as it
+had seemed to make Flo? Carley thrilled to this assurance.
+
+Down the lane she flew. The red walls blurred and the sweet wind
+whipped her face. At the trail she swerved the mustang, but did not
+check his gait. Under the great pines he sped and round the bulging
+wall. At the rocky incline leading to the creek she pulled the fiery
+animal to a trot. How low and clear the water! As Carley forded it
+fresh cool drops splashed into her face. Again she spurred her mount
+and again trees and walls rushed by. Up and down the yellow bits of
+trail—on over the brown mats of pine needles—until there in the
+sunlight shone the little gray log cabin with a tall form standing in
+the door. One instant the canyon tilted on end for Carley and she was
+riding into the blue sky. Then some magic of soul sustained her, so
+that she saw clearly. Reaching the cabin she reined in her mustang.
+
+“Hello, Glenn! Look who’s here!” she cried, not wholly failing of
+gayety.
+
+He threw up his sombrero.
+
+“Whoopee!” he yelled, in stentorian voice that rolled across the canyon
+and bellowed in hollow echo and then clapped from wall to wall. The
+unexpected Western yell, so strange from Glenn, disconcerted Carley.
+Had he only answered her spirit of greeting? Had hers rung false?
+
+But he was coming to her. She had seen the bronze of his face turn to
+white. How gaunt and worn he looked. Older he appeared, with deeper
+lines and whiter hair. His jaw quivered.
+
+“Carley Burch, so it was _you?_” he queried, hoarsely.
+
+“Glenn, I reckon it was,” she replied. “I bought your Deep Lake ranch
+site. I came back too late.... But it is never too late for some
+things.... I’ve come to wish you and Flo all the happiness in the
+world—and to say we must be friends.”
+
+The way he looked at her made her tremble. He strode up beside the
+mustang, and he was so tall that his shoulder came abreast of her. He
+placed a big warm hand on hers, as it rested, ungloved, on the pommel
+of the saddle.
+
+“Have you seen Flo?” he asked.
+
+“I just left her. It was funny—the way she rushed me off after you. As
+if there weren’t two—”
+
+Was it Glenn’s eyes or the movement of his hand that checked her
+utterance? His gaze pierced her soul. His hand slid along her arm to
+her waist—around it. Her heart seemed to burst.
+
+“Kick your feet out of the stirrups,” he ordered.
+
+Instinctively she obeyed. Then with a strong pull he hauled her half
+out of the saddle, pellmell into his arms. Carley had no resistance.
+She sank limp, in an agony of amaze. Was this a dream? Swift and hard
+his lips met hers—and again—and again....
+
+“Oh, my God!—Glenn, are—you—mad?” she whispered, almost swooning.
+
+“Sure—I reckon I am,” he replied, huskily, and pulled her all the way
+out of the saddle.
+
+Carley would have fallen but for his support. She could not think. She
+was all instinct. Only the amaze—the sudden horror—drifted—faded as
+before fires of her heart!
+
+“Kiss me!” he commanded.
+
+She would have kissed him if death were the penalty. How his face
+blurred in her dimmed sight! Was that a strange smile? Then he held her
+back from him.
+
+“Carley—you came to wish Flo and me happiness?” he asked.
+
+“Oh, yes—yes.... Pity me, Glenn—let me go. I meant well.... I
+should—never have come.”
+
+“Do you love me?” he went on, with passionate, shaking clasp.
+
+“God help me—I do—I do!... And now it will kill me!”
+
+“What did that damned fool Charley tell you?”
+
+The strange content of his query, the trenchant force of it, brought
+her upright, with sight suddenly cleared. Was this giant the tragic
+Glenn who had strode to her from the cabin door?
+
+“Charley told me—you and Flo—were married,” she whispered.
+
+“You didn’t _believe_ him!” returned Glenn.
+
+She could no longer speak. She could only see her lover, as if
+transfigured, limned dark against the looming red wall.
+
+“That was one of Charley’s queer jokes. I told you to beware of him.
+Flo is married, yes—and very happy.... I’m unutterably happy, too—but
+I’m _not_ married. Lee Stanton was the lucky bridegroom.... Carley, the
+moment I saw you I knew you had come back to me.”
+
+
+
+
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