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 fromGLENCarley'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 blase
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 ofthe
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.