The Call of the Canyon .......................................................................................................................................1

Zane Grey .................................................................................................................................................1

What subtle strange message had come to her out of the West? Carley Burch laid the letter in her lap and

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 Fiftyseventh Street wore furs and wraps. She heard the distant clatter

of an L train and then the hum of a motor car. A hurdygurdy 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

She lived again, for the thousandth time, the last moments she had spent with him. It had been on

NewYear's Eve, 1918. They had called upon friends who were staying at the McAlpin, in a suite on the

twentyfirst 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, shellshocked and gassed, and otherwise incapacitated for service in the

armya 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.

Under them stretched the great long white flare of Broadway, with its snowcovered 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 fireeyed 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

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 cityof a nation. It was the voice of a people crying out the strife and the agony of

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

The new year had not been many minutes old when Glenn Kilbourne had told her he was going West to try to

Carley roused out of her memories to take up the letter that had so perplexed her. It bore the postmark,

It does seem my neglect in writing you is unpardonable. I used to be a pretty fair correspondent, but in that as

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 answerand 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 comingjust 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

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 manand to see my old life

as strange as if it were the new life of another planetto try to slip into the old groovewell, no words of

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

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

Getting on here, in my condition, was as hard as trench life. But now, Carleysomething 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 nowsometimes, 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

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

Carley's second reaction to the letter was a sudden upflashing desire to see her loverto 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, stonefaced, and hauntedeyed 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

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

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,

So she carried the letter to her aunt, a rather slight woman with a kindly face and shrewd eyes, and who

"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

"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

"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 letterif you want to hear it."

"The war did something horrible to Glenn aside from wrecking his health. Shellshock, 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 spiritsome

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 doingor you'll

"I mean it. That letter shows how near he came to the Valley of the Shadowand 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

weatherright down in the canyon not far from his place. Then, of course, the townFlagstaffisn't far. . .

"But I could only go for a visit," rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. "A month, perhaps six weeks, if I could stand

"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 timewhy, I couldn't do it I . . . But I can stay out

"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 himdon't give him a chance towell to suggest

courteously that you'd better not come just yet. I don't like his words 'just yet.'"

"Auntie, you'rerathermore than blunt," said Carley, divided between resentment and amaze. "Glenn

"Noocome 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

thisthis blase ultra something you've acquired, there's a real heart. Only you must hurry and listen to

Aunt Mary shook her gray head sagely. "Never mind what. Carley, I'd like your idea of the most significant

"Naturally you think that. But I don't. What struck me most were his words, 'out of the West.' Carley, you'd

"I will," rejoined Carley, positively. "I'll do more. I'll go out to his wonderful West and see what he meant by

Carley Burch possessed in full degree the prevailing modern craze for speed. She loved a motorcar 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

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

A long halfday 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 treeskirted 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

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

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, slowdawning 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 scrubfringed hills, bleak cliffs, jumble after jumble of rocks, and occasionally a long vista down a

valley, somehow compellingthese 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

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

queerlooking 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

"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

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 cedardotted 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

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 dimlit railroad station she more than regretted her decision to surprise Glenn. But that was too

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

And Carley said: "No one would recognize it by the courtesy shown. I have been standing here waiting to

With the same leisurely case and a cool, laconic stare the clerk turned the book toward her. "Reckon people

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 andgold 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

"Serves you rightyou 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.

"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 herthe musical clanging of a clock that struck the quarters of

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

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.

Two magnificent mountains loomed right over her, sloping up with majestic sweep of green and black

timber, to a ragged treefringed snow area that swept up cleaner and whiter, at last to lift pure glistening

Carley had climbed Mont Blanc and she had seen the Matterhorn, but they had never struck such amaze and

"Eighteen miles, ma'am," he returned, with a grin. "Shore this Arizonie air is deceivin'."

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

She had expected the stage would be a motor bus, or at least a large touring car, but it turned out to be a

twoseated vehicle drawn by a team of ragged horses. The driver was a little wizenfaced 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

"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

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 domelike 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

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

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 forestyellow pines, the driver called the treesbegan to encroach upon the burnedover

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

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

"An' them's antelope," he said. "Once this desert was overrun by antelope. Then they nearly disappeared. An'

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

It led into forest again. And Carley soon became aware that they had at last left the cut and burnedover

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.

Carley, rousing out of her weary preoccupation, opened her eyes to see that the driver had halted at a turn of

The very forestfringed 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 Vshaped 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, bowlderstrewn 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 herthe 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

"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

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 ironshod hoofs of the horses as

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 closestanding

"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

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 whitespotted

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 timberchoked 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 widespreading 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

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

"Hullo I Reckon I didn't forgit nothin'," replied the man, as he got down. "An' say, Mrs. Hutter, hyar's a

That latter speech of the driver's brought Mrs. Hutter out on the porch. "Flo, come here," she called to some

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

"You're the girl whose picture Glenn Kilbourne has over his fireplace," declared the woman, heartily. "I'm

That about her picture pleased and warmed Carley. "Yes, I'm Glenn Kilbourne's fiancee. I've come West to

"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."

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

"Flo, here's Miss Burch," burst out Mrs. Hutter, with cheerful importance. "Glenn Kilbourne's girl come all

"Oh, Carley, I'm shore happy to meet you!" said the girl, in a voice of slow drawling richness. "I know 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 silvergold 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 roomwith 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

"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

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.

"Oh, indeed no! II'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. flutter. "Tomthat's Flo's fathertook 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 weeksin 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

"I thank you, Mrs. Hutter," replied Carley, feelingly. "I never could thank you enough for being good to

"Reckon he never wrote you or told you what he did in the war," declared Mrs. Hutter.

"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 twentytwo, a fine lad. An' he

died in Phoenix. We tried to get him out here. But the boy wouldn't live on charity. He was always expectin'

moneya war bonus, whatever that was. It didn't come. He was a clerk at the El Tovar for a while. Then he

"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

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

Carley had to smile at that. This girl indeed was frank and unsophisticated, and somehow refreshing. Carley

"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 himby

"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.

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

This room resembled a tent. The sides were of canvas. It had no ceiling. But the roughhewn shingles of the

roof of the house sloped down closely. The furniture was home made. An Indian rug covered the floor. The

"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 he made unhappy now. . . . Glenn nearly died here. Mother or I never left his sidefor a

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 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

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

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 sweatershawl, 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

Out from the porch the view was restricted to glimpses between the pines, and beyond to the opposite wall of

"In summer it might be good to spend a couple of weeks here," soliloquized Carley. "But to live here?

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 barnlike 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 cleanshaven 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 handshaking. 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

"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

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

"Carley, don't mind mother," said Flo. "She means your dress is lovely. Which is my say, too. . . . But, listen.

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 walkan 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! Nothis 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. YesGlenn! 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

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

changednot 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

"Glenn! Lookwho'shere!" she called, in voice she could not have steadied to save her life. This meeting

Glenn whirled with an inarticulate cry. He saw Carley. Thenno matter how unreasonable or exacting had

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

"Carley! I couldn't believe it was you," he declared, releasing her from his close embrace, yet still holding

"Yes, Glennit's Iall you've left of me," she replied, tremulously, and she sought with unsteady hands to

"I never was so knocked off my pins," he said. "A lady to see mefrom New York! . . . Of course it had to

Somehow the soft, warm took 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.

"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."

"Carley, you must excuse my violence," said Glenn. "I've been hugging sheep. That is, when I shear a sheep I

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

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 oldfashioned enough for that," declared Glenn.

"Too bad! Reckon I can't see how love could ever be oldfashioned. 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 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,

"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

"Humph I I can remember when you were not above making love to a pretty girl. You certainly had me worn

"Old times! How long ago they seem! . . . Carley, it's sure wonderful to see you."

"Well, what little there is of it is beautiful," he replied, with a slow smile. "I always liked you best in white.

"Same old coquettesame old eternal feminine," he said, half sadly. "You know when you look stunning. . .

. But, Carley, the cut of thator rather the abbreviation of itinclines 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.

"Women are slaves to the prevailing mode," rejoined Carley. "I don't imagine women who dress would ever

"But would they care so muchif they had to workplenty of workand children?" inquired Glenn,

"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

"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

"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 homefrom his peoplefrom old friends. However he

did not inquire of Carley about her friends. She talked unremittingly for an hour, before she satisfied his

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 laborsthese

all gave a different impression from his brief remarks about himself. Lastly there was a little gray in the

lightbrown hair over his temples. Glenn was only twentyseven, 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

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 panicstricken. They reassured her, yet only made her state of mind more

"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.

"It's the music, perhaps, that changes the dancing. Jazz is becoming popular. And about all the crowd dances

"Glenn, it's the fever of the public pulse," replied Carley. "The graceful waltz, like the stately minuet,

"More's the pity," said Glenn. Then after a moment, in which his gaze returned to the fire, he inquired rather

"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

"Glenn, look here," she said, sliding her chair close to his and holding out tier left hand, slim and white, with

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 insidefrom useful work."

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?"

"Well, that's hard to say," he replied, knitting his brows. "I hardly know. I think it depends on you. . . . But if

"Happier! Why Glenn, I'd be miserable! ... But listen. It wasn't my beautiful and useless hand I wanted you to

"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 twentysecond birthday. You said it would take two months' salary to pay the bill."

"Glenn, during the war it was not soso very hard to wear this ring as an engagement ring should be worn,"

said Carley, growing more earnest. "But after the warespecially after your departure West it was terribly

hard to be true to the significance of this betrothal ring. There was a letdown 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 happinessGlenn, I am not making any plea to excuse all that. But I want you to

knowhow under trying circumstancesI 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 youto tell you thisand to ask

"Certainly not," he replied, forcibly, with a dark flush spreading over his face.

"YesI love you," he returned, deliberately. "And in spite of all you sayvery 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

"Carley, a man who has been on the vergeas I have beenseldom or never comes back to happiness. But

"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."

"Listen, Carley," he said, earnestly. "About this lovemaking stuff. Please don't misunderstand me. I love

"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

"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

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 toilhardened 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

And yet there were forced upon her, insistent and perplexing, the questionswas 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

Carley was awakened by rattling sounds in her room. The raising of sleepy eyelids disclosed Flo on her knees

"Mawnin', Carley," she drawled. "It's shore cold. Reckon it'll snow today, worse luck, just because you're

"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 selfdenial to stay here awhile longer," replied Carley, lazily.

Flo left with a parting admonition not to let the stove get redhot. 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. Steamheated 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 wwhen you wwent West you were ccamping out," chattered Carley. "Believe me, he said

The fact was Carley had never camped out. Her set played golf, rode horseback, motored and houseboated,

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 down the road a little way," replied Flo. "A great narrow canyon opening on the right side. You can't

Flo accompanied her as far as the porch steps. A queerlooking individual was slouching along with ax over

"There's Charley," said Flo. "He'll show you." Then she whispered: "He's sort of dotty sometimes. A horse

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 agoin' to be a nice day," remarked Charley, as he tried to accommodate his strides to Carley's

"Me? All the same to me. Reckon, though, I like it cold so I can loaf round a big fire at night."

"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

"You look out fer Tom Hutter, an' I reckon Flo ain't so darn above layin' traps fer you. 'Specially as she's

"Kilbourne is the best fellar thet ever happened along Oak Creek. I helped him build his cabin. We've hunted

"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

"There's good trout fishin' along heah a little later," he said, pointing to the stream. "Crick's too high now. I

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

"You take the trail heah," he said, pointing it out, "an' foller it into West Fork. So long, an' don't forget we're

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 higherand 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

parklike 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 redwalled 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 spearpointed 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 facesthese features gradually took shape in Carley's

confused sight, until the colossal mountain front stood up before her in all its strange, wild, magnificent

"Arizona! Perhaps this is what he meant," murmured Carley. "I never dreamed of anything like this. . . . But,

oh! it overshadows mebears 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 world 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 youwhat 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

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

"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."

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

"By Jove! I didn't think you'd even attempt it!" he declared, manifestly pleased. "I made sure I'd have to pack

"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

Carley locked her arm in his. "Honey, I want to have a good time today. Cut out all the other women stuff. . .

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 sweetsmelling 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.

Carley was noncommittal 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

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

roughhewn 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.

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 longhandled 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 righthand 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

"Why did you choose this lonely placeway off from the Lodge?" she asked, slowly.

"Carley, I call it my home," he replied, and there was a low, strong sweetness in his voice she had never

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 closetotheearth 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 dreadthese 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

"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 hereand you can

"Fine! Oh, I know you're just bursting with curiosity to see how I'll do it. Well, you may be surprised, miss."

"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 stormlike 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

"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

"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

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 cottonwoods 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 sheathbarked 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 spearpointed 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 melodythese 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 goldred 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 warsthese

haunted because they could never be possessed. Carley had often gazed at the Alps as at celebrated pictures.

She admired, she appreciatedthen 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.

"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

"I have ham and mutton of my own raising," announced Glenn, with importance. "Which would you prefer?"

"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

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 Kilbournewhat

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

"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 momentof my life," replied Carley.

Returning to the table, Glenn dug at something in a large red can. He paused a moment to eye Carley.

"That has been the universal feminine point of view for a good many years," replied Glenn, flourishing a

flourwhitened 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

"Precisely. The humble things that were the foundation of the great nation of Americans. I meant work and

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

coffeepot half full of water, was set on a glowing part of the fire. Then he brought into use a huge, heavy

knife, a murderouslooking 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 twoblueenamel plate and cup, with plain,

substantiallooking 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 coffeepot 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

"Carley," he said, at last turning to her with a warm smile, "out here in the West the cook usually yells, 'Come

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, goldgreen 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

"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 madehad Flo taught

Carley felt the heat of blood in her face. "I don't know that it would have made a difference. OnlyI'm glad

"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 occasionsto

hurry throughto dress forto meet somebodyto 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

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 selfsufficient! It is a splendid achievement. It amazes me. I don't grasp it. I want to

The day was far spent when Carley returned to the Lodgeand in spite of the discomfort of cold and sleet,

and the bitter wind that beat in her face as she struggled up the trailit 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

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,

His wife also agreed that it would be fine for Carley to see the beautiful desert country round Sunset Peak.

"Carley, it'll be rather hard," he said. "You're soft, and riding and lying out will stove you up. You ought to

"I rode ten miles today," rejoined Carley. "And didn't mind itmuch." This was a little deviation from stern

"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

"Shore we'll go horseback," spoke up Flo. "Carley has got it all over that Spencer girl who was here last

"I think so, too. I am sure I hope so. Because you remember what the ride to Long Valley did to Miss

"Bad cold, peeled nose, skinned shin, saddle sores. She was in bed two days. She didn't show much pep the

"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

"My dear, I surrender," replied Glenn, with a laugh. "Really, I'm delighted. But if anything happensdon't

you blame me. I'm quite sure that a long horseback ride, in spring, on the desert, will show you a good many

That was how Carley came to find herself, the afternoon of the next day, astride a selfwilled and

unmanageable little mustang, riding in the rear of her friends, on the way through a cedar forest toward a

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

drablooking 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

"Humph! What a beautiful cognomen!" ejaculated Carley, "But according to Shakespeare any name will

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

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

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 russetlichened rocks everywhere.

Small cactus plants bristled sparsely in open places; and here and there bright red flowersIndian

paintbrush, Flo called themadded 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 packhorses 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

She felt the reins jerked out of her hands and the saddle propel her upward. When she descended it was to

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

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

"That beast is well named," she said. "He spilled me, all right. And I presume I resembled a sack of beans."

Then Glenn let out a hearty howl of mirth, which was seconded by a loud guffaw from Hutter. Flo, however,

"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

"Laugh, you wild and woolly Westerners!" ejaculated Carley. "It must have been funny. I hope I can be a

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

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 graycolored symmetrical hills was one that

fascinated while it repelled her. Near at hand the ground sloped down to a large rockbound lake, perhaps a

mile in circumference. In the distance, along the shore she saw a white conical tent, and blue smoke, and

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 canvascovered 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

"Carley, you crawl in here, pile the blankets up, and the tarp over them," directed Glenn. "If it rains pull the

This direction sounded in Glenn's cheery voice a good deal more pleasurable than the possibilities suggested.

"Oh, there are a few tarantulas and centipedes, and sometimes a scorpion. But these don't crawl around much

"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 welldeveloped case of hydrophobia."

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

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.

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

"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 firsthand 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

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,

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

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.

"Whatdo 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,

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

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

Flo came running back, giggling with joy. "Glenn, she shore took you for a bear. Why, I felt her go stiff as a

"Oh! You put upa 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 monstera dinosaur, or something," replied Carley.

It developed, upon their return to the campfire circle, that everybody had been in the joke; and they all

"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

Soon after this incident Hutter sounded what he called the rollcall 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

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

halfacknowledged 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

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?"

"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

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

"You look great," he asserted, heartily. "You've got color. And as for your hairI like to see it mussed that

way. You were always one to have it dressedjust 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

"Come, climb the ridge with me," be invited. "I want you to take a look to the north and east."

He led her off through the cedars, up a slow redearth 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 landsix hundred and forty

acresand 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

"Deep Lake. It's only a watering place for sheep and cattle. But there's fine grazing, and it's a wonder to me

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

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,

These appeared to be mere steps leading her sight farther and higher to the cloudnavigated sky, where rosy

and golden effulgence betokened the sun and the east. Carley held her breath. A transformation was going on

His words explained, but they did not convince. Was this suddenbursting 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 palegray 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 trans figured 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, downdropping 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

Carley murmured something of her appreciation of what she had just seen. Part of his remark hung on her ear,

thoughtprovoking 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: "Whathellotenderfoot! 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

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.

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,

Glenn laughed in a way which proved to Carley that he knew perfectly well how she felt. Again his smile

caused her selfreproach. Plain indeed was it that he had really expected more of her in the way of complaint

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

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 feet 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 twentyfive 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

Later Carley leaned back in a comfortable seat, before a blazing fire that happily sent its acrid smoke up the

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 firethese 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 Plight be

in all experience. It gave strong food for thought. There were things in the world never before dreamed of in

Carley was wondering if she were narrow and dense to circumstances of life differing from her own when a

Carley wondered if this distressing statement had to do in some way with the rest of the trip. She stifled her

"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

Hutter burst into his hearty laugh. "Wal, I'd rather get some things anyday 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."

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

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

"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

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,

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.

"Reckon we ought to ride over," went on Hutter. "Say, Glenn, do you reckon Miss Carley could stand a

This was spoken in a low tone, scarcely intended for Carley, but she had keen ears and heard distinctly. Not

improbably this sheepdip was what Flo meant as the worst to come. Carley adopted a listless posture to hide

Whereupon Carley felt mount in her breast an intense and rebellious determination to see a sheepdip. She

would astonish Glenn. What did he want, anyway? Had she not withstood the torturing trot of the

hardestgaited horse on the range? Carley realized she was going to place considerable store upon that feat. It

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

"Howdy, Lee!" she said, coolly, with her clear eyes on him. A tiny frown knitted her brow. She did not, at the

"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.

Carley strolled out of hearing, sure of two thingsthat 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

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 greengray leaguelong cedar

forest extended down toward Oak Creek. Behind her the magnificent bulk of the mountains reached up into

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

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

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

"Carley," called Flo, "comelooksee, as the Indians say. Here is Glenn's Painted Desert, and I reckon it's

To Carley's surprise, she found herself upon the knob of the foothill. And when she looked out across a

suddenly distinguish able void she seemed struck by the immensity of something she was unable to grasp.

"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 dimlost in distance? We don't know that country. But that north country we know as

landmarks, anyway. Look at that sawtooth range. The Indians call it Echo Cliffs. At the far end it drops off

into the Colorado River. Lee's Ferry is thereabout 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 bluffGreenland 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

Carley yielded to some strange drawing power and slowly walked forward until she stood at the extreme edge

What was it that confounded her sight? Desert slopedown and downcolor distancespace! 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

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

Carley had never understood the meaning of the word. The immensity of the West seemed flung at her. What

"A few white traders and some Indian tribes," replied Stanton. "But you can ride all day an' next day an' never

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 allembracing; she was

beautiful then. For Carley, quick to read emotion, caught a glimpse of a strong, steadfast soul that

Carley wheeled to gaze out and down into this incomprehensible abyss, and on to the far upflung 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 seeyesbut 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 rockto realize

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

"Shore I could stand here all day," said Flo. "But it's beginning to cloud over and this high wind is cold. So

"Wal, Miss Carley, I reckon you'll have to come again an' again before you get a comfortable feelin' here,"

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 therethe infinitude of open sand

Steep blackcindered slope, with its soft gray patches of grass, sheered down and down, and out in rolling

slope to merge upon a cedardotted level. Nothing moved below, but a redtailed hawk sailed across her

vision. How stillhow 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 leaguelong 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 funnelshaped spouts; and it led up to the horizonwide 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 deepblue

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

warmthno movementno life! Dead stone it was, cut into a million ruts by ruthless ages. Carley felt that

At this moment, as before, a hawk had crossed her vision, so now a raven sailed by, black as coal, uttering a

"Quoth the raven" murmured Carley, with a halfbitter laugh, as she turned away shuddering in spite of an

effort of selfcontrol. "Maybe he meant this wonderful and terrible West is never for such as I. . . . Come, let

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

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

Morning, disclosed the fact that gray clouds had been blown away. The sun shone bright upon a

whitefrosted 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 sheepdip, 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 cutover 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 baabaa 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 aa very pleasant place. You won't care to see the sheepdip. So I'm suggesting you wait here"

"Nothing doing, Glenn," she interrupted. "I'm going to see what there is to see."

"But, dearthe menthe way they handle sheepthey'llreally it's no sight for you," he floundered.

"Because, Carleyyou know how you hate thethe seamy side of things. And the stenchwhy, it'll make

"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

"Glenn, how little you know a woman!" she exclaimed. "Come along and show me your old sheepdip."

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 baabaa of sheep became so loud that she could

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,

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

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

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

"Carley, are you game to see the dip?" asked Flo, with good nature that yet had a touch of taunt in it.

Both Glenn and this girl seemed to be bent upon bringing out Carley's worst side, and they were succeeding.

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

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

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 baabaas, and the

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

"Sulphur and nicotine," yelled Flo up at Carley. "The dip's poison. If a sheep opens his mouth he's usually a

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

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 lifeguard work over a

halfdrowned man. But the sheep did not respond to Glenn's active administrations.

Carley did not fall 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

Indeed, Carley needed Flo's assistance in clambering down out of the choking smoke and horrid odor.

"Well," ejaculated Flo, when they got out, "I'll bet I call Glenn good and hard for letting you go down there."

"Oh, you're game, all right. I didn't mean the dip. . . . That sheepslinger 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."

"I shore am. Dad needs hands these days. That's why he's lenient. But Glenn will cowhide Ruff and I want to

In Flo Hutter then Carley saw another and a different spirit of the West, a violence unrestrained and fierce

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

"Carley, I don't mind telling you that you've stuck it out better than any tenderfoot we ever had here," said

"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 sheepdip hole! Why, Glenn

"Flo, he did not want me to come on the trip, and especially here," protested Carley.

"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

"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 friendboth

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 smiledlike a ghost smilingand 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.

"Oh, God only knows!" exclaimed Flo, throwing up her gloved hands. "I never could understand. But I hated

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

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 earto all the senseshow 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 f

ailing. She had not failed. But contact with the West had affronted, disgusted, shocked, and alienated her. In

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 seenutensils, 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 thoughtprovoking. 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

greatgreatgrandmother 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,

At last Flo returned with the men. One quick glance at Glenn convinced Carley that Flo had not yet told him

"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

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 whiteclothed 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 ityouall,"

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

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

If spring came at all to Oak Creek Canyon it warmed into summer before Carley had time to languish with

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 starsown 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 goldbrown 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

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 visitto 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 yetthere was something. Was it in her or in him? She had a

woman's assurance of his love and sometimes she caught her breathso 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

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

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

Her soft slippers made no sound on the porch, and as she turned the corner of the house, where shadows

The content, the pathos, of his voice chained Carley to the spot. Some situations, like fate, were beyond

"Shore I did," replied Flo, dreamily. This was the voice of a girl who was being confronted by happy and sad

"Well, I love you just as I always did," replied Flo, earnestly. "But, Lee, I love him more than you or

"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."

"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'llwell, 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 oneif 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 reckon so. I'm not begrudging Glenn whatwhat you care. I'm only afraid I'll lose you."

"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

"Flo, you can never tell," replied Stanton, thoughtfully. "I didn't like her at first. But I'm comin' round. The

"I'm not so shore. But then I can't savvy her. Lord knows I hope so, too. If she doesn'tif she goes back East

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 woodsmelled 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

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

fiancee 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

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

farreaching ears. An old grizzled Westerner remarked to Hutter: "Wall, she's shore an unbroke filly."

Another of the companya womanremarked: "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

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 foxtrot 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

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

"Glenn, would you like to go to the Plaza with me again, and dance between dinner courses, as we used to?"

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

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

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

Next day, late in the afternoon, when Carley came out on the porch, she was hailed by Flo, who had just

Carley did not use any time pattering down that rude porch stairway. Flo was dusty and hot, and her chaps

"Reckon I wanted to tell you something Glenn swore he wouldn't let me tell. . . . He makes me tired. He

"No, I don't. But I remember he used to be athletic. Flo, you make me nervous. Did Glenn fight?"

"Oh!" gasped Carley, with a violent start. "Thatthat ruffian! Flo, did you seewere 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

"Why, Flohe 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

"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."

"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

" 'Say, Ruff,' he said, sort of hard, 'Charley an' Ben tell me they heard you speak disrespect fully to Miss

"Dad an' I ran to the fence, but before we could catch hold of Glenn he'd jumped down into the pen."

"'I ain't denyin' nothin', Kilbourne,' growled Ruff. 'I might argue against me bein' disrespectful. That's a

"'You'll apologize for speaking to Miss Burch or I'll beat you up an' have Hutter fire you.'

"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 sheepdip won't go through

Not long after this incident Carley started out on her usual afternoon ride, having arranged with Glenn to

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

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 hotso hot that t

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

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 whitespotted 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 everwidening 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

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

agea 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

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

Once up on the flat cedardotted 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

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 dustan 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

Another mile of buffeting this increasing gale so exhausted Carley and wrought upon her nerves that she

became nearly panicstricken. 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

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 skyhigh 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

"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

Suddenly she heard the clipclop of hoofs. "There! that's Glenn," she cried, gladly, and rising, she ran to the

She saw a big bay horse bearing a burly rider. He discovered her at the same instant, and pulled his horse.

Carley recognized the voice, and then the epithet, before her sight established the man as Haze Ruff. A

"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,

"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 goodhumored, meaning smile. Then without any particular rudeness

he pushed her back from the door, into the cabin, and stepped across the threshold.

"How dareyou!" 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

"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

"Nope. I'm agoin' 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

"What fer?" he queried, in real or pretended surprise. "Aw, I know wimmin. You'll never tell him."

"Wal, mebbe. I reckon you're lyin', Pretty Eyes," he replied, with a grin. "Anyhow, I'll take a chance."

"I tell youhe'll kill you," repeated Carley, backing away until her weak knees came against the couch.

"Huh! I'd like to know who's insulted you. Can't a man take an invitation to kiss an' hug a girlwithout

"Nope, I'm not crazy, an' I shore said invitation . . . . I meant thet white shimmy dress you wore the night of

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

"Wal, you're gettin' kinda pale around the gills," he went on, derisively. "I reckoned you was a real sport. . . .

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

"Say, if you're agoin' to keel over like thet I pass," declared Ruff, in disgust. "Can't you Eastern wimmin

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

"Say, did you have some fool idee I was agoin' to kill you?" he queried, gruffly.

"I'm afraidI 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 flopover Janes for me! . . . An' I'll give you a hunch,

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.

"Shore. Thet's what I said. Any woman's dress without top or bottom is onnatural. It's not right. Why, you

looked likelike"here he floundered for adequate expression"like one of the devil's angels. An' I want

"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

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

yoursan' 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

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 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 sheepdefiled

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

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

His fine eyes lingered on her face with glad and warm glance, and the keen, apprehensive penetration of a

"Scared! I was worse than that. When I first ran into the flying dirt I was only afraid I'd lose my wayand

my complexion. But when the worst of the storm hit methen I feared I'd lose my breath."

"No, not all. But enough. I went through the worst of it before I reached the cabin," she replied.

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

"By George! Carley, sometimes I think you've changed since you've been here," he said, with warmth. "To go

"Glenn, I always think of what Flo saysthe worst is yet to come," replied Carley, trying to hide her

"Not I. Yet sometimes I see depths in youwonderful possibilities submerged under your poiseunder

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

"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 progressto help some man make goodto

bring a troop of healthy American kids into the world. You bare your shoulders to the gaze of the multitude

"Glenn, you distress me when you talk like this, " replied Carley, soberly. "You did not use to talk so. It

"Oh no, Carley! I am only sad," he said. "I only see where once I was blind. American women are the finest

"I say them because they are true. Carley, on the level now, tell me how many of your immediate friends

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

"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 betterclass 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

"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

"Glenn, let's put off the argument," appealed Carley. "I'm notjust up to fighting you today. Ohyou

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 greenforested canyon floor, with the yellow road

"Yes, both the rideand you," flashed Carley, contrarily. She knew he had meant the deepwalled canyon

"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

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 hurtreally!" he was ejaculating, in eager hope. "It was some spill. But you lit on the

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

"Glenndear, " she whispered, very low and very eloquently. "I thinkmy backis broken. . . . You'll be

Glenn gave a terrible start and his face turned a deathly white. He burst out with quavering, inarticulate

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

Suddenly she flung her arms up around his neck. "OhGlenn! It was too good a chance to miss! . . . I'm not

The day came when Carley asked Mrs. Hutter: "Will you please put up a nice lunch for Glenn and me? I'm

"That's a downright fine idea," declared Mrs. Hutter, and forthwith bustled away to comply with Carley's

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

The morning resembled one of the rare Eastern days in June, when the air appeared flooded by rich thick

Carley took to the trail below where West Fork emptied its goldengreen 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 herthat and the consciousness

of her own discontent. What would it be like to come to this canyonto 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 sunflecked 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

The longdelayed 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

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

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 fall. 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

Carley drew a long deep breath before she called Glenn. This meeting would be momentous and she felt no

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

Whereupon he led her back under the trees to a halfsunny, halfshady 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

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

"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

"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

"There! we've licked the platter clean," she said. "What starved bears we were! . . . . I wonder if I shall enjoy

"You dear old farmer, I'd love to stay here and just dreamforever," replied Carley, earnestly. "But I came

"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

toto 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

She smiled at him bravely, and she knew that unless some unforeseen shock upset her composure, she would

"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

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

"Hutter and I will go into cattle raising some day," went on Glenn. "And that Deep Lake place is what I want

"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."

"Yes. And the stock I'm raisin'. You see I have to feed corn. And believe me, Carley, those cornfields

"Oh, the hard work is over. All I have to do now it to plant and keep the weeds out."

"Yes, hogs," he said, with quiet gravity. "The first day you visited my cabin I told you I raised hogs, and I

"My dear, are you growin' dull of comprehension?" retorted Glenn. "Hogs." He spelled the word out.

"I'm in the hograising 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

"Glenn! It's soso queer," she ejaculated. "That youGlenn Kilbourne should ever go in forfor hogs! .

"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 governmentto 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? . . . Nothingso help me Godnothing! . . . I got a ribbon and

a bouqueta little applause for an hourand 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 meI 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 welland saved my soulwas the

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

"Oh, Glenn!forgiveme! " she faltered. "I was onlytalking. What do I know? Oh, I am blindblind

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 soulblighting

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 youmoremore," she cried, wildly, looking up and wanting desperately to throw

"I guess you doa little," he replied. "Sometimes I feel you are a kid. Then again you represent the

worldyour world with its ageold customits unalterable. . . . But, Carley, let's get back to my work."

"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 sheepdip. 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

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 beatbeatbeat 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 squealingand, by George! I saw an eagle flying off with one of my

pigs. Say, I was mad. A great old baldheaded eaglethe 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

"Poor little piggy!" exclaimed Carley. "To think of our American emblemour stately bird of noble warlike

mienour symbol of lonely grandeur and freedom of the heightsthink of him being a robber of

pigpens!Glenn, I begin to appreciate the manysidedness of things. Even my hidebound narrowness is

susceptible to change. It's never too late to learn. This should apply to the Society for the Preservation of the

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

The feat seemed monstrous and impossible of accomplishment for Carley. Yet such was her temper at the

"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

"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."

This incident inspired Glenn to a Homeric narration of his hograising 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 littleboned 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

When he had finished, and excused himself to go repair a weak place in the corral fence, Carley sat silent,

Whither had faded the vulgarity and ignominy she had attached to Glenn's raising of hogs? Gonelike 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

handswho 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 herbut 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,

soulblighted 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 gamefighting it out alone as surely he knew his brothers of like misfortune

So Glenn Kilbourne loomed heroically in Carley's transfigured sight. He was one of Carley's battlescarred

warriors. Out of his travail he had climbed on steppingstones of his dead self. Resurqam! 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 pinesonly these had been with him in his agony.

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 throbbingan

oppression which was painan impondering vague thought of catastrophe. Only the fearfulness of love

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 instant the words were spent upon her lips she realized that he had always been waiting and prepared for

"Carley," he replied gently, though his voice rang, "I am never going back East."

"Never to live, or stay any while," he went on. "I might go some time for a little visit. . . . But never to live."

"OhGlenn!" 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.

"That was it? All the time you knew," she whispered, huskily. "You knew. . . . I'd nevermarry younever

"Yes, Carley, I knew you'd never be woman enoughAmerican enoughto help me reconstruct my broken

That flayed her. An insupportable shame and wounded vanity and clamoring love contended for dominance

"Love you! Glenn, I worship you," she broke out, passionately. "But I could not live hereI 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 thisthis wilderness home with me. I don't ask it now. I

always knew you couldn't do it. Yet you've changed sothat I hoped against hope. Love makes us blind

"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 crowdpeople luxuryfashionthe 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

"Don't! don't! . . . they are hollow mockery for me," she cried, passionately. "Glenn, it is the end. It must

"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 youand I will be herehoping"

"II cannot listen," she returned, brokenly, and she clenched her hands tightly to keep from wringing them.

"II cannot face you. . . . Here isyour ring. . . . Youarefree. . . . Don't stop medon't come. . . . Oh,

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 whitefaced Flo, and Lolomi

Lodge, and the murmuring waterfall, and the haunting loneliness of Oak Creek Canyon.

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

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 herthe first check to shame and humiliation.

From her window she looked out to the southwest. Somewhere across the cedar and pinegreened 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 creamyedged and purplecentered 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

The next day through New Mexico she followed magnificent ranges and valleysso different from the

country she had seen coming Westso supremely beautiful that she wondered if she had only acquired the

But it was at sunset of the following clay, when the train was speeding down the continental slope of prairie

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 irontracked 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 mative. 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 pageanta vast canopy of

shell pink, a sunfired surface like an opal sea, rippled and webbed, with the exquisite texture of an Oriental

fabric, pure, delicate, lovelyas 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 horizonlong

length by the wondrous white glisteningpeaked range of the Rockies. Far to the north, standing aloof from

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

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

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

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

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

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, superblypoised 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 hurdygurdy. 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

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

"Oh, how perfectly stunning you look!" cried Eleanor, backing away from Carley and gazing with glad,

"Carley!" gasped Beatrice. "You wonderful goldenskinned goddess! . . . You're young again, like you were

"But I don't look happy," interrupted Carley. "I am happy to get hometo see you all . . . Butmymy

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 vastdomed cathedrallike 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 welcome sight of the

hurrying, welldressed 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 overquickly," she burst out, with hot blood surging to her face. "II hated the West. It was

so rawso violentso big. I think I hate it morenow. . . . But it changed memade me over

physicallyand did something to my soulGod 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 soundor seem. Glenn is absorbed in his work. I hated itI

expected to ridicule it. But I ended by infinitely respecting him. I learned through his hograising 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 comfortlovingtoo spoiled. And all the time he knew thisknew

I'd never be big enough to marry him. . . . That broke my heart. I left him freeand here I am. . . . I beg

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

"Cool!" exclaimed Carley, as she wiped her moist face. "I wonder if you Easterners know the real

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

Fortysecond 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 threestory

brownstone 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 brownishred stone steps and

Her aunt and her friends laughed, glad and relieved to hear such a practical remark from Carley. How were

they to divine that this brownishred 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 n the mirror at her weary, dusty, heated face. Neither the brownness of it nor the

"Now!" she whispered low. "It's done. I'm home. The old lifeor 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

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 actorsall, in fact, except the unaccustomed heat and noise, were most welcome and

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

Next day Carley motored through Central Park, and out of town into Westchester County, finding some relief

from the 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 yellowtinged 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

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

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

When Carley went into the reception room of the Plaza that night Morrison was waiting for herthe same

slim, fastidious, elegant, sallowfaced Morrison whose image she had in mind, yet somehow different. He

had what Carley called the New York masculine face, blase and lined, with eyes that gleamed, yet had no

"By Jove I but you've come back a peach!" he exclaimed, clasping her extended hand. "Eleanor told me you

"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

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.

"Thanks, Larry. II guess I'll not take up smoking again. You see, while I was West I got out of the habit."

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

"How's that big stiff, Kilbourne?" asked Morrison, suddenly. "Is it true he got well?"

"Ohyes! 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 pleaseI do not care to talk of him."

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 highsalaried post at the shipyardsthe 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 wellfed,

indolent, rich, effete, and supremely selfsatisfied. She could not we that he had gained anything. She would

"Larry, I fear gain and loss are mere words, she said. "The thing that counts with me is what you are."

He stared in wellbred 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 dancingmaster. But he held Carley too

tightly, and so she told him, and added, "I imbibed some fresh pure air while I was out Westsomething you

The latter days of July Carley made busyso 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

But she refused to go horseback riding in Central Park. She refused to go to the Plaza. And these refusals she

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 ironred 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

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

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

"Carley, I've come to ask you to reconsider," he said, with a smile in his gray eyes. He was not a tall or

"Elbert, you embarrass me," she replied, trying to laugh it out. "Indeed I feel honored, and I thank you. But I

"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 breakingwearing 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

This straightforward question struck Carley as singularly as if it was one she might never have encountered.

"That is nonsense, Carley," he went on. "You'll have to marry. What else can you do? With all due respect to

your feelingsthat affair with Kilbourne is endedand you're not the wishywashy heartbreak kind of a

"Certainly not. That's why I refuse to take no. Carley, be reasonable. You like merespect me, do you not?"

"I'm only thirtyfive, 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

"Pray do not think me ungrateful, Elbert," she replied, "nor insensible to the truth of what you say. But my

When Harrington had gone Carley went to her room, and precisely as upon her return from Arizona she faced

her m rror skeptically and relentlessly. "I am such a liar that I'll do well to look at myself," she meditated.

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 farseeing eyes at her world. Glenn Kilbourne's

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

"I love Glenn still," she whispered, passionately, with trembling lips, as she faced the tragiceyed 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 himonly kill that love. Then I might love another manand if I did love himno 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

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 balancerevenged 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

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

"What am I going to do with my life?" she asked, bitterly and aghast. "I have beenI 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 truehow they had precipitated a crisis for which her

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 socalled 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.

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

"Glenn haswritten 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 logcabin 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

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 Rustqueer 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

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, bigeyed lass whose picture I've seenand 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

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 meunless 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 Calicowhich you came to do welland on my

hogpen fenceand, 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

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 petthe 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.

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 seeonly to feel is

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,

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

I am doing so well with my hograising that Hutter wants to come in with me, giving me an interest in his

It is rumored some one has bought the Deep Lake section I wanted for a ranch. I don't know who. Hutter was

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 quarrelthe 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.

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 passagesonly to reread them. That suggestion of her face sculptured by shadows

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

"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 shibboleththe cry by which she sounded the closed depths of her love and

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 onestory 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

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 relativeor 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.

Presently Carley stood beside a bed and looked down upon a gaunt, haggard young man who lay propped up

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

"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 mymy own girl. By golly! You're some looker! It was good of

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 knowpresently. 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 depthstirring hour at the bedside of Glenn's comrade. At last she learned from

loyal lips the nature of Glenn Kil bourne's service to his country. How Carley clasped to her sore heart The

praise of the man she lovedthe 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

Carley saw two forces in lifethe 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

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

nevernever 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

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

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

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

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 friendswhoever they areyou 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

"Rust, that is morbid talk," replied Carley. "You're ill and you just can't see any hope. You must cheer

upfight yourself; and look at the brighter side. It's a horrible pity you must be a cripple, but Rust, indeed

"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.

"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

"I lost all, except my lifeand 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

youthatthat Glenn wrote meyou'd lost your girl. Oh, I'm sorry! It is dreadful for you now. But if you

got welland went to workand took up life where you left itwhy soon your pain would grow easier.

"But why, Rust, why? You're nonoOh! I mean you have intelligence and courage. Why isn't there

"Because something here's been killed," he replied, and put his hand to his heart.

"I'd gotten over that, maybe," he said, drearily, with his somber eyes on space that seemed lettered for him.

"Why, Carley, I mean the people I lost my leg for!" he replied, with terrible softness.

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

"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 meshe loved meand, by God! She married a slacker when I lay half dead on the battlefield!"

"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 Americaour homesour 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

"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

"You're whiteyou're shaking," exclaimed Rust, in concern. "Oh, Iwhat did I say? Forgive me"

"I have not told you the truth," she said, swiftly. "I have let you believe a lie. . . . I shall never marry Glenn. I

Slowly Rust sank back upon the pillow, his large luminous eyes piercingly fixed upon her, as if he would

"I went Westyes" continued Carley. "But it was selfishly. I wanted Glenn to come back here. . . . He

had suffered as you have. He nearly died. But he foughthe foughtOh! 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

"And there's another man," he said, "a clean, straight, unscarred fellow who wouldn't fight!"

"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

Carley's edifice of hopes, dreams, aspirations, and struggles fell in ruins about her. It had been built upon

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

She went home and locked herself in her room, deaf to telephone and servants. There she gave up to her

shame. Scorneddespiseddismissed by that poor crippled flamespirited Virgil Rust! He had reverenced

her, and the truth had earned his hate. Would she ever forget his lookincredulous shockedbitterand

blazing with unutterable contempt? Carley Burch was only another Nella jilta 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

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

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 fastnessesto 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 shutin

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 pinematted ledges, the towers

and turrets and ramparts where the eagles wheeledshe saw them all as beloved images lost to her save in

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 windswept waves the hanging

willows. Shrill and piercing and faraloft 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

A breath of fragrance seemed to blow with her shifting senses. The dry, sweet, tangy canyon smells returned

to herof freshcut timber, of wood smoke, of the cabin fire with its steaming pots, of flowers and earth,

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 beenthat 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 forwardgazing 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 slightnatured and paleblooded! And suddenly there pierced into the black storm of

Carley's mind a blazing, whitestreaked thoughtshe 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

During a lull in the idle conversation Morrison addressed Carley pointedly. "Well, Carley, how's your

Arizona hograiser?" he queried, with a little gleam in his usually lusterless eyes.

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

"Queer how Kilbourne went into raising hogs," observed Morrison. "Such a lowdown sort of work, you

"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 lowdown. No honest work is that. It is idleness that

"But so foolish of Glenn when he might have married money," rejoined Morrison, sarcastcally.

"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 letdown of women during and after the war."

"Certainly. Could an American girl desire any greater happinessor opportunity to prove her gratitude?"

"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,

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

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.

"If I was wonderful and am now commonplace you can thank your old New York for it."

"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

Eleanor laughed indulgently, and acquainted Carley with a record of her social wanderings during the last

"The same old thingsover 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

myselfand youand 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 aa

gratification to the senses of your husband. And at that you don't see much of hint."

"Carley, how you rave!" exclaimed her friend. "What has gotten into you lately? Why, everybody tells me

"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

thisthis damned stagnant muck as you, or anyone. But I'm no longer blind. There's something terribly

"Carley, the only thing wrong with you is that you jilted poor Glennand are breaking your heart over him

"Don'tdon't!" cried Carley, shrinking. "God knows that is true. But there's more wrong with me than a

"Eleanor, I positively hate that phrase 'modern feminine unrest!' It smacks of ultraultraOh! I don't know

what. That phrase ought to be translated by a Western acquaintance of mineone Haze Ruff. I'd not like to

hurt your sensitive feelings with what he'd say. But this unrest means speedmad, excitementmad, fadmad,

dressmad, or I should say undressmad, culture mad, and Heaven only knows what else. The women of

our set are idle, luxurious, selfish, pleasurecraving, lazy, useless, workandchildren shirking, absolutely no

"Well, if we are, who's to blame?" rejoined Eleanor, spiritedly. "Now, Carley Burch, you listen to me. I think

the twentiethcentury 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 sinan infernal

paradox. Take this twentiethcentury 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 earthNew 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

"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 satellitesfather, brothers, uncles,

friends, loversall utterly spoil her. Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle classwhich 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 f she can't afford a maid, the

modern devices of science make the care of her fourroom apartment a farce. Electric dishwasher,

clotheswasher, vacuumcleaner, and the nearby delicatessen and the caterer simply rob a young wife of

her housewifely heritage. If she has a babywhich happens occasionally, Carley, in spite of your

assertionit very soon goes to the kindergarten. Then what does she find to do with hours and hours? If she

"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 bottledlightning 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 newwoman 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

"There are a million sides to this question of the modern young womanthe findesiecle girl. I'm for her!"

"How about the extreme of style in dress for this remarkablytobepitied American girl you champion so

"Why do women wear extreme clothes? Why do you and I wear openwork silk stockings, skirts to our

Eleanor laughed in spite of being half nettled. "Are you going to stop wearing what all the other women

wearand be looked at askance? Are you going to be dowdy and frumpy and oldfashioned?"

"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."

"He told me I looked like one of the devil's angelsand 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

"No. . . . I wonder what Ruff would say about jazzI 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. Jazzthe discordant note of our

decadence! Jazzthe 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

"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

"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

"How you put things, Carley!" exclaimed Eleanor, wearily. "Of course I carewhen 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

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

Her hands trembled while she hurriedly dressed. Could this caller be Virgil Rust? She hoped so, but she

As she entered the parlor a tall young man in worn khaki rose to meet her. At first glance she could not name

"Good morning, Miss Burch," he said. "I hope you'll excuse so early a call. You remember me, don't you? I'm

"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."

"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

"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 firstthat's why I'll need a little money. I know

what to do. I want to lose myself in the wheat country and forget thethe war. I'll not be afraid of work,

presently. . . . Now, Miss Burch, you've been so kindI'm going to ask you to lend me a little money. I'll pay

"Assuredly I will," she replied, heartily. "I'm happy to have the opportunity to help you. How much will you

"Oh no, not so much as that," he replied. "Just railroad fare home, and then to Kansas, and to pay board while

"We'll make it five hundred, anyway," she replied, and, rising, she went toward the library. "Excuse me a

"Not at all," replied Carley. "You have no idea how much it means to me to be permitted to help you. Before

"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 bankit's on Thirtyfourth Streetand I'll telephone the

"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

"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

"Well," he said, with a singular bluntness, "considering I didn't get any medals or bonuses, I'd like to draw a

"You will," replied Carley, and made haste to change the subject. "By the way, did you meet Glenn

"Not that I remember," rejoined Burton, as he got up, rising rather stiffly by aid of his cane. "I must go, Miss

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.

"It was Rust who told me to come to you," said Burton. "We were talking one day, and hewell, 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

"True blue! He believed that. I'm glad. . . . Has he spoken of me to you since I was last at the hospital?"

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 changedthe warmth, the gratitude still lingered about

him. But the light of his eyes! Carley had seen it in Glenn's, in Rust'sa strange, questioning, faroff light,

infinitely aloof and unutterably sad. Then there came a lift of her heart that released a pang. She whispered

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,

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 waysby 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

truthagony 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

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 goldflushed 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

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 electriciansomething of an inventor. He worked hard. A baby boy had just come to them. Would

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, brighteyed, and happy. She saw in Carley no changea fact that somehow

rebounded sweetly on Carley's consciousness. Elsie prattled of herself and her husband and how they had

When Carley saw the adorable darkeyed, pinktoed, curlyfisted 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.

"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

"But he came back, and now all's well with you," said Carley, with a smile of earnestness. "I'm very glad,

"Yesbut I shudder when I think of a possible war in the future. I'm going to raise boys, and girls, too, I

Carley found her return train somewhat late, and she took advantage of the delay to walk out to the wooded

It was a raw March day, with a steely sun going down in a palegray 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 scruboaks. At length Carley came out on the edge of the

bluff with the gray expanse of seat beneath her, and a long wandering shore line, ragged with wreckage or

driftwood. The surge of water rolled ina 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 seahow 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

Once again Carley fell under the fury of her ordeal. Wavering now, restless and sleepless, given to violent

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

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 sunall 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

Over teacups there were waging gossip and argument and criticism. When Carley entered with Beatrice there

"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

"Say what, Geralda?" asked Carley. "I certainly would not say anything behind your backs that I wouldn't

"Say the rest here," drawled a lazy, mellow voice. "For Heaven's sake, stir us up. If I could get a kick out of

"Carley, go on the stage," advised another. "You've got Elsie Ferguson tied to the mast for looks. And lately

"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.

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

"I dare say I've talked too much," returned Carley. "It's been a rather hard winter on me. Perhaps, indeed, I've

"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 unsatisfied woman and if you don't

"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

Carley felt the gathering of a mighty resistless force, But Geralda Conners was nothing to her except the

"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

"You keep your pity to yourself. You need it," answered Geralda, with heat. "There's nothing wrong with me

"Nothing wrong!" cried Carley. "Listen. Nothing wrong in you or life todaynothing for you women to make

right? You are blind as batsas dead to living truth as if you were buried. Nothing wrong when thousands of

crippled soldiers have no homesno moneyno friendsno workin 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 womenwhen 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 godwhen 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 jazzwhere 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 silkenwrapped 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

"Look at me, Aunt Mary!" she cried, radiant and exultant. "I'm going back out West to marry Glenn and live

The keen old eyes of her aunt softened and dimmed. "Dear Carley, I've known that for a long time. You've

Then Carley breathlessly babbled her hastily formed plans, every word of which seemed to rush her onward.

"Well, I hope he won't surprise you," declared the old lady. "When did you hear from him last?"

"I imagine nothing," interposed her aunt. "It will turn out happily and I'll have some peace in my old age. But,

"Oh, I never thought!" replied Carley, blankly. "It will be lonely for you. Auntie, I'll come back in the fall for

"Let you? Ye gods! So you've come to that? Imperious Carley Burch! . . . Thank Heaven, you'll now be

"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

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, suppliesall 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

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

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

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

Deep darkblue 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

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 greenblue 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 windworn 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 everchanging spectacle of supreme beauty and colorful

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

goldbanded blackfringed ramparts, and redwalled 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

upwardgazing 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 preachersbefore the fret

and symbol and figure were cut in stoneman must have watched with thoughtdeveloping sight the

wonders of the earth, the monuments of time, the glooming of the darkblue sea, the handiwork of God.

In May, Carley returned to Flagstaff to take up with earnest inspiration the labors of homebuilding in a

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

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

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

"I'm here," she said to her pale, yet happy face in the mirror. "The impossible has happened. I have accepted

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

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 pegsthat was all we needed. But this house you've

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 whiteclad 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 foregroundhow gray and barren the downward slopehow 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

Carley had planned an Lshaped 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

"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

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 everflowing 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

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

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

spirepointed peaks lifted cold palegray outlines up into the deep starstudded 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

Westward, only a matter of twenty or thirty miles, lay the deep rent in the level desertOak 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

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

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

By and by the dead stillness awoke to faint sounds not before perceptible to hera low, mournful sough of

the wind in the cedars, then the faint fardistant 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

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

Three weeks of this selfimposed 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

Meanwhile the construction of her house went on with uninterrupted rapidity. When the low, slanting,

wideeaved 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 ranchthese 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 cookthese 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 allpervading as it was, she had to reject. Some exceedingly

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

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

She lingered here in the shaded depths with a feeling as if she were indeed lost to the world. These big brown

and seamybarked 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

sunworshiper 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

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 compassthe slow green

descent to the south and the climb to the blacktimbered 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

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 lifedispensing sun poured its rays down upon her, as if to ripen her; and the earth seemed

warm, motherly, immense with its allembracing arms. She no longer plucked the bluebells to press to her

face, but leaned to them. Every blade of gramma grass, with its shining bronzetufted seed head, had

significance for her. The scents of the desert began to have meaning for her. She sensed within her the

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 creamywhite columnar clouds rolled up from the horizon, like colossal ships with

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 herthat 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 earthhad served somehow to rejuvenate her blood,

quicken her pulse, intensify her sensorial faculties, thrill her very soul, lead her into the realm of

One afternoon a dull, leadblackcolored 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

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 sevenleague

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,

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

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

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 earthabove all, the sun. She was a product of the eartha 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

She was abased nowwoman 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 creationspirit of nature, almost the divinity of Godthese were

all hers because she was a woman. That was the great secret, aloof so long. That was what had been wrong

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

That afternoon as the sun was setting under a goldwhite 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

"Howdy!" he drawled, with his queer smile. "So it was youall who had this Deep Lake section?"

"Me? Aw, I'm tiptop. I'm shore glad you got this ranch. Reckon I'll hit you for a job."

How droll and dry he was! His lean, olivebrown face, with its guileless clear eyes and his lanky figure in

"Oh, I'm sorry," returned she haltingly, somehow checked in her warm rush of thought. "Stanton? . . . Did he

"Ah! II 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 askwhat out of a thousand sudden flashing queries?

"Sure. Been back several days. I reckoned Hoyle told you. Mebbe he didn't know, though. For nobody's been

"How ishow are they all?" faltered Carley. There was a strange wall here between her thought and her

"Aw, Flo's loony over her husband," drawled Charley, his clear eyes on Carley's.

"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."

Vague sense of movement, of darkness, and of cold attended Carley's consciousness for what seemed endless

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

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 allit 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 strugglemy victorynot 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 herand 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.

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.

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 fellhour of silence,

solitude, and melancholy, when the desert lay tranced, cold, waiting, mournful without light of moon or stars

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

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

shirkto 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 halfcompleted house mocked her I 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

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

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

That morning she faced herself in the mirror and asked, "Nowwhat 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

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 decisionto

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

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

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 rideuntil 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

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 changingforever 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 mineall

this strange feeling for simple elemental earthly things likewise will fail me. Yet I am driven. They would

It took Carley a full hour of slow bodybending 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

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 awakenedbut, alas! too late. She had

overthrown the sordid, selfseeking 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

"Now it is answered," she declared aloud. "That is what has happened? . . . And all that is past. . . . Is there

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 earthcrust, 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 skypiercing peaks by snow. Its

beauty and sublimity were lost upon Carley now; she was concerned with its travail, its age, its endurance, its

What incomprehensible subterranean force had swelled those immense slopes and lifted the huge bulk aloft to

the clouds? Cataclysm of naturethe expanding or shrinking of the earthvast 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, battlescarred and undefeated. Its skypiercing 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 grayfaced wall, massive and

sublime, seemed a monument of its mastery over time. Every deepcut canyon, showing the skeleton ribs, the

caverns and caves, its avalanchecarved slides, its long, fanshaped, 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 uni verse 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,

"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 menor 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 lifeto

understandto feelto workto fightto 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 farseeing

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 heat it. And the ordeal she set herself, to

Carley did not wait many days. Strange how the old vanity held her back until something of the havoc in her

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 cottontails 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 redwalled and greenfloored 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

jumpoff 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

The murmur of the creek suddenly assailed her earssweet, 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

By and by a craggy red wall loomed above the trees, and its pipeorgan 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 redearthed clearing that was Glenn's farm. She looked, and fought herself, and bit her

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 sangall with some sad sweetness that seemed of

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 wellremembered 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

A touch of spur urged her mustang into a gallop. The splashing ford of the creekthe still, eddying pool

Nothing had altered. But Carley seemed returning after many years. Slowly she dismountedslowly she

climbed the porch steps. Was there no one at home? Yet the vacant doorway, the silencesomething attested

to the knowledge of Carley's presence. Then suddenly Mrs. Hutter fluttered out with Flo behind her.

"I'm glad to see you, too," said Carley, bending to receive Mrs. Hutter's embrace. Carley saw dim eyesthe

"Oh, Carley!" burst out the Western girl, with voice rich and full, yet tremulous.

Was it the same Flo? This seemed more of a womanstrange nowwhite and strainedbeautiful, eager,

questioning. A cry of gladness burst from her. Carley felt herself enveloped in strong close claspand 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

"Oh no, indeed not," replied Carley, slowly gaining composure. The nervous agitation of these women had

"He was herea moment ago," panted Flo. "Oh, Carley, we sure are locoed. . . . Why, we only heard an hour

agothat 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

"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 surpriseso unexpected and big in generositysomething 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 trailon 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

"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

But he was coming to her. She had seen the bronze of his face turn to white. How gaunt and worn he looked.

"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 worldand to say

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

"I just left her. It was funnythe 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

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

"SureI 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 amazethe

She would have kissed him if death were the penalty. How his face blurred in her dimmed sight! Was that a

"Oh, yesyes. . . . Pity me, Glennlet me go. I meant well. . . . I shouldnever have come."

The strange content of his query, the trenchant force of it, brought her upright, with sight suddenly cleared.

She could no longer speak. She could only see her lover, as if transfigured, limned dark against the looming

"That was one of Charley's queer jokes. I told you to beware of him. Flo is married, yesand very happy. . .

. I'm unutterably happy, toobut I'm not married. Lee Stanton was the lucky bridegroom. . . . Carley, the