Carley directed stumbling steps toward the light of her tent. Her eyes
had not been used to such black shadow along the ground. She had, too,
squeamish feminine fears of hydrophobia skunks, and nameless animals
or reptiles that were imagined denizens of the darkness. She gained her
tent and entered. The Mexican, Gino, as he called himself, had lighted
her lamp and fire. Carley was chilled through, and the tent felt so warm
and cozy that she could scarcely believe it. She fastened the screen
door, laced the flaps across it, except at the top, and then gave
herself up to the lulling and comforting heat.
There were plans to perfect; innumerable things to remember; a car and
accessories, horses, saddles, outfits to buy. Carley knew she should sit
down at her table and write and figure, but she could not do it then.
For a long time she sat over the little stove, toasting her knees and
hands, adding some chips now and then to the red coals. And her mind
seemed a kaleidoscope of changing visions, thoughts, feelings. At last
she undressed and blew out the lamp and went to bed.
Instantly a thick blackness seemed to enfold her and silence as of a
dead world settled down upon her. Drowsy as she was, she could not close
her eyes nor refrain from listening. Darkness and silence were tangible
things. She felt them. And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm
to still the tumult of her, to soothe and rest, to create thoughts
she had never thought before. Rest was more than selfish indulgence.
Loneliness was necessary to gain consciousness of the soul. Already far
back in the past seemed Carley's other life.
By and by the dead stillness awoke to faint sounds not before
perceptible to her--a low, mournful sough of the wind in the cedars,
then the faint far-distant note of a coyote, sad as the night and
infinitely wild.
Days passed. Carley worked in the mornings with her hands and her
brains. In the afternoons she rode and walked and climbed with a double
object, to work herself into fit physical condition and to explore every
nook and corner of her six hundred and forty acres.
Then what she had expected and deliberately induced by her efforts
quickly came to pass. Just as the year before she had suffered
excruciating pain from aching muscles, and saddle blisters, and walking
blisters, and a very rending of her bones, so now she fell victim to
them again. In sunshine and rain she faced the desert. Sunburn and sting
of sleet were equally to be endured. And that abomination, the hateful
blinding sandstorm, did not daunt her. But the weary hours of abnegation
to this physical torture at least held one consoling recompense as
compared with her experience of last year, and it was that there was no
one interested to watch for her weaknesses and failures and blunders.
She could fight it out alone.