Again and again she visited this lookout and came to love its isolation,
its command of wondrous prospects, its power of suggestion to her
thoughts. She became a creative being, in harmony with the live things
around her. The great life-dispensing sun poured its rays down upon her,
as if to ripen her; and the earth seemed warm, motherly, immense with
its all-embracing arms. She no longer plucked the bluebells to press
to her face, but leaned to them. Every blade of gramma grass, with its
shining bronze-tufted seed head, had significance for her. The scents
of the desert began to have meaning for her. She sensed within her the
working of a great leveling process through which supreme happiness
would come.
June! The rich, thick, amber light, like a transparent reflection from
some intense golden medium, seemed to float in the warm air. The sky
became an azure blue. In the still noontides, when the bees hummed
drowsily and the flies buzzed, vast creamy-white columnar clouds rolled
up from the horizon, like colossal ships with bulging sails. And summer
with its rush of growing things was at hand.
Carley rode afar, seeking in strange places the secret that eluded her.
Only a few days now until she would ride down to Oak Creek Canyon! There
was a low, singing melody of wind in the cedars. The earth became
too beautiful in her magnified sight. A great truth was dawning upon
her--that the sacrifice of what she had held as necessary to the
enjoyment of life--that the strain of conflict, the labor of hands,
the forcing of weary body, the enduring of pain, the contact with the
earth--had served somehow to rejuvenate her blood, quicken her pulse,
intensify her sensorial faculties, thrill her very soul, lead her into
the realm of enchantment.
One afternoon a dull, lead-black-colored cinder knoll tempted her to
explore its bare heights. She rode up until her mustang sank to his
knees and could climb no farther. From there she essayed the ascent
on foot. It took labor. But at last she gained the summit, burning,
sweating, panting.
The cinder hill was an extinct crater of a volcano. In the center of it
lay a deep bowl, wondrously symmetrical, and of a dark lusterless hue.
Not a blade of grass was there, nor a plant. Carley conceived a desire
to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of
the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she
had overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of
daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started
down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an
exhilarating emotion consumed her. If there were danger, it mattered
not. She strode down with giant steps, she plunged, she started
avalanches to ride them until they stopped, she leaped, and lastly she
fell, to roll over the soft cinders to the pit.