Carley turned from the mountain kingdom and faced her future with the
profound and sad and far-seeing look that had come with her lesson. She
knew what to give. Sometime and somewhere there would be recompense.
She would hide her wound in the faith that time would heal it. And the
ordeal she set herself, to prove her sincerity and strength, was to ride
down to Oak Creek Canyon.
Carley did not wait many days. Strange how the old vanity held her back
until something of the havoc in her face should be gone!
One morning she set out early, riding her best horse, and she took a
sheep trail across country. The distance by road was much farther. The
June morning was cool, sparkling, fragrant. Mocking birds sang from the
topmost twig of cedars; doves cooed in the pines; sparrow hawks sailed
low over the open grassy patches. Desert primroses showed their rounded
pink clusters in sunny places, and here and there burned the carmine of
Indian paint-brush. Jack rabbits and cotton-tails bounded and scampered
away through the sage. The desert had life and color and movement this
June day. And as always there was the dry fragrance on the air.
Her mustang had been inured to long and consistent travel over the
desert. Her weight was nothing to him and he kept to the swinging lope
for miles. As she approached Oak Creek Canyon, however, she drew him to
a trot, and then a walk. Sight of the deep red-walled and green-floored
canyon was a shock to her.
The trail came out on the road that led to Ryan's sheep camp, at a point
several miles west of the cabin where Carley had encountered Haze
Ruff. She remembered the curves and stretches, and especially the steep
jump-off where the road led down off the rim into the canyon. Here she
dismounted and walked. From the foot of this descent she knew every rod
of the way would be familiar to her, and, womanlike, she wanted to
turn away and fly from them. But she kept on and mounted again at level
ground.
The murmur of the creek suddenly assailed her ears--sweet, sad,
memorable, strangely powerful to hurt. Yet the sound seemed of long ago.
Down here summer had advanced. Rich thick foliage overspread the winding
road of sand. Then out of the shade she passed into the sunnier regions
of isolated pines. Along here she had raced Calico with Glenn's bay;
and here she had caught him, and there was the place she had fallen.
She halted a moment under the pine tree where Glenn had held her in his
arms. Tears dimmed her eyes. If only she had known then the truth, the
reality! But regrets were useless.