"I'm sure I would."
"There's good trout fishin' along heah a little later," he said,
pointing to the stream. "Crick's too high now. I like West Fork best.
I've ketched some lammin' big ones up there."
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 escort halted.
"You take the trail heah," he said, pointing it out, "an' foller it into
West Fork. So long, an' don't forget we're goin' huntin' turkeys."
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
higher--and 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 park-like 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 red-walled 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 spear-pointed 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 faces--these features gradually took shape in
Carley's confused sight, until the colossal mountain front stood up
before her in all its strange, wild, magnificent ruggedness and beauty.
"Arizona! Perhaps this is what he meant," murmured Carley. "I never
dreamed of anything like this.... But, oh! it overshadows me--bears me
down! I could never have a moment's peace under it."