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Page 11
"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 vehicle started down at an
angle that forced her to cling to her seat.
CHAPTER II
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 iron-shod
hoofs of the horses as they held back stiff legged, obedient to the wary
call of the driver.
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 close-standing trees on the other.
"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 West.
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
white-spotted sycamores. The driver called these great trees yellow pines.
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 timber-choked 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 wide-spreading
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 the wildness and savageness of
this canyon.
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 rude lettering:
"Lolomi Lodge."
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