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Page 37
Several times she noted that Flo and Stanton halted to face each other in
rather heated argument. At least Stanton's red face and forceful gestures
attested to heat on his part. Flo evidently was weary of argument, and in
answer to a sharp reproach she retorted, "Shore I was different after he
came." To which Stanton responded by a quick passionate shrinking as if he
had been stung.
Carley had her own reaction to this speech she could not help hearing; and
inwardly, at least, her feeling must have been similar to Stanton's. She
forgot the object of this climb and looked off to her right at the green
level without really seeing it. A vague sadness weighed upon her soul. Was
there to be a tangle of fates here, a conflict of wills, a crossing of
loves? Flo's terse confession could not be taken lightly. Did she mean that
she loved Glenn? Carley began to fear it. Only another reason why she must
persuade Glenn to go back East! But the closer Carley came to what she
divined must be an ordeal the more she dreaded it. This raw, crude West
might have confronted her with a situation beyond her control. And as she
dragged her weighted feet through the cinders, kicking, up little puffs of
black dust, she felt what she admitted to be an unreasonable resentment
toward these Westerners and their barren, isolated, and boundless world.
"Carley," called Flo, "come--looksee, as the Indians say. Here is Glenn's
Painted Desert, and I reckon it's shore worth seeing."
To Carley's surprise, she found herself upon the knob of the foothill. And
when she looked out across a suddenly distinguishable void she seemed
struck by the immensity of something she was unable to grasp. She dropped
her bridle; she gazed slowly, as if drawn, hearing Flo's voice.
"That thin green line of cottonwoods down there is the Little Colorado
River," Flo was saying. "Reckon it's sixty miles, all down hill. The
Painted Desert begins there and also the Navajo Reservation. You see the
white strips, the red veins, the yellow bars, the black lines. They are all
desert steps leading up and up for miles. That sharp black peak is called
Wildcat. It's about a hundred miles. You see the desert stretching away to
the right, growing dim--lost in distance? We don't know that country. But
that north country we know as landmarks, anyway. Look at that saw-tooth
range. The Indians call it Echo Cliffs. At the far end it drops off into
the Colorado River. Lee's Ferry is there--about one hundred and sixty
miles. That ragged black rent is the Grand Canyon. Looks like a thread,
doesn't it? But Carley, it's some hole, believe me. Away to the left you
see the tremendous wall rising and turning to come this way. That's the
north wall of the Canyon. It ends at the great bluff--Greenland Point. See
the black fringe above the bar of gold. That's a belt of pine trees. It's
about eighty miles across this ragged old stone washboard of a desert.
. . . Now turn and look straight and strain your sight over Wildcat. See
the rim purple dome. You must look hard. I'm glad it's clear and the sun is
shining. We don't often get this view. . . . That purple dome is Navajo
Mountain, two hundred miles and more away!"
Carley yielded to some strange drawing power and slowly walked forward
until she stood at the extreme edge of the summit.
What was it that confounded her sight? Desert slope--down and down--color--
distance--space! The wind that blew in her face seemed to have the openness
of the whole world back of it. Cold, sweet, dry, exhilarating, it breathed
of untainted vastness. Carley's memory pictures of the Adirondacks faded
into pastorals; her vaunted images of European scenery changed to operetta
settings. She had nothing with which to compare this illimitable space.
"Oh!--America!" was her unconscious tribute.
Stanton and Flo had come on to places beside her. The young man laughed.
"Wal, now Miss Carley, you couldn't say more. When I was in camp trainin'
for service overseas I used to remember how this looked. An' it seemed one
of the things I was goin' to fight for. Reckon I didn't the idea of the
Germans havin' my Painted Desert. I didn't get across to fight for it, but
I shore was willin'."
"You see, Carley, this is our America," said Flo, softly.
Carley had never understood the meaning of the word. The immensity of the
West seemed flung at her. What her vision beheld, so far-reaching and
boundless, was only a dot on the map.
"Does any one live--out there?" she asked, with slow sweep of hand.
"A few white traders and some Indian tribes," replied Stanton. "But you can
ride all day an' next day an' never see a livin' soul."
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