The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey


Main
- books.jibble.org



My Books
- IRC Hacks

Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare

External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd

books.jibble.org

Previous Page | Next Page

Page 6

"Aunt Mary!" gasped Carley.

"I mean it. That letter shows how near he came to the Valley of the
Shadow--and how he has become a man. . . . If I were you I'd go out West.
Surely there must be a place where it would be all right for you to stay."

"Oh, yes," replied Carley, eagerly. "Glenn wrote me there was a lodge where
people went in nice weather--right down in the canyon not far from his
place. Then, of course, the town--Flagstaff--isn't far. . . . Aunt Mary, I
think I'll go."

"I would. You're certainly wasting your time here."

"But I could only go for a visit," rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. "A month,
perhaps six weeks, if I could stand it."

"Seems to me if you can stand New York you could stand that place," said
Aunt Mary, dryly.

"The idea of staying away from New York any length of time--why, I couldn't
do it I . . . But I can stay out there long enough to bring Glenn back with
me."

"That may take you longer than you think," replied her aunt, with a gleam
in her shrewd eyes. "If you want my advice you will surprise Glenn. Don't
write him--don't give him a chance to--well to suggest courteously that
you'd better not come just yet. I don't like his words 'just yet.'"

"Auntie, you're--rather--more than blunt," said Carley, divided between
resentment and amaze. "Glenn would be simply wild to have me come."

"Maybe he would. Has he ever asked you?"

"No-o--come to think of it, he hasn't," replied Carley, reluctantly. "Aunt
Mary, you hurt my feelings."

"Well, child, I'm glad to learn your feelings are hurt," returned the aunt.
"I'm sure, Carley, that underneath all this--this blase ultra something
you've acquired, there's a real heart. Only you must hurry and listen to
it--or--"

"Or what?" queried Carley.

Aunt Mary shook her gray head sagely. "Never mind what. Carley, I'd like
your idea of the most significant thing in Glenn's letter."

"Why, his love for me, of course!" replied Carley.

"Naturally you think that. But I don't. What struck me most were his words,
'out of the West.' Carley, you'd do well to ponder over them."

"I will," rejoined Carley, positively. "I'll do more. I'll go out to his
wonderful West and see what he meant by them."

Carley Burch possessed in full degree the prevailing modern craze for
speed. She loved a motor-car ride at sixty miles an hour along a smooth,
straight road, or, better, on the level seashore of Ormond, where on
moonlight nights the white blanched sand seemed to flash toward her.
Therefore quite to her taste was the Twentieth Century Limited which was
hurtling her on the way to Chicago. The unceasingly smooth and even rush of
the train satisfied something in her. An old lady sitting in an adjoining
seat with a companion amused Carley by the remark: "I wish we didn't go so
fast. People nowadays haven't time to draw a comfortable breath. Suppose we
should run off the track!"

Carley had no fear of express trains, or motor cars, or transatlantic
liners; in fact, she prided herself in not being afraid of anything. But
she wondered if this was not the false courage of association with a crowd.
Before this enterprise at hand she could not remember anything she had
undertaken alone. Her thrills seemed to be in abeyance to the end of her
journey. That night her sleep was permeated with the steady low whirring of
the wheels. Once, roused by a jerk, she lay awake in the darkness while the
thought came to her that she and all her fellow passengers were really at
the mercy of the engineer. Who was he, and did he stand at his throttle
keen and vigilant, thinking of the lives intrusted to him? Such thoughts
vaguely annoyed Carley, and she dismissed them.

A long half-day wait in Chicago was a tedious preliminary to the second
part of her journey. But at last she found herself aboard the California
Limited, and went to bed with a relief quite a stranger to her. The glare
of the sun under the curtain awakened her. Propped up on her pillows, she
looked out at apparently endless green fields or pastures, dotted now and
then with little farmhouses and tree-skirted villages. This country, she
thought, must be the prairie land she remembered lay west of the
Mississippi.

Previous Page | Next Page


Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sat 4th Jan 2025, 1:38