ding, but it seemed
so to Carley. There was as much difference in horses as in people. This
mustang she had ridden of late was of Navajo stock, but he had been born
and raised and broken at Oak Creek. Carley had not yet discovered any
objection on his part to do as she wanted him to. He liked what she
liked, and most of all he liked to go. His color resembled a pattern
of calico, and in accordance with Western ways his name was therefore
Calico. Left to choose his own gait, Calico always dropped into a gentle
pace which was so easy and comfortable and swinging that Carley never
tired of it. Moreover, he did not shy at things lying in the road or
rabbits darting from bushes or at the upwhirring of birds. Carley had
grown attached to Calico before she realized she was drifting into it;
and for Carley to care for anything or anybody was a serious matter,
because it did not happen often and it lasted. She was exceedingly
tenacious of affection.

June had almost passed and summer lay upon the lonely land. Such perfect
and wonderful weather had never before been Carley's experience. The
dawns broke cool, fresh, fragrant, sweet, and rosy, with a breeze that
seemed of heaven rather than earth, and the air seemed tremulously full
of the murmur of falling water and the melody of mocking birds. At the
solemn noontides the great white sun glared down hot--so hot that
t burned the skin, yet strangely was a pleasant burn. The waning
afternoons were Carley's especial torment, when it seemed the sounds and
winds of the day were tiring, and all things were seeking repose, and
life must soften to an unthinking happiness. These hours troubled Carley
because she wanted them to last, and because she knew for her this
changing and transforming time could not last. So long as she did not
think she was satisfied.

Maples and sycamores and oaks were in full foliage, and their bright
greens contrasted softly with the dark shine of the pines. Through the
spaces between brown tree trunks and the white-spotted holes of the
sycamores gleamed the amber water of the creek. Always there was murmur
of little rills and the musical dash of little rapids. On the surface
of still, shady pools trout broke to make ever-widening ripples. Indian
paintbrush, so brightly carmine in color, lent touch of fire to the
green banks, and under the oaks, in cool dark nooks where mossy bowlders
lined the stream, there were stately nodding yellow columbines. And high
on