hout losing her breath, work without
blistering her hands; and in this there was compensation. The building
of the house that was to become a home, the development of water
resources and land that meant the making of a ranch--these did not
altogether constitute the anticipation of content. To be active, to
accomplish things, to recall to mind her knowledge of manual training,
of domestic science, of designing and painting, to learn to cook--these
were indeed measures full of reward, but they were not all. In her
wondering, pondering meditation she arrived at the point where she
tried to assign to her love the growing fullness of her life. This,
too, splendid and all-pervading as it was, she had to reject. Some
exceedingly illusive and vital significance of life had insidiously come
to Carley.

One afternoon, with the sky full of white and black rolling clouds and a
cold wind sweeping through the cedars, she halted to rest and escape the
chilling gale for a while. In a sunny place, under the lee of a gravel
bank, she sought refuge. It was warm here because of the reflected
sunlight and the absence of wind. The sand at the bottom of the bank
held a heat that felt good to her cold hands. All about her and over her
swept the keen wind, rustling the sage, seeping the sand, swishing the
cedars, but she was out of it, protected and insulated. The sky above
showed blue between the threatening clouds. There were no birds or
living creatures in sight. Certainly the place had little of color
or beauty or grace, nor could she see beyond a few rods. Lying there,
without any particular reason that she was conscious of, she suddenly
felt shot through and through with exhilaration.

Another day, the warmest of the spring so far, she rode a Navajo mustang
she had recently bought from a passing trader; and at the farthest end
of her section, in rough wooded and ridged ground she had not explored,
she found a canyon with red walls and pine trees and gleaming streamlet
and glades of grass and jumbles of rock. It was a miniature canyon, to
be sure, only a quarter of a mile long, and as deep as the height of a
lofty pine, and so narrow that it seemed only the width of a lane, but
it had all the features of Oak Creek Canyon, and so sufficed for the
exultant joy of possession. She explored it. The willow brakes and oak
thickets harbored rabbits and birds. She saw the white flags of deer
running away down the open. Up at the head where the can