rit through all time, Carley divined that she had
it within her. So the present meant little.

"I have no right to be unhappy," concluded Carley. "I had no right to
Glenn Kilbourne. I failed him. In that I failed myself. Neither life nor
nature failed me--nor love. It is no longer a mystery. Unhappiness is
only a change. Happiness itself is only change. So what does it matter?
The great thing is to see life--to understand--to feel--to work--to
fight--to endure. It is not my fault I am here. But it is my fault if
I leave this strange old earth the poorer for my failure.... I will no
longer be little. I will find strength. I will endure.... I still have
eyes, ears, nose, taste. I can feel the sun, the wind, the nip of frost.
Must I slink like a craven because I've lost the love of one man? Must I
hate Flo Hutter because she will make Glenn happy? Never!... All of this
seems better so, because through it I am changed. I might have lived on,
a selfish clod!"

Carley turned from the mountain kingdom and faced her future with the
profound and sad and far-seeing look that had come with her lesson. She
knew what to give. Sometime and somewhere there would be recompense.
She would hide her wound in the faith that time would heal it. And the
ordeal she set herself, to prove her sincerity and strength, was to ride
down to Oak Creek Canyon.

Carley did not wait many days. Strange how the old vanity held her back
until something of the havoc in her face should be gone!

One morning she set out early, riding her best horse, and she took a
sheep trail across country. The distance by road was much farther. The
June morning was cool, sparkling, fragrant. Mocking birds sang from the
topmost twig of cedars; doves cooed in the pines; sparrow hawks sailed
low over the open grassy patches. Desert primroses showed their rounded
pink clusters in sunny places, and here and there burned the carmine of
Indian paint-brush. Jack rabbits and cotton-tails bounded and scampered
away through the sage. The desert had life and color and movement this
June day. And as always there was the dry fragrance on the air.

Her mustang had been inured to long and consistent travel over the
desert. Her weight was nothing to him and he kept to the swinging lope
for miles. As she approached Oak Creek Canyon, however, she drew him to
a trot, and then a walk. Sight of the deep red-walled and green-floored
canyon was a shock to her.

The trail came out on the road