the rock ledges shot up the wonderful mescal stalks, beginning to
blossom, some with tints of gold and others with tones of red.

Riding along down the canyon, under its looming walls, Carley wondered
that if unawares to her these physical aspects of Arizona could have
become more significant than she realized. The thought had confronted
her before. Here, as always, she fought it and denied it by the simple
defense of elimination. Yet refusing to think of a thing when it seemed
ever present was not going to do forever. Insensibly and subtly it might
get a hold on her, never to be broken. Yet it was infinitely easier to
dream than to think.

But the thought encroached upon her that it was not a dreamful habit of
mind she had fallen into of late. When she dreamed or mused she lived
vaguely and sweetly over past happy hours or dwelt in enchanted fancy
upon a possible future. Carley had been told by a Columbia professor
that she was a type of the present age--a modern young woman of
materialistic mind. Be that as it might, she knew many things seemed
loosening from the narrowness and tightness of her character, sloughing
away like scales, exposing a new and strange and susceptible softness
of fiber. And this blank habit of mind, when she did not think, and
now realized that she was not dreaming, seemed to be the body of Carley
Burch, and her heart and soul stripped of a shell. Nerve and emotion
and spirit received something from her surroundings. She absorbed her
environment. She felt. It was a delightful state. But when her own
consciousness caused it to elude her, then she both resented and
regretted. Anything that approached permanent attachment to this crude
and untenanted West Carley would not tolerate for a moment. Reluctantly
she admitted it had bettered her health, quickened her blood, and quite
relegated Florida and the Adirondacks, to little consideration.

"Well, as I told Glenn," soliloquized Carley, "every time I'm almost
won over a little to Arizona she gives me a hard jolt. I'm getting near
being mushy today. Now let's see what I'll get. I suppose that's my
pessimism or materialism. Funny how Glenn keeps saying its the jolts,
the hard knocks, the fights that are best to remember afterward. I don't
get that at all."

Five miles below West Fork a road branched off and climbed the left side
of the canyon. It was a rather steep road, long and zigzaging, and full
of rocks and ruts. Carley did not enjoy ascendin