Upon awakening she found she had overslept, necessitating haste upon her
part. As to that, the temperature of the room did not admit of leisurely
dressing. She had no adequate name for the feeling of the water. And
her fingers grew so numb that she made what she considered a disgraceful
matter of her attire.
Downstairs in the lobby another cheerful red fire burned in the grate.
How perfectly satisfying was an open fireplace! She thrust her numb
hands almost into the blaze, and simply shook with the tingling pain
that slowly warmed out of them. The lobby was deserted. A sign directed
her to a dining room in the basement, where of the ham and eggs and
strong coffee she managed to partake a little. Then she went upstairs
into the lobby and out into the street.
A cold, piercing air seemed to blow right through her. Walking to the
near corner, she paused to look around. Down the main street flowed a
leisurely stream of pedestrians, horses, cars, extending between two
blocks of low buildings. Across from where she stood lay a vacant lot,
beyond which began a line of neat, oddly constructed houses, evidently
residences of the town. And then lifting her gaze, instinctively drawn
by something obstructing the sky line, she was suddenly struck with
surprise and delight.
"Oh! how perfectly splendid!" she burst out.
Two magnificent mountains loomed right over her, sloping up with
majestic sweep of green and black timber, to a ragged tree-fringed snow
area that swept up cleaner and whiter, at last to lift pure glistening
peaks, noble and sharp, and sunrise-flushed against the blue.
Carley had climbed Mont Blanc and she had seen the Matterhorn, but they
had never struck such amaze and admiration from her as these twin peaks
of her native land.
"What mountains are those?" she asked a passer-by.
"San Francisco Peaks, ma'am," replied the man.
"Why, they can't be over a mile away!" she said.
"Eighteen miles, ma'am," he returned, with a grin. "Shore this Arizonie
air is deceivin'."
"How strange," murmured Carley. "It's not that way in the Adirondacks."
She was still gazing upward when a man approached her and said the stage
for Oak Creek Canyon would soon be ready to start, and he wanted to know
if her baggage was ready. Carley hurried back to her room to pack.
She had expected the stage would be a motor bus, or at least a large
touring car, but it turned out to be a two-seated vehicle drawn by
a team of ragged horses. The driver was a little wizen-faced man of
doubtful years, and he did not appear obviously susceptible to the
importance of his passenger. There was considerable freight to be
hauled, besides Carley's luggage, but evidently she was the only
passenger.