Both living room and sleeping room were arranged so that the Painted
Desert could be seen from one window, and on the other side the whole
of the San Francisco Mountains. Both rooms were to have open fireplaces.
Carley's idea was for service and durability. She thought of comfort in
the severe winters of that high latitude, but elegance and luxury had no
more significance in her life.
Hoyle made his suggestions as to changes and adaptations, and, receiving
her approval, he went on to show her what had been already accomplished.
Back on higher ground a reservoir of concrete was being constructed
near an ever-flowing spring of snow water from the peaks. This water
was being piped by gravity to the house, and was a matter of greatest
satisfaction to Hoyle, for he claimed that it would never freeze in
winter, and would be cold and abundant during the hottest and driest of
summers. This assurance solved the most difficult and serious problem of
ranch life in the desert.
Next Hoyle led Carley down off the knoll to the wide cedar valley
adjacent to the lake. He was enthusiastic over its possibilities. Two
small corrals and a large one had been erected, the latter having a low
flat barn connected with it. Ground was already being cleared along the
lake where alfalfa and hay were to be raised. Carley saw the blue and
yellow smoke from burning brush, and the fragrant odor thrilled her.
Mexicans were chopping the cleared cedars into firewood for winter use.
The day was spent before she realized it. At sunset the carpenters and
mechanics left in two old Ford cars for town. The Mexicans had a camp
in the cedars, and the Hoyles had theirs at the spring under the knoll
where Carley had camped with Glenn and the Hutters. Carley watched the
golden rosy sunset, and as the day ended she breathed deeply as if in
unutterable relief. Supper found her with appetite she had long since
lost. Twilight brought cold wind, the staccato bark of coyotes, the
flicker of camp fires through the cedars. She tried to embrace all her
sensations, but they were so rapid and many that she failed.
The cold, clear, silent night brought back the charm of the desert.
How flaming white the stars! The great spire-pointed peaks lifted cold
pale-gray outlines up into the deep star-studded sky. Carley walked a
little to and fro, loath to go to her tent, though tired. She wanted
calm. But instead of achieving calmness she grew more and more towards a
strange state of exultation.
Westward, only a matter of twenty or thirty miles, lay the deep rent in
the level desert--Oak Creek Canyon. If Glenn had been there this night
would have been perfect, yet almost unendurable. She was again grateful
for his absence. What a surprise she had in store for him! And she
imagined his face in its change of expression when she met him. If only
he never learned of her presence in Arizona until she made it known in
person! That she most longed for. Chances were against it, but then her
luck had changed. She looked to the eastward where a pale luminosity
of afterglow shone in the heavens. Far distant seemed the home of
her childhood, the friends she had scorned and forsaken, the city of
complaining and striving millions. If only some miracle might illumine
the minds of her friends, as she felt that hers was to be illumined here
in the solitude. But she well realized that not all problems could be
solved by a call out of the West. Any open and lonely land that might
have saved Glenn Kilbourne would have sufficed for her. It was the
spirit of the thing and not the letter. It was work of any kind and not
only that of ranch life. Not only the raising of hogs!