The Call of the Canyon

Again and again she visited this lookout and came to love its isolation,

its command of wondrous prospects, its power of suggestion to her

thoughts. She became a creative being, in harmony with the live things

around her. The great life-dispensing sun poured its rays down upon her,

as if to ripen her; and the earth seemed warm, motherly, immense with

its all-embracing arms. She no longer plucked the bluebells to press

to her face, but leaned to them. Every blade of gramma grass, with its

shining bronze-tufted seed head, had significance for her. The scents

of the desert began to have meaning for her. She sensed within her the

working of a great leveling process through which supreme happiness

would come.

June! The rich, thick, amber light, like a transparent reflection from

some intense golden medium, seemed to float in the warm air. The sky

became an azure blue. In the still noontides, when the bees hummed

drowsily and the flies buzzed, vast creamy-white columnar clouds rolled

up from the horizon, like colossal ships with bulging sails. And summer

with its rush of growing things was at hand.

Carley rode afar, seeking in strange places the secret that eluded her.

Only a few days now until she would ride down to Oak Creek Canyon! There

was a low, singing melody of wind in the cedars. The earth became

too beautiful in her magnified sight. A great truth was dawning upon

her--that the sacrifice of what she had held as necessary to the

enjoyment of life--that the strain of conflict, the labor of hands,

the forcing of weary body, the enduring of pain, the contact with the

earth--had served somehow to rejuvenate her blood, quicken her pulse,

intensify her sensorial faculties, thrill her very soul, lead her into

the realm of enchantment.

One afternoon a dull, lead-black-colored cinder knoll tempted her to

explore its bare heights. She rode up until her mustang sank to his

knees and could climb no farther. From there she essayed the ascent

on foot. It took labor. But at last she gained the summit, burning,

sweating, panting.

The cinder hill was an extinct crater of a volcano. In the center of it

lay a deep bowl, wondrously symmetrical, and of a dark lusterless hue.

Not a blade of grass was there, nor a plant. Carley conceived a desire

to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of

the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she

had overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of

daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started

down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an

exhilarating emotion consumed her. If there were danger, it mattered

not. She strode down with giant steps, she plunged, she started

avalanches to ride them until they stopped, she leaped, and lastly she

fell, to roll over the soft cinders to the pit.