The Call of the Canyon

All too soon Carley found herself astride the mustang again. Glenn

helped her don the slicker, an abominable sticky rubber coat that

bundled her up and tangled her feet round the stirrups. She was glad to

find, though, that it served well indeed to protect her from raw wind

and rain.

"Where do we go from here?" Carley inquired, ironically.

Glenn laughed in a way which proved to Carley that he knew perfectly

well how she felt. Again his smile caused her self-reproach. Plain

indeed was it that he had really expected more of her in the way of

complaint and less of fortitude. Carley bit her lips.

Thus began the afternoon ride. As it advanced the sky grew more

threatening, the wind rawer, the cold keener, and the rain cut like

little bits of sharp ice. It blew in Carley's face. Enough snow fell to

whiten the open patches of ground. In an hour Carley realized that

she had the hardest task of her life to ride to the end of the day's

journey. No one could have guessed her plight. Glenn complimented her

upon her adaptation to such unpleasant conditions. Flo evidently was on

the lookout for the tenderfoot's troubles. But as Spillbeans, had taken

to lagging at a walk, Carley was enabled to conceal all outward sign of

her woes. It rained, hailed, sleeted, snowed, and grew colder all the

time. Carley's feet became lumps of ice. Every step the mustang took

sent acute pains ramifying from bruised and raw places all over her

body.

Once, finding herself behind the others and out of sight in the cedars,

she got off to walk awhile, leading the mustang. This would not do,

however, because she fell too far in the rear. Mounting again, she rode

on, beginning to feel that nothing mattered, that this trip would be the

end of Carley Burch. How she hated that dreary, cold, flat land the road

bisected without end. It felt as if she rode hours to cover a mile. In

open stretches she saw the whole party straggling along, separated from

one another, and each for himself. They certainly could not be enjoying

themselves. Carley shut her eyes, clutched the pommel of the saddle,

trying to support her weight. How could she endure another mile? Alas!

there might be many miles. Suddenly a terrible shock seemed to rack

her. But it was only that Spillbeans had once again taken to a trot.

Frantically she pulled on the bridle. He was not to be thwarted. Opening

her eyes, she saw a cabin far ahead which probably was the destination

for the night. Carley knew she would never reach it, yet she clung on

desperately. What she dreaded was the return of that stablike pain in

her side. It came, and life seemed something abject and monstrous. She

rode stiff legged, with her hands propping her stiffly above the pommel,

but the stabbing pain went right on, and in deeper. When the mustang

halted his trot beside the other horses Carley was in the last

extremity. Yet as Glenn came to her, offering a hand, she still hid her

agony. Then Flo called out gayly: "Carley, you've done twenty-five miles

on as rotten a day as I remember. Shore we all hand it to you. And I'm

confessing I didn't think you'd ever stay the ride out. Spillbeans is

the meanest nag we've got and he has the hardest gait."