She heard the murmur of flowing water, soft, low, now loud, and again
lulling, hollow and eager, tinkling over rocks, bellowing into the deep
pools, washing with silky seep of wind-swept waves the hanging willows.
Shrill and piercing and far-aloft pealed the scream of the eagle. And
she seemed to listen to a mocking bird while he mocked her with his
melody of many birds. The bees hummed, the wind moaned, the leaves
rustled, the waterfall murmured. Then came the sharp rare note of a
canyon swift, most mysterious of birds, significant of the heights.
A breath of fragrance seemed to blow with her shifting senses. The dry,
sweet, tangy canyon smells returned to her--of fresh-cut timber, of wood
smoke, of the cabin fire with its steaming pots, of flowers and earth,
and of the wet stones, of the redolent pines and the pungent cedars.
And suddenly, clearly, amazingly, Carley beheld in her mind's sight the
hard features, the bold eyes, the slight smile, the coarse face of Haze
Ruff. She had forgotten him. But he now returned. And with memory of
him flashed a revelation as to his meaning in her life. He had appeared
merely a clout, a ruffian, an animal with man's shape and intelligence.
But he was the embodiment of the raw, crude violence of the West. He
was the eyes of the natural primitive man, believing what he saw. He had
seen in Carley Burch the paraded charm, the unashamed and serene front,
the woman seeking man. Haze Ruff had been neither vile nor base nor
unnatural. It had been her subjection to the decadence of feminine dress
that had been unnatural. But Ruff had found her a lie. She invited what
she did not want. And his scorn had been commensurate with the falsehood
of her. So might any man have been justified in his insult to her, in
his rejection of her. Haze Ruff had found her unfit for his idea of
dalliance. Virgil Rust had found her false to the ideals of womanhood
for which he had sacrificed all but life itself. What then had Glenn
Kilbourne found her? He possessed the greatness of noble love. He had
loved her before the dark and changeful tide of war had come between
them. How had he judged her? That last sight of him standing alone,
leaning with head bowed, a solitary figure trenchant with suggestion of
tragic resignation and strength, returned to flay Carley. He had loved,
trusted, and hoped. She saw now what his hope had been--that she would
have instilled into her blood the subtle, red, and revivifying essence
of calling life in the open, the strength of the wives of earlier
years, an emanation from canyon, desert, mountain, forest, of health,
of spirit, of forward-gazing natural love, of the mysterious saving
instinct he had gotten out of the West. And she had been too little
too steeped in the indulgence of luxurious life too slight-natured
and pale-blooded! And suddenly there pierced into the black storm of
Carley's mind a blazing, white-streaked thought--she had left Glenn to
the Western girl, Flo Hutter. Humiliated, and abased in her own sight,
Carley fell prey to a fury of jealousy.