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

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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.




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