Not long after this incident Carley started out on her usual afternoon

ride, having arranged with Glenn to meet her on his return from work.

Toward the end of June Carley had advanced in her horsemanship to a

point where Flo lent her one of her own mustangs. This change might not

have had all to do with a wonderful difference in riding, but it seemed

so to Carley. There was as much difference in horses as in people. This

mustang she had ridden of late was of Navajo stock, but he had been born

and raised and broken at Oak Creek. Carley had not yet discovered any

objection on his part to do as she wanted him to. He liked what she

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liked, and most of all he liked to go. His color resembled a pattern

of calico, and in accordance with Western ways his name was therefore

Calico. Left to choose his own gait, Calico always dropped into a gentle

pace which was so easy and comfortable and swinging that Carley never

tired of it. Moreover, he did not shy at things lying in the road or

rabbits darting from bushes or at the upwhirring of birds. Carley had

grown attached to Calico before she realized she was drifting into it;

and for Carley to care for anything or anybody was a serious matter,

because it did not happen often and it lasted. She was exceedingly

tenacious of affection.

June had almost passed and summer lay upon the lonely land. Such perfect

and wonderful weather had never before been Carley's experience. The

dawns broke cool, fresh, fragrant, sweet, and rosy, with a breeze that

seemed of heaven rather than earth, and the air seemed tremulously full

of the murmur of falling water and the melody of mocking birds. At the

solemn noontides the great white sun glared down hot--so hot that

t burned the skin, yet strangely was a pleasant burn. The waning

afternoons were Carley's especial torment, when it seemed the sounds and

winds of the day were tiring, and all things were seeking repose, and

life must soften to an unthinking happiness. These hours troubled Carley

because she wanted them to last, and because she knew for her this

changing and transforming time could not last. So long as she did not

think she was satisfied.

Maples and sycamores and oaks were in full foliage, and their bright

greens contrasted softly with the dark shine of the pines. Through the

spaces between brown tree trunks and the white-spotted holes of the

sycamores gleamed the amber water of the creek. Always there was murmur

of little rills and the musical dash of little rapids. On the surface

of still, shady pools trout broke to make ever-widening ripples. Indian

paintbrush, so brightly carmine in color, lent touch of fire to the

green banks, and under the oaks, in cool dark nooks where mossy bowlders

lined the stream, there were stately nodding yellow columbines. And high

on the rock ledges shot up the wonderful mescal stalks, beginning to

blossom, some with tints of gold and others with tones of red.




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