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.Page 112 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlHoyle made his suggestions as to changes and adaptations, and, receiving herapproval, he went on to show her what had been already accomplished.Back onhigher ground a reservoir of concrete was being constructed near anever-flowing spring of snow water from the peaks.This water was being pipedby gravity to the house, and was a matter of greatest satisfaction to Hoyle,for he claimed that it would never freeze in winter, and would be cold andabundant during the hottest and driest of summers.This assurance solved themost difficult and serious problem of ranch life in the desert.Next Hoyle led Carley down off the knoll to the wide cedar valley adjacent tothe lake.He was enthusiastic over its possibilities.Two small corrals and alarge one had been erected, the latter having a low flat barn connected withit.Ground was already being cleared along the lake where alfalfa and hay wereto be raised.Carley saw the blue and yellow smoke from burning brush, and thefragrant odor thrilled her.Mexicans were chopping the cleared cedars intofirewood for winter use.The day was spent before she realized it.At sunset the carpenters andmechanics left in two old Ford cars for town.The Mexicans had a camp in thecedars, and the Hoyles had theirs at the spring under the knoll where Carleyhad camped with Glenn and the Hutters.Carley watched the golden rosy sunset,and as the day ended she breathed deeply as if in unutterable relief.Supperfound her with appetite she had long since lost.Twilight brought cold wind,the staccato bark of coyotes, the flicker of camp fires through the cedars.She tried to embrace all her sensations, but they were so rapid and many thatshe failed.The cold, clear, silent night brought back the charm of the desert.Howflaming white the stars!.The great spire-pointed peaks lifted cold pale-grayoutlines up into the deep star-studded sky.Carley walked a little to and fro,loath to go to her tent, though tired.She wanted calm.But instead ofachieving calmness she grew more and more towards a strange state ofexultation.Westward, only a matter of twenty or thirty miles, lay the deep rent in thelevel desert--Oak Creek Canyon.If Glenn had been there this night would havebeen perfect, yet almost unendurable.She was again grateful for his absence.What a surprise she had in store for him! And she imagined his face in itschange of expression when she met him.If only he never learned of herpresence in Arizona until she made it known in person! That she most longedfor.Chances were against it, but then her luck had changed.She looked to theeastward where a pale luminosity of afterglow shone in the heavens.Fardistant seemed the home of her childhood, the friends she had scorned andforsaken, the city of complaining and striving millions.If only some miraclemight illumine the minds of her friends, as she felt that hers was to beillumined here in the solitude.But she well realized that not all problemscould be solved by a call out of the West.Any open and lonely land that mighthave saved Glenn Kilbourne would have sufficed for her.It was the spirit ofthe thing and not the letter.It was work of any kind and not only that ofranch life.Not only the raising of hogs!Carley directed stumbling steps toward the light of her tent.Her eyes hadnot been used to such black shadow along the ground.She had, too, squeamishfeminine fears of hydrophobia skunks, and nameless animals or reptiles thatwere imagined denizens of the darkness.She gained her tent and entered.TheMexican, Gino, as he called himself, had lighted her lamp and fire.Carley waschilled through, and the tent felt so warm and cozy that she could scarcelybelieve it.She fastened the screen door, laced the flaps across it, except atthe top, and then gave herself up to the lulling and comforting heat.Page 113 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThere were plans to perfect; innumerable things to remember; a car andaccessories, horses, saddles, outfits to buy.Carley knew she should sit downat her table and write and figure, but she could not do it then.For a long time she sat over the little stove, toasting her knees and hands,adding some chips now and then to the red coals.And her mind seemed akaleidoscope of changing visions, thoughts, feelings.At last she undressedand blew out the lamp and went to bed.Instantly a thick blackness seemed to enfold her and silence as of a deadworld settled down upon her.Drowsy as she was, she could not close her eyesnor refrain from listening.Darkness and silence were tangible things.Shefelt them.And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm to still thetumult of her, to soothe and rest, to create thoughts she had never thoughtbefore.Rest was more than selfish indulgence.Loneliness was necessary togain consciousness of the soul.Already far back in the past seemed Carley'sother life.By and by the dead stillness awoke to faint sounds not before perceptible toher--a low, mournful sough of the wind in the cedars, then the faintfar-distant note of a coyote, sad as the night and infinitely wild.Days passed.Carley worked in the mornings with her hands and her brains.Inthe afternoons she rode and walked and climbed with a double object, to workherself into fit physical condition and to explore every nook and corner ofher six hundred and forty acres.Then what she had expected and deliberately induced by her efforts quicklycame to pass.Just as the year before she had suffered excruciating pain fromaching muscles, and saddle blisters, and walking blisters, and a very rendingof her bones, so now she fell victim to them again.In sunshine and rain shefaced the desert.Sunburn and sting of sleet were equally to be endured.Andthat abomination, the hateful blinding sandstorm, did not daunt her.But theweary hours of abnegation to this physical torture at least held one consolingrecompense as compared with her experience of last year, and it was that therewas no one interested to watch for her weaknesses and failures and blunders.She could fight it out alone.Three weeks of this self-imposed strenuous training wore by before Carley wasfree enough from weariness and pain to experience other sensations.Hergeneral health, evidently, had not been so good as when she had first visitedArizona.She caught cold and suffered other ills attendant upon an abruptchange of climate and condition.But doggedly she kept at her task.She rodewhen she should have been in bed; she walked when she should have ridden; sheclimbed when she should have kept to level ground
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