The very forest-fringed earth seemed to have opened into a deep abyss,
ribbed by red rock walls and choked by steep mats of green timber. The
chasm was a V-shaped split and so deep that looking downward sent at once a
chill and a shudder over Carley. At that point it appeared narrow and ended
in a box. In the other direction, it widened and deepened, and stretched
farther on between tremendous walls of red, and split its winding floor of
green with glimpses of a gleaming creek, bowlder-strewn and ridged by white
rapids. A low mellow roar of rushing waters floated up to Carley's ears.
What a wild, lonely, terrible place! Could Glenn possibly live down there
in that ragged rent in the earth? It frightened her--the sheer sudden
plunge of it from the heights. Far down the gorge a purple light shone on
the forested floor. And on the moment the sun burst through the clouds and
sent a golden blaze down into the depths, transforming them incalculably.
The great cliffs turned gold, the creek changed to glancing silver, the
green of trees vividly freshened, and in the clefts rays of sunlight burned
into the blue shadows. Carley had never gazed upon a scene like this.
Hostile and prejudiced, she yet felt wrung from her an acknowledgment of
beauty and grandeur.
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