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.
Riding along down the canyon, under its looming walls, Carley wondered that
if unawares to her these physical aspects of Arizona could have become more
significant than she realized. The thought had confronted her before. Here,
as always, she fought it and denied it by the simple defense of
elimination. Yet refusing to think of a thing when it seemed ever present
was not going to do forever. Insensibly and subtly it might get a hold on
her, never to be broken. Yet it was infinitely easier to dream than to
think.
But the thought encroached upon her that it was not a dreamful habit of
mind she had fallen into of late. When she dreamed or mused she lived
vaguely and sweetly over past happy hours or dwelt in enchanted fancy upon
a possible future. Carley had been told by a Columbia professor that she
was a type of the present age--a modern young woman of materialistic mind.
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