From her window she looked out to the southwest. Somewhere across the cedar
and pine-greened uplands lay Oak Creek Canyon, going to sleep in its purple
and gold shadows of sunset. Banks of broken clouds hung to the horizon,
like continents and islands and reefs set in a turquoise sea. Shafts of
sunlight streaked down through creamy-edged and purple-centered clouds.
Vast flare of gold dominated the sunset background.
When the train rounded a curve Carley's strained vision became filled with
the upheaved bulk of the San Francisco Mountains. Ragged gray grass slopes
and green forests on end, and black fringed sky lines, all pointed to the
sharp clear peaks spearing the sky. And as she watched, the peaks slowly
flushed with sunset hues, and the sky flared golden, and the strength of
the eternal mountains stood out in sculptured sublimity. Every day for two
months and more Carley had watched these peaks, at all hours, in every
mood; and they had unconsciously become a part of her thought. The train
was relentlessly whirling her eastward. Soon they must become a memory.
Tears blurred her sight. Poignant regret seemed added to the anguish she
was suffering. Why had she not learned sooner to see the glory of the
mountains, to appreciate the beauty and solitude? Why had she not
understood herself?
The next day through New Mexico she followed magnificent ranges and
valleys--so different from the country she had seen coming West--so
supremely beautiful that she wondered if she had only acquired the harvest
of a seeing eye.
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