It mirrored all the warm, pearly tints of the inside whorl of the
tropic nautilus. And it ended abruptly, a rounded depth of bank, on a broad
stream of clear sky, intensely blue, transparently blue, as if through the
lambent depths shone the infinite firmament. The lower edge of this stream
took the golden lightning of the sunset and was notched for all its
horizon-long length by the wondrous white glistening-peaked range of the
Rockies. Far to the north, standing aloof from the range, loomed up the
grand black bulk and noble white dome of Pikes Peak.
Carley watched the sunset transfiguration of cloud and sky and mountain
until all were cold and gray. And then she returned to her seat, thoughtful
and sad, feeling that the West had mockingly flung at her one of its
transient moments of loveliness.
Nor had the West wholly finished with her. Next day the mellow gold of the
Kansas wheat fields, endless and boundless as a sunny sea, rich, waving in
the wind, stretched away before her aching eyes for hours and hours. Here
was the promise fulfilled, the bountiful harvest of the land, the strength
of the West. The great middle state had a heart of gold.
East of Chicago Carley began to feel that the long days and nights of
riding, the ceaseless turning of the wheels, the constant and wearing
stress of emotion, had removed her an immeasurable distance of miles and
time and feeling from the scene of her catastrophe.
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