Darkness and silence were tangible things.
She felt them. And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm to still
the tumult of her, to soothe and rest, to create thoughts she had never
thought before. Rest was more than selfish indulgence. Loneliness was
necessary to gain consciousness of the soul. Already far back in the past
seemed Carley's other life.
By and by the dead stillness awoke to faint sounds not before perceptible
to her--a low, mournful sough of the wind in the cedars, then the faint
far-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.
In the afternoons she rode and walked and climbed with a double object, to
work herself into fit physical condition and to explore every nook and
corner of her six hundred and forty acres.
Then what she had expected and deliberately induced by her efforts quickly
came to pass. Just as the year before she had suffered excruciating pain
from aching muscles, and saddle blisters, and walking blisters, and a very
rending of her bones, so now she fell victim to them again. In sunshine and
rain she faced the desert. Sunburn and sting of sleet were equally to be
endured.
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