It was a miniature canyon, to be
sure, only a quarter of a mile long, and as deep as the height of a lofty
pine, and so narrow that it seemed only the width of a lane, but it had all
the features of Oak Creek Canyon, and so sufficed for the exultant joy of
possession. She explored it. The willow brakes and oak thickets harbored
rabbits and birds. She saw the white flags of deer running away down the
open. Up at the head where the canyon boxed she flushed a flock of wild
turkeys. They ran like ostriches and flew like great brown chickens. In a
cavern Carley found the den of a bear, and in another place the bleached
bones of a steer.
She lingered here in the shaded depths with a feeling as if she were indeed
lost to the world. These big brown and seamy-barked pines with their
spreading gnarled arms and webs of green needles belonged to her, as also
the tiny brook, the blue bells smiling out of the ferns, the single stalk
of mescal on a rocky ledge.
Never had sun and earth, tree and rock, seemed a part of her being until
then. She would become a sun-worshiper and a lover of the earth. That
canyon had opened there to sky and light for millions of years; and
doubtless it had harbored sheep herders, Indians, cliff dwellers,
barbarians.
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