Strange how the old vanity held her back
until something of the havoc in her face should be gone!
One morning she set out early, riding her best horse, and she took a sheep
trail across country. The distance by road was much farther. The June
morning was cool, sparkling, fragrant. Mocking birds sang from the topmost
twig of cedars; doves cooed in the pines; sparrow hawks sailed low over the
open grassy patches. Desert primroses showed their rounded pink clusters in
sunny places, and here and there burned the carmine of Indian paint-brush.
Jack rabbits and cotton-tails bounded and scampered away through the sage.
The desert had life and color and movement this June day. And as always
there was the dry fragrance on the air.
Her mustang had been inured to long and consistent travel over the desert.
Her weight was nothing to him and he kept to the swinging lope for miles.
As she approached Oak Creek Canyon, however, she drew him to a trot, and
then a walk. Sight of the deep red-walled and green-floored canyon was a
shock to her.
The trail came out on the road that led to Ryan's sheep camp, at a point
several miles west of the cabin where Carley had encountered Haze Ruff. She
remembered the curves and stretches, and especially the steep jump-off
where the road led down off the rim into the canyon.
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