There appeared to be no end to the devastated forest land, and the farther she rode the more barren and sordid grew the landscape.  Carley forgot about the impressive mountains behind her.  And as the ride wore into hours, such was her discomfort and disillusion that she forgot about Glenn Kilbourne.  She did not reach the point of regretting her adventure, but she grew mightily unhappy.  Now and then she espied dilapidated log cabins and surroundings even more squalid than the ruined forest.  What wretched abodes!  Could it be possible that people had lived in them?  She imagined men had but hardly women and children.  Somewhere she had forgotten an idea that women and children were extremely scarce in the West.

Straggling bits of forest—­yellow pines, the driver called the trees—­began to encroach upon the burned-over and arid barren land.  To Carley these groves, by reason of contrast and proof of what once was, only rendered the landscape more forlorn and dreary.  Why had these miles and miles of forest been cut?  By money grubbers, she supposed, the same as were devastating the Adirondacks.  Presently, when the driver had to halt to repair or adjust something wrong with the harness, Carley was grateful for a respite from cold inaction.  She got out and walked.  Sleet began to fall, and when she resumed her seat in the vehicle she asked the driver for the blanket to cover her.  The smell of this horse blanket was less endurable than the cold.  Carley huddled down into a state of apathetic misery.  Already she had enough of the West.

But the sleet storm passed, the clouds broke, the sun shone through, greatly mitigating her discomfort.  By and by the road led into a section of real forest, unspoiled in any degree.  Carley saw large gray squirrels with tufted ears and white bushy tails.  Presently the driver pointed out a flock of huge birds, which Carley, on second glance, recognized as turkeys, only these were sleek and glossy, with flecks of bronze and black and white, quite different from turkeys back East.  “There must be a farm near,” said Carley, gazing about.

“No, ma’am.  Them’s wild turkeys,” replied the driver, “an’ shore the best eatin’ you ever had in your life.”

A little while afterwards, as they were emerging from the woodland into more denuded country, he pointed out to Carley a herd of gray white-rumped animals that she took to be sheep.

“An’ them’s antelope,” he said.  “Once this desert was overrun by antelope.  Then they nearly disappeared.  An’ now they’re increasin’ again.”

More barren country, more bad weather, and especially an exceedingly rough road reduced Carley to her former state of dejection.  The jolting over roots and rocks and ruts was worse than uncomfortable.  She had to hold on to the seat to keep from being thrown out.  The horses did not appreciably change their gait for rough sections of the road.  Then a more severe jolt brought Carley’s knee in violent contact with an iron bolt on the forward seat, and it hurt her so acutely that she had to bite her lips to keep from screaming.  A smoother stretch of road did not come any too soon for her.