“Do you love this?” asked Glenn, when they reached the green-forested canyon floor, with the yellow road winding away into the purple shadows.

“Yes, both the ride—­and you,” flashed Carley, contrarily.  She knew he had meant the deep-walled canyon with its brooding solitude.

“But I want you to love Arizona,” he said.

“Glenn, I’m a faithful creature.  You should be glad of that.  I love New York.”

“Very well, then.  Arizona to New York,” he said, lightly brushing her cheek with his lips.  And swerving back into his saddle, he spurred his horse and called back over his shoulder:  “That mustang and Flo have beaten me many a time.  Come on.”

It was not so much his words as his tone and look that roused Carley.  Had he resented her loyalty to the city of her nativity?  Always there was a little rift in the lute.  Had his tone and look meant that Flo might catch him if Carley could not?  Absurd as the idea was, it spurred her to recklessness.  Her mustang did not need any more than to know she wanted him to run.  The road was of soft yellow earth flanked with green foliage and overspread by pines.  In a moment she was racing at a speed she had never before half attained on a horse.  Down the winding road Glenn’s big steed sped, his head low, his stride tremendous, his action beautiful.  But Carley saw the distance between them diminishing.  Calico was overtaking the bay.  She cried out in the thrilling excitement of the moment.  Glenn saw her gaining and pressed his mount to greater speed.  Still he could not draw away from Calico.  Slowly the little mustang gained.  It seemed to Carley that riding him required no effort at all.  And at such fast pace, with the wind roaring in her ears, the walls of green vague and continuous in her sight, the sting of pine tips on cheek and neck, the yellow road streaming toward her, under her, there rose out of the depths of her, out of the tumult of her breast, a sense of glorious exultation.  She closed in on Glenn.  From the flying hoofs of his horse shot up showers of damp sand and gravel that covered Carley’s riding habit and spattered in her face.  She had to hold up a hand before her eyes.  Perhaps this caused her to lose something of her confidence, or her swing in the saddle, for suddenly she realized she was not riding well.  The pace was too fast for her inexperience.  But nothing could have stopped her then.  No fear or awkwardness of hers should be allowed to hamper that thoroughbred mustang.  Carley felt that Calico understood the situation; or at least he knew he could catch and pass this big bay horse, and he intended to do it.  Carley was hard put to it to hang on and keep the flying sand from blinding her.