The morning resembled one of the rare Eastern days in June, when the air appeared flooded by rich thick amber light.  Only the sun here was hotter and the shade cooler.

Carley took to the trail below where West Fork emptied its golden-green waters into Oak Creek.  The red walls seemed to dream and wait under the blaze of the sun; the heat lay like a blanket over the still foliage; the birds were quiet; only the murmuring stream broke the silence of the canyon.  Never had Carley felt more the isolation and solitude of Oak Creek Canyon.  Far indeed from the madding crowd!  Only Carley’s stubbornness kept her from acknowledging the sense of peace that enveloped her—­that and the consciousness of her own discontent.  What would it be like to come to this canyon—­to give up to its enchantments?  That, like many another disturbing thought, had to go unanswered, to be driven into the closed chambers of Carley’s mind, there to germinate subconsciously, and stalk forth some day to overwhelm her.

The trail led along the creek, threading a maze of bowlders, passing into the shade of cottonwoods, and crossing sun-flecked patches of sand.  Carley’s every step seemed to become slower.  Regrets were assailing her.  Long indeed had she overstayed her visit to the West.  She must not linger there indefinitely.  And mingled with misgiving was a surprise that she had not tired of Oak Creek.  In spite of all, and of the dislike she vaunted to herself, the truth stared at her—­she was not tired.

The long-delayed visit to see Glenn working on his own farm must result in her talking to him about his work; and in a way not quite clear she regretted the necessity for it.  To disapprove of Glenn!  She received faint intimations of wavering, of uncertainty, of vague doubt.  But these were cried down by the dominant and habitable voice of her personality.

Presently through the shaded and shadowed breadth of the belt of forest she saw gleams of a sunlit clearing.  And crossing this space to the border of trees she peered forth, hoping to espy Glenn at his labors.  She saw an old shack, and irregular lines of rude fence built of poles of all sizes and shapes, and several plots of bare yellow ground, leading up toward the west side of the canyon wall.  Could this clearing be Glenn’s farm?  Surely she had missed it or had not gone far enough.  This was not a farm, but a slash in the forested level of the canyon floor, bare and somehow hideous.  Dead trees were standing in the lots.  They had been ringed deeply at the base by an ax, to kill them, and so prevent their foliage from shading the soil.  Carley saw a long pile of rocks that evidently had been carried from the plowed ground.  There was no neatness, no regularity, although there was abundant evidence of toil.  To clear that rugged space, to fence it, and plow it, appeared at once to Carley an extremely strenuous and useless task.  Carley persuaded herself that this must be the plot of ground belonging to the herder Charley, and she was about to turn on down the creek when far up under the bluff she espied a man.  He was stalking along and bending down, stalking along and bending down.  She recognized Glenn.  He was planting something in the yellow soil.