The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey (read along books txt) 📕

“Oh, yes,” replied Carley, eagerly. “Glenn wrote me there was a lodge where people went in nice weather—right down in the canyon not far from his place. Then, of course, the town—Flagstaff—isn't far.... Aunt Mary, I think I'll go.”

“I would. You're certainly wasting your time here.”

“But I could only go for a visit,” rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. “A month, perhaps six weeks, if I could stand it.”

“Seems to me if you can stand New York you could stand that place,” said Aunt Mary, dryly.

“The idea of staying away from New York any length of time—why, I couldn't do it I... But I can stay out there long enough to bring Glenn back with me.”

“That may take you longer than you think,” replied her aunt, with a gleam in her shrewd eyes. “If you want my advice you will surprise Glenn. Don't write him—don't give him a chance to—well to suggest courteously that you'd better not come just yet. I don't like his words 'just yet.'”

“Auntie, you're—rather—more than blunt,” said Carley, divided between resentment and amaze. “Glenn would be simply wild to have me come.”

“Maybe he would. Has he ever asked you?”

“No-o—come to think of it, he hasn't,” replied Carley, reluctantly. “Aunt Mary, you hurt my feelings.”

“Well, child, I'm glad to learn your feelings are hurt,” returned the aunt. “I'm sure, Carley, that underneath all this—this blase ultra something you've acquired, there's a real heart. Only you must hurry and listen to it—or—”

“Or what?” queried Carley.

Aunt Mary shook her gray head sagely. “Never mind what. Carley, I'd like your idea of the most significant thing in Glenn's letter.”

“Why, his love for me, of course!” replied Carley.

“Naturally you think that. But I don't. What struck me most were his words, 'out of the West.' Carley, you'd do well to ponder over them.”

“I will,” rejoined Carley, positively. “I'll do more. I'll go out to his wonderful West and see what he meant by them.”

Carley Burch possessed in full degree the prevailing modern craze for speed. She loved a motor-car ride at sixty miles an hour along a smooth, straight road, or, better, on the level seashore of Ormond, where on moonlight nights the white blanched sand seemed to flash toward her. Therefore quite to her taste was the Twentieth Century Limited which was hurtling her on the way to Chicago. The unceasingly smooth and even rush of the train satisfied something in her. An old lady sitting in an adjoining seat with a companion amused Carley by the remark: “I wish we didn't go so fast. People nowadays haven't time to draw a comfortable breath. Suppose we should run off the track!”

Carley had no fear of express trains, or motor cars, or transatlantic liners; in fact, she prided herself in not being afraid of anything. But she wondered if this was not the false courage of association with a crowd. Before this enterprise at hand she could not remember anything she had undertaken alone. Her thrills seemed to be in abeyance to the end of her journey. That night her sleep was permeated with the steady low whirring of the wheels. Once, roused by a jerk, she lay awake in the darkness while the thought came to her that she and all her fellow passengers were really at the mercy of the engineer. Who was he, and did he stand at his throttle keen and vigilant, thinking of the lives intrusted to him? Such thoughts vaguely annoyed Carley, and she dismissed them.

A long half-day wait in Chicago was a tedious preliminary to the second part of her journey. But at last she found herself aboard the California Limited, and went to bed with a relief quite a stranger to her. The glare of the sun under the curtain awakened her. Propped up on her pillows, she looked out at apparently endless green fields or pastures, dotted now and then with little farmhouses and tree-skirted villages. This country, she thought, must be the prairie land she remembered lay west of the Mississippi.

Later, in the dining car, the steward smilingly answered her question: “This is Kansas, and those green fields out there are the wheat that feeds the nation.”

Carley was not impressed. The color of the short wheat appeared soft and rich, and the boundless fields stretched away monotonously. She had not known there was so much flat land in the world, and she imagined it might be a fine country for automobile roads. When she got back to her seat she drew the blinds down and read her magazines. Then tiring of that, she went back to the observation car. Carley was accustomed to attracting attention, and did not resent it, unless she was annoyed. The train evidently had a full complement of passengers, who, as far as Carley could see, were people not of her station in life. The glare from the many windows, and the rather crass interest of several men, drove her back to her own section. There she discovered that some one had drawn up her window shades. Carley promptly pulled them down and settled herself comfortably. Then she heard a woman speak, not particularly low: “I thought people traveled west to see the country.” And a man replied, rather dryly. “Wal, not always.” His companion went on: “If that girl was mine I'd let down her skirt.” The man laughed and replied: “Martha, you're shore behind the times. Look at the pictures in the magazines.”

Such remarks amused Carley, and later she took advantage of an opportunity to notice her neighbors. They appeared a rather quaint old couple, reminding her of the natives of country towns in the Adirondacks. She was not amused, however, when another of her woman neighbors, speaking low, referred to her as a “lunger.” Carley appreciated the fact that she was pale, but she assured herself that there ended any possible resemblance she might have to a consumptive. And she was somewhat pleased to hear this woman's male companion forcibly voice her own convictions. In fact, he was nothing if not admiring.

Kansas was interminably long to Carley, and she went to sleep before riding out of it. Next morning she found herself looking out at the rough gray and black land of New Mexico. She searched the horizon for mountains, but there did not appear to be any. She received a vague, slow-dawning impression that was hard to define. She did not like the country, though that was not the impression which eluded her. Bare gray flats, low scrub-fringed hills, bleak cliffs, jumble after jumble of rocks, and occasionally a long vista down a valley, somehow compelling—these passed before her gaze until she tired of them. Where was the West Glenn had written about? One thing seemed sure, and it was that every mile of this crude country brought her nearer to him. This recurring thought gave Carley all the pleasure she had felt so far in this endless ride. It struck her that England or France could be dropped down into New Mexico and scarcely noticed.

By and by the sun grew hot, the train wound slowly and creakingly upgrade, the car became full of dust, all of which was disagreeable to Carley. She dozed on her pillow for hours, until she was stirred by a passenger crying out, delightedly: “Look! Indians!”