The Call of the Canyon | Page 3

Her mother had left her in the care of a sister, and before the war they had divided their time between New York and Europe, the Adirondacks and Florida, Carley had gone in for Red Cross and relief work with more of sincerity than most of her set. But she was really not used to making any decision as definite and important as that of going out West alone. She had never been farther west than Jersey City; and her conception of the West was a hazy one of vast plains and rough mountains, squalid towns, cattle herds, and uncouth ill-clad men.
So she carried the letter to her aunt, a rather slight woman with a kindly face and shrewd eyes, and who appeared somewhat given to old-fashioned garments.
"Aunt Mary, here's a letter from Glenn," said Carley. "It's more of a stumper than usual. Please read it."
"Dear me! You look upset," replied the aunt, mildly, and, adjusting her spectacles, she took the letter.
Carley waited impatiently for the perusal, conscious of inward forces coming more and more to the aid of her impulse to go West. Her aunt paused once to murmur how glad she was that Glenn had gotten well. Then she read on to the close.
"Carley, that's a fine letter," she said, fervently. "Do you see through it?"
"No, I don't," replied Carley. "That's why I asked you to read it."
"Do you still love Glenn as you used to before--"
"Why, Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Carley, in surprise.
"Excuse me, Carley, if I'm blunt. But the fact is young women of modern times are very different from my kind when I was a girl. You haven't acted as though you pined for Glenn. You gad around almost the same as ever."
"What's a girl to do?" protested Carley.
"You are twenty-six years old, Carley," retorted Aunt Mary.
"Suppose I am. I'm as young--as I ever was."
"Well, let's not argue about modern girls and modern times. We never get anywhere," returned her aunt, kindly. "But I can tell you something of what Glenn Kilbourne means in that letter--if you want to hear it."
"I do--indeed."
"The war did something horrible to Glenn aside from wrecking his health. Shell-shock, they said! I don't understand that. Out of his mind, they said! But that never was true. Glenn was as sane as I am, and, my dear, that's pretty sane, I'll have you remember. But he must have suffered some terrible blight to his spirit--some blunting of his soul. For months after he returned he walked as one in a trance. Then came a change. He grew restless. Perhaps that change was for the better. At least it showed he'd roused. Glenn saw you and your friends and the life you lead, and all the present, with eyes from which the scales had dropped. He saw what was wrong. He never said so to me, but I knew it. It wasn't only to get well that he went West. It was to get away. . . . And, Carley Burch, if your happiness depends on him you had better be up and doing--or you'll lose him!"
"Aunt Mary!" gasped Carley.
"I mean it. That letter shows how near he came to the Valley of the Shadow--and how he has become a man. . . . If I were you I'd go out West. Surely there must be a place where it would be all right for you to stay."
"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