The Call of the Canyon | Page 9

first hundred yards of that steep road cut out of the cliff appeared
to be the worst. It began to widen, with descents less precipitous. Tips
of trees rose level with her gaze, obstructing sight of the blue depths.
Then brush appeared on each side of the road. Gradually Carley's strain
relaxed, and also the muscular contraction by which she had braced
herself in the seat. The horses began to trot again. The wheels rattled.
The road wound around abrupt corners, and soon the green and red wall
of the opposite side of the canyon loomed close. Low roar of running
water rose to Carley's ears. When at length she looked out instead of
down she could see nothing but a mass of green foliage crossed by tree
trunks and branches of brown and gray. Then the vehicle bowled under
dark cool shade, into a tunnel with mossy wet cliff on one side, and
close-standing trees on the other,
"Reckon we're all right now, onless we meet somebody comin' up,"
declared the driver.
Carley relaxed. She drew a deep breath of relief. She had her first faint
intimation that perhaps her extensive experience of motor cars, express
trains, transatlantic liners, and even a little of airplanes, did not range
over the whole of adventurous life. She was likely to meet something,
entirely new and striking out here in the West.
The murmur of falling water sounded closer. Presently Carley saw that
the road turned at the notch in the canyon, and crossed a clear swift
stream. Here were huge mossy boulders, and red walls covered by
lichens, and the air appeared dim and moist, and full of mellow, hollow
roar. Beyond this crossing the road descended the west side of the
canyon, drawing away and higher from the creek. Huge trees, the like
of which Carley had never seen, began to stand majestically up out of
the gorge, dwarfing the maples and white-spotted sycamores. The
driver called these great trees yellow pines.

At last the road led down from the steep slope to the floor of the
canyon. What from far above had appeared only a green timber-choked
cleft proved from close relation to be a wide winding valley, tip and
down, densely forested for the most part, yet having open glades and
bisected from wall to wall by the creek. Every quarter of a mile or so
the road crossed the stream; and at these fords Carley again held on
desperately and gazed out dubiously, for the creek was deep, swift, and
full of bowlders. Neither driver nor horses appeared to mind obstacles.
Carley was splashed and jolted not inconsiderably. They passed
through groves of oak trees, from which the creek manifestly derived
its name; and under gleaming walls, cold, wet, gloomy, and silent; and
between lines of solemn wide-spreading pines. Carley saw deep, still
green pools eddying under huge massed jumble of cliffs, and stretches
of white water, and then, high above the treetops, a wild line of canyon
rim, cold against the sky. She felt shut in from the world, lost in an
unscalable rut of the earth. Again the sunlight had failed, and the gray
gloom of the canyon oppressed her. It struck Carley as singular that she
could not help being affected by mere weather, mere heights and depths,
mere rock walls and pine trees, and rushing water. For really, what had
these to do with her? These were only physical things that she was
passing. Nevertheless, although she resisted sensation, she was more
and more shot through and through with the wildness and savageness
of this canyon.
A sharp turn of the road to the right disclosed a slope down the creek,
across which showed orchards and fields, and a cottage nestling at the
base of the wall. The ford at this crossing gave Carley more concern
than any that had been passed, for there was greater volume and depth
of water. One of the horses slipped on the rocks, plunged up and on
with great splash. They crossed, however, without more mishap to
Carley than further acquaintance with this iciest of waters. From this
point the driver turned back along the creek, passed between orchards
and fields, and drove along the base of the red wall to come suddenly
upon a large rustic house that had been hidden from Carley's sight. It
sat almost against the stone cliff, from which poured a white foamy
sheet of water. The house was built of slabs with the bark on, and it had
a lower and upper porch running all around, at least as far as the cliff.

Green growths from the rock wall overhung the upper porch. A column
of blue smoke curled lazily upward from a stone chimney. On one of
the porch posts hung a