it, but then her luck had changed.  She looked to the eastward where a pale luminosity of afterglow shone in the heavens.  Far distant seemed the home of her childhood, the friends she had scorned and forsaken, the city of complaining and striving millions.  If only some miracle might illumine the minds of her friends, as she felt that hers was to be illumined here in the solitude.  But she well realized that not all problems could be solved by a call out of the West.  Any open and lonely land that might have saved Glenn Kilbourne would have sufficed for her.  It was the spirit of the thing and not the letter.  It was work of any kind and not only that of ranch life.  Not only the raising of hogs!

Carley directed stumbling steps toward the light of her tent.  Her eyes had not been used to such black shadow along the ground.  She had, too, squeamish feminine fears of hydrophobia skunks, and nameless animals or reptiles that were imagined denizens of the darkness.  She gained her tent and entered.  The Mexican, Gino, as he called himself, had lighted her lamp and fire.  Carley was chilled through, and the tent felt so warm and cozy that she could scarcely believe it.  She fastened the screen door, laced the flaps across it, except at the top, and then gave herself up to the lulling and comforting heat.

There were plans to perfect; innumerable things to remember; a car and accessories, horses, saddles, outfits to buy.  Carley knew she should sit down at her table and write and figure, but she could not do it then.

For a long time she sat over the little stove, toasting her knees and hands, adding some chips now and then to the red coals.  And her mind seemed a kaleidoscope of changing visions, thoughts, feelings.  At last she undressed and blew out the lamp and went to bed.

Instantly a thick blackness seemed to enfold her and silence as of a dead world settled down upon her.  Drowsy as she was, she could not close her eyes nor refrain from listening.  Darkness and silence were tangible things.  She felt them.  And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm to still the tumult of her, to soothe and rest, to create thoughts she had never thought before.  Rest was more than selfish indulgence.  Loneliness was necessary to gain consciousness of the soul.  Already far back in the past seemed Carley’s other life.

By and by the dead stillness awoke to faint sounds not before perceptible to her—­a low, mournful sough of the wind in the cedars, then the faint far-distant note of a coyote, sad as the night and infinitely wild.

Days passed.  Carley worked in the mornings with her hands and her brains.  In the afternoons she rode and walked and climbed with a double object, to work herself into fit physical condition and to explore every nook and corner of her six hundred and forty acres.