back at, with the peaks rising behind, it was not unpicturesque. But the
hard road with its sheets of flying dust, the bleak railroad yards, the
round pens she took for cattle corrals, and the sordid debris littering the
approach to a huge sawmill,--these were offensive in Carley's sight. From a
tall dome-like stack rose a yellowish smoke that spread overhead, adding to
the lowering aspect of the sky. Beyond the sawmill extended the open
country sloping somewhat roughly, and evidently once a forest, but now a
hideous bare slash, with ghastly burned stems of trees still standing, and
myriads of stumps attesting to denudation.

The bleak road wound away to the southwest, and from this direction came
the gusty wind. It did not blow regularly so that Carley could be on her
guard. It lulled now and then, permitting her to look about, and then
suddenly again whipping dust into her face. The smell of the dust was as
unpleasant as the sting. It made her nostrils smart. It was penetrating,
and a little more of it would have been suffocating. And as a leaden gray
bank of broken clouds rolled up the wind grew stronger and the air colder.
Chilled before, Carley now became thoroughly cold.

There appeared to be no end to the devastated forest land, and the farther
she rode the more barren and sordid grew the landscape. Carley forgot about
the impressive mountains behind her. And as the ride wore into hours, such
was her discomfort and disillusion that she forgot about Glenn Kilbourne.
She did not reach the point of regretting her adventure, but she grew
mightily unhappy. Now and then she espied dilapidated log cabins and
surroundings even more squalid than the ruined forest. What wretched
abodes! Could it be possible that people had lived in them? She imagined
men had but hardly women and children. Somewhere she had forgotten an idea
that women and children were extremely scarce in the West.