Carol flung open the door and gazed out upon the land of health. The long desolate mesa land stretched far away to the mountains, now showing pink and rosy in the early sunshine. The little white tents about them were as suggestively pitiful as before. There were no trees, no flowers, no carpeting grass, to brighten the desolation.
Bare, bleak, sandy slopes reached to the mountains on every side. David sat up in bed and looked out with her.
"Just a long bare slope of sand, isn't it?" she whispered. "Sand and cactus,—no roses blooming here upon the sandy slopes."
"Yes, just sandy slopes to the mountains,—but Carol, they are sunny,—bare and bleak, but still they are sunny for us. Let's not lose sight of that."
CHAPTER XI
THE OLD TEACHER
"Chicago, Illinois.
"Dear Carol and David—
"It is most remarkable that you two can keep on laughing away out there by yourselves. It makes me think perhaps there is something fine in this being married business that sort of makes up for the rest of it. I think it must take an exceptionally good eyesight to discern sunshine on the slopes of sickness. If I were traveling that route, I am convinced I should find it led me through dark valleys and over stony pathways with storm clouds and thunders and lightnings smashing all around my head.