She was abased now—woman as animal, though saved and uplifted by her power of immortality. Transcendental was her female power to link life with the future. The power of the plant seed, the power of the earth, the heat of the sun, the inscrutable creation-spirit of nature, almost the divinity of God—these were all hers because she was a woman. That was the great secret, aloof so long. That was what had been wrong with life—the woman blind to her meaning, her power, her mastery.
So she abandoned herself to the woman within her. She held out her arms to the blue abyss of heaven as if to embrace the universe. She was Nature. She kissed the dusty cinders and pressed her breast against the warm slope. Her heart swelled to bursting with a glorious and unutterable happiness.
That afternoon as the sun was setting under a gold-white scroll of cloud Carley got back to Deep Lake.
A familiar lounging figure crossed her sight. It approached to where she had dismounted. Charley, the sheep herder of Oak Creek!
“Howdy!” he drawled, with his queer smile. “So it was you-all who had this Deep Lake section?”
“Yes. And how are you, Charley?” she replied, shaking hands with him.
“Me? Aw, I’m tip-top. I’m shore glad you got this ranch. Reckon I’ll hit you for a job.”
“I’d give it to you. But aren’t you working for the Hutters?”
“Nope. Not any more. Me an’ Stanton had a row with them.”
How droll and dry he was! His lean, olive-brown face, with its guileless clear eyes and his lanky figure in blue jeans vividly recalled Oak Creek to Carley.