The sky above showed blue between the threatening clouds.

There were no birds or living creatures in sight.

Certainly the place had little of color or beauty or grace, nor could she see beyond a few rods.

Lying there, without any particular reason that she was conscious of, she suddenly felt shot through and through with exhilaration.
Another day, the warmest of the spring so far, she rode a Navajo mustang she had recently bought from a passing trader; and at the farthest end of her section, in rough wooded and ridged ground she had not explored, she found a canyon with red walls and pine trees and gleaming streamlet and glades of grass and jumbles of rock.

It was a miniature canyon, to be sure, only a quarter of a mile long, and as deep as the height of a lofty pine, and so narrow that it seemed only the width of a lane, but it had all the features of Oak Creek Canyon, and so sufficed for the exultant joy of possession.