Poignant regret seemed added to the anguish she was suffering.

Why had she not learned sooner to see the glory of the mountains, to appreciate the beauty and solitude?
Why had she not understood herself?
The next day through New Mexico she followed magnificent ranges and valleys--so different from the country she had seen coming West--so supremely beautiful that she wondered if she had only acquired the harvest of a seeing eye.
But it was at sunset of the following day, when the train was speeding down the continental slope of prairie land beyond the Rockies, that the West took its ruthless revenge.
Masses of strange cloud and singular light upon the green prairie, and a luminosity in the sky, drew Carley to the platform of her car, which was the last of the train.

There she stood, gripping the iron gate, feeling the wind whip her hair and the iron-tracked ground speed from under her, spellbound and stricken at the sheer wonder and glory of the firmament, and the mountain range that it canopied so exquisitely.
A rich and mellow light, singularly clear, seemed to flood out of some unknown source.

For the sun was hidden.

The clouds just above Carley hung low, and they were like thick, heavy smoke, mushrooming, coalescing, forming and massing, of strange yellow cast of nature.