noon
If spring came at all to Oak Creek Canyon it warmed into summer before Carley had time to languish with the fever characteristic of early June in the East . As if by magic it seemed the green grass sprang up , the green buds opened into leaves , the bluebells and primroses bloomed , the apple and peach blossoms burst exquisitely white and pink against the blue sky . Oak Creek fell to a transparent , beautiful brook , leisurely eddying in the stone walled nooks , hurrying with murmur and babble over the little falls . The mornings broke clear and fragrantly cool , the noon hours seemed to lag under a hot sun , the nights fell like dark mantles from the melancholy star-sown sky . Carley had stubbornly kept on riding and climbing until she killed her secret doubt that she was really a thoroughbred , until she satisfied her own insistent vanity that she could train to a point where this outdoor life was not too much for her strength . She lost flesh despite increase of appetite ; she lost her pallor for a complexion of gold-brown she knew her Eastern friends would admire ; she wore out the blisters and aches and pains ; she found herself growing firmer of muscle , lither of line , deeper of chest . And in addition to these physical manifestations there were subtle intimations of a delight in a freedom of body she had never before known , of an exhilaration in action that made her hot and made her breathe , of a sloughing off of numberless petty and fussy and luxurious little superficialities which she had supposed were necessary to her happiness .