Later Carley leaned back in a comfortable seat, before a blazing fire that happily sent its acrid smoke up the chimney, pondering ideas in her mind.
There could be a relation to familiar things that was astounding in its revelation. To get off a horse that had tortured her, to discover an almost insatiable appetite, to rest weary, aching body before the genial warmth of a beautiful fire—these were experiences which Carley found to have been hitherto unknown delights. It struck her suddenly and strangely that to know the real truth about anything in life might require infinite experience and understanding. How could one feel immense gratitude and relief, or the delight of satisfying acute hunger, or the sweet comfort of rest, unless there had been circumstances of extreme contrast? She had been compelled to suffer cruelly on horseback in order to make her appreciate how good it was to get down on the ground. Otherwise she never would have known. She wondered, then, how true that principle might be in all experience. It gave strong food for thought. There were things in the world never before dreamed of in her philosophy.
Carley was wondering if she were narrow and dense to circumstances of life differing from her own when a remark of Flo’s gave pause to her reflections.
“Shore the worst is yet to come.” Flo had drawled.
Carley wondered if this distressing statement had to do in some way with the rest of the trip. She stifled her curiosity. Painful knowledge of that sort would come quickly enough.
“Flo, are you girls going to sleep here in the cabin?” inquired Glenn.
“Shore. It’s cold and wet outside,” replied Flo.
“Well, Felix, the Mexican herder, told me some Navajos had been bunking here.”
“Navajos? You mean Indians?” interposed Carley, with interest.
“Shore do,” said Flo. “I knew that. But don’t mind Glenn. He’s full of tricks, Carley. He’d give us a hunch to lie out in the wet.”
Hutter burst into his hearty laugh. “Wal, I’d rather get some things any day than a bad cold.”
“Shore I’ve had both,” replied Flo, in her easy drawl, “and I’d prefer the cold. But for Carley’s sake—”
“Pray don’t consider me,” said Carley. The rather crude drift of the conversation affronted her.
“Well, my dear,” put in Glenn, “it’s a bad night outside. We’ll all make our beds here.”
“Glenn, you shore are a nervy fellow,” drawled Flo.
Long after everybody was in bed Carley lay awake in the blackness of the cabin, sensitively fidgeting and quivering over imaginative contact with creeping things. The fire had died out. A cold air passed through the room. On the roof pattered gusts of rain. Carley heard a rustling of mice. It did not seem possible that she could keep awake, yet she strove to do so. But her pangs of body, her extreme fatigue soon yielded to the quiet and rest of her bed, engendering a drowsiness that proved irresistible.
Morning brought fair weather and sunshine, which helped to sustain Carley in her effort to brave out her pains and woes. Another disagreeable day would have forced her to humiliating defeat. Fortunately for her, the business of the men was concerned with the immediate neighborhood, in which they expected to stay all morning.
“Flo, after a while persuade Carley to ride with you to the top of this first foothill,” said Glenn. “It’s not far, and it’s worth a good deal to see the Painted Desert from there. The day is clear and the air free from dust.”
“Shore. Leave it to me. I want to get out of camp, anyhow. That conceited hombre, Lee Stanton, will be riding in here,” answered Flo, laconically.
The slight knowing smile on Glenn’s face and the grinning disbelief on Mr. Hutter’s were facts not lost upon Carley. And when Charley, the herder, deliberately winked at Carley, she conceived the idea that Flo, like many women, only ran off to be pursued. In some manner Carley did not seek to analyze, the purported advent of this Lee Stanton pleased her. But she did admit to her consciousness that women, herself included, were both as deep and mysterious as the sea, yet as transparent as an inch of crystal water.
It happened that the expected newcomer rode into camp before anyone left. Before he dismounted he made a good impression on Carley, and as he stepped down in lazy, graceful action, a tall lithe figure, she thought him singularly handsome. He wore black sombrero, flannel shirt, blue jeans stuffed into high boots, and long, big-roweled spurs.
“How are you-all?” was his greeting.
From the talk that ensued between him and the men, Carley concluded that he must be overseer of the sheep hands. Carley knew that Hutter and Glenn were not interested in cattle raising. And in fact they were, especially Hutter, somewhat inimical to the dominance of the range land by cattle barons of Flagstaff.
“When’s Ryan goin’ to dip?” asked Hutter.
“Today or tomorrow,” replied Stanton.
“Reckon we ought to ride over,” went on Hutter. “Say, Glenn, do you reckon Miss Carley could stand a sheep-dip?”
This was spoken in a low tone, scarcely intended for Carley, but she had keen ears and heard distinctly. Not improbably this sheep-dip was what Flo meant as the worst to come. Carley adopted a listless posture to hide her keen desire to hear what Glenn would reply to Hutter.
“I should say not!” whispered Glenn, fiercely.
“Cut out that talk. She’ll hear you and want to go.”
Whereupon Carley felt mount in her breast an intense and rebellious determination to see a sheep-dip. She would astonish Glenn. What did he want, anyway? Had she not withstood the torturing trot of the hardest-gaited horse on the range? Carley realized she was going to place considerable store upon that feat. It grew on her.
When the consultation of the men ended, Lee Stanton turned to Flo. And Carley did not need to see the young man look twice to divine what ailed him. He was caught in the toils of love. But seeing through Flo Hutter was entirely another matter.
“Howdy, Lee!” she said, coolly, with her clear eyes on him. A tiny frown knitted her brow. She did not, at the moment, entirely approve of him.
“Shore am glad to see you, Flo,” he said, with rather a heavy expulsion of breath. He wore a cheerful grin that in no wise deceived Flo, or Carley either. The young man had a furtive expression of eye.
“Ahuh!” returned Flo.
“I was shore sorry about—about that—” he floundered, in low voice.
“About what?”
“Aw, you know, Flo.”
Carley strolled out of hearing, sure of two things—that she felt rather sorry for Stanton, and that his course of love did not augur well for smooth running. What queer creatures were women! Carley had seen several million coquettes, she believed; and assuredly Flo Hutter belonged to the species.
Upon Carley’s return to the cabin she found Stanton and Flo waiting for her to accompany them on a ride up the foothill. She was so stiff and sore that she could hardly mount into the saddle; and the first mile of riding was something like a nightmare. She lagged behind Flo and Stanton, who apparently forgot her in their quarrel.
The riders soon struck the base of a long incline of rocky ground that led up to the slope of the foothill. Here rocks and gravel gave place to black cinders out of which grew a scant bleached grass. This desert verdure was what lent the soft gray shade to the foothill when seen from a distance. The slope was gentle, so that the ascent did not entail any hardship. Carley was amazed at the length of the slope, and also to see how high over the desert she was getting. She felt lifted out of a monotonous level. A green-gray league-long cedar forest extended down toward Oak Creek. Behind her the magnificent bulk of the mountains reached up into the stormy clouds, showing white slopes of snow under the gray pall.
The hoofs of the horses sank in the cinders. A fine choking dust assailed Carley’s nostrils. Presently, when there appeared at least a third of the ascent still to be accomplished and Flo dismounted to walk, leading their horses. Carley had no choice but to do likewise. At first walking was a relief. Soon, however, the soft yielding cinders began to drag at her feet. At every step she slipped back a few inches, a very annoying feature of climbing. When her legs seemed to grow dead Carley paused for a little rest. The last of the ascent, over a few hundred yards of looser cinders, taxed her remaining strength to the limit. She grew hot and wet and out of breath. Her heart labored. An unreasonable antipathy seemed to attend her efforts. Only her ridiculous vanity held her to this task. She wanted to please Glenn, but not so earnestly that she would have kept on plodding up this ghastly bare mound of cinders. Carley did not mind being a tenderfoot, but she hated the thought of these Westerners considering her a weakling. So she bore the pain of raw blisters and the miserable sensation of staggering on under a leaden weight.
Several times she noted that Flo and Stanton halted to face each other in rather heated argument. At least Stanton’s red face and forceful gestures attested to heat on his part. Flo evidently was weary of argument, and in answer to a sharp reproach she retorted, “Shore I was different after he came.” To which Stanton responded by a quick passionate shrinking as if he had been stung.
Carley had her own reaction to this speech she could not help hearing; and inwardly, at least, her feeling must have been similar to Stanton’s. She forgot the object of this climb and looked off to her right at the green level without really seeing it. A vague sadness weighed upon her soul. Was there to be a tangle of fates here, a conflict of wills, a crossing of loves? Flo’s terse confession could not be taken lightly. Did she mean that she loved Glenn? Carley began to fear it. Only another reason why she must persuade Glenn to go back East! But the closer Carley came to what she divined must be an ordeal the more she dreaded it. This raw, crude West might have confronted her with a situation beyond her control. And as she dragged her weighted feet through the cinders, kicking, up little puffs of black dust, she felt what she admitted to be an unreasonable resentment toward these Westerners and their barren, isolated, and boundless world.
“Carley,” called Flo, “come—looksee, as the Indians say. Here is Glenn’s Painted Desert, and I reckon it’s shore worth seeing.”
To Carley’s surprise, she found herself upon the knob of the foothill. And when she looked out across a suddenly distinguishable void she seemed struck by the immensity of something she was unable to grasp. She dropped her bridle; she gazed slowly, as if drawn, hearing Flo’s voice.
“That thin green line of cottonwoods down there is the Little Colorado River,” Flo was saying. “Reckon it’s sixty miles, all down hill. The Painted Desert begins there and also the Navajo Reservation. You see the white strips, the red veins, the yellow bars, the black lines. They are all desert steps leading up and up for miles. That sharp black peak is called Wildcat. It’s about a hundred miles. You see the desert stretching away to the right, growing dim—lost in distance? We don’t know that country. But that north country we know as landmarks, anyway. Look at that saw-tooth range. The Indians call it Echo Cliffs. At the far end it drops off into the Colorado River. Lee’s Ferry is there—about one hundred and sixty miles. That ragged black rent is the Grand Canyon. Looks like a thread, doesn’t it? But Carley, it’s some hole, believe me. Away to the left you see the tremendous wall rising and turning to come this way. That’s the north wall of the Canyon. It ends at the great bluff—Greenland Point. See the black fringe above the bar of gold. That’s a belt of pine trees. It’s about eighty miles across this ragged old stone washboard of a desert. ... Now turn and look straight and strain your sight over Wildcat. See the rim purple dome. You must look hard. I’m glad it’s clear and the sun is shining. We don’t often get this view.... That purple dome is Navajo Mountain, two hundred miles and more away!”
Carley yielded to some strange drawing power and slowly walked forward until she stood at the extreme edge of the summit.
What was it that confounded her sight? Desert slope—down and down—color—distance—space! The wind that blew in her face seemed to have the openness of the whole world back of it. Cold, sweet, dry, exhilarating, it breathed of untainted vastness. Carley’s memory pictures of the Adirondacks faded into pastorals; her vaunted images of European scenery changed to operetta settings. She had nothing with which to compare this illimitable space.
“Oh!—America!” was her unconscious tribute.
Stanton and Flo had come on to places beside her. The young man laughed. “Wal, now Miss Carley, you couldn’t say more. When I was in camp trainin’ for service overseas I used to remember how this looked. An’ it seemed one of the things I was goin’ to fight for. Reckon I didn’t the idea of the Germans havin’ my Painted Desert. I didn’t get across to fight for it, but I shore was willin’.”
“You see, Carley, this is our America,” said Flo, softly.
Carley had never understood the meaning of the word. The immensity of the West seemed flung at her. What her vision beheld, so far-reaching and boundless, was only a dot on the map.
“Does any one live—out there?” she asked, with slow sweep of hand.
“A few white traders and some Indian tribes,” replied Stanton. “But you can ride all day an’ next day an’ never see a livin’ soul.”
What was the meaning of the gratification in his voice? Did Westerners court loneliness? Carley wrenched her gaze from the desert void to look at her companions. Stanton’s eyes were narrowed; his expression had changed; lean and hard and still, his face resembled bronze. The careless humor was gone, as was the heated flush of his quarrel with Flo. The girl, too, had subtly changed, had responded to an influence that had subdued and softened her. She was mute; her eyes held a light, comprehensive and all-embracing; she was beautiful then. For Carley, quick to read emotion, caught a glimpse of a strong, steadfast soul that spiritualized the brown freckled face.
Carley wheeled to gaze out and down into this incomprehensible abyss, and on to the far up-flung heights, white and red and yellow, and so on to the wonderful mystic haze of distance. The significance of Flo’s designation of miles could not be grasped by Carley. She could not estimate distance. But she did not need that to realize her perceptions were swallowed up by magnitude. Hitherto the power of her eyes had been unknown. How splendid to see afar! She could see—yes—but what did she see? Space first, annihilating space, dwarfing her preconceived images, and then wondrous colors! What had she known of color? No wonder artists failed adequately and truly to paint mountains, let alone the desert space. The toiling millions of the crowded cities were ignorant of this terrible beauty and sublimity. Would it have helped them to see? But just to breathe that untainted air, just to see once the boundless open of colored sand and rock—to realize what the freedom of eagles meant would not that have helped anyone?
And with the thought there came to Carley’s quickened and struggling mind a conception of freedom. She had not yet watched eagles, but she now gazed out into their domain. What then must be the effect of such environment on people whom it encompassed? The idea stunned Carley. Would such people grow in proportion to the nature with which they were in conflict? Hereditary influence could not be comparable to such environment in the shaping of character.
“Shore I could stand here all day,” said Flo. “But it’s beginning to cloud over and this high wind is cold. So we’d better go, Carley.”
“I don’t know what I am, but it’s not cold,” replied Carley.
“Wal, Miss Carley, I reckon you’ll have to come again an’ again before you get a comfortable feelin’ here,” said Stanton.
It surprised Carley to see that this young Westerner had hit upon the truth. He understood her. Indeed she was uncomfortable. She was oppressed, vaguely unhappy. But why? The thing there—the infinitude of open sand and rock—was beautiful, wonderful, even glorious. She looked again.
Steep black-cindered slope, with its soft gray patches of grass, sheered down and down, and out in rolling slope to merge upon a cedar-dotted level. Nothing moved below, but a red-tailed hawk sailed across her vision. How still—how gray the desert floor as it reached away, losing its black dots, and gaining bronze spots of stone! By plain and prairie it fell away, each inch of gray in her sight magnifying into its league-long roll. On and on, and down across dark lines that were steppes, and at last blocked and changed by the meandering green thread which was the verdure of a desert river. Beyond stretched the white sand, where whirlwinds of dust sent aloft their funnel-shaped spouts; and it led up to the horizon-wide ribs and ridges of red and walls of yellow and mountains of black, to the dim mound of purple so ethereal and mystic against the deep-blue cloud-curtained band of sky.
And on the moment the sun was obscured and that world of colorful flame went out, as if a blaze had died.
Deprived of its fire, the desert seemed to retreat, to fade coldly and gloomily, to lose its great landmarks in dim obscurity. Closer, around to the north, the canyon country yawned with innumerable gray jaws, ragged and hard, and the riven earth took on a different character. It had no shadows. It grew flat and, like the sea, seemed to mirror the vast gray cloud expanse. The sublime vanished, but the desolate remained. No warmth—no movement—no life! Dead stone it was, cut into a million ruts by ruthless ages. Carley felt that she was gazing down into chaos.
At this moment, as before, a hawk had crossed her vision, so now a raven sailed by, black as coal, uttering a hoarse croak.
“Quoth the raven—” murmured Carley, with a half-bitter laugh, as she turned away shuddering in spite of an effort of self-control. “Maybe he meant this wonderful and terrible West is never for such as I.... Come, let us go.”
Carley rode all that afternoon in the rear of the caravan, gradually succumbing to the cold raw wind and the aches and pains to which she had subjected her flesh. Nevertheless, she finished the day’s journey, and, sorely as she needed Glenn’s kindly hand, she got off her horse without aid.
Camp was made at the edge of the devastated timber zone that Carley had found so dispiriting. A few melancholy pines were standing, and everywhere, as far as she could see southward, were blackened fallen trees and stumps. It was a dreary scene. The few cattle grazing on the bleached grass appeared as melancholy as the pines. The sun shone fitfully at sunset, and then sank, leaving the land to twilight and shadows.
Once in a comfortable seat beside the camp fire, Carley had no further desire to move. She was so far exhausted and weary that she could no longer appreciate the blessing of rest. Appetite, too, failed her this meal time. Darkness soon settled down. The wind moaned through the pines. She was indeed glad to crawl into bed, and not even the thought of skunks could keep her awake.
Morning disclosed the fact that gray clouds had been blown away. The sun shone bright upon a white-frosted land. The air was still. Carley labored at her task of rising, and brushing her hair, and pulling on her boots; and it appeared her former sufferings were as naught compared with the pangs of this morning. How she hated the cold, the bleak, denuded forest land, the emptiness, the roughness, the crudeness! If this sort of feeling grew any worse she thought she would hate Glenn. Yet she was nonetheless set upon going on, and seeing the sheep-dip, and riding that fiendish mustang until the trip was ended.
Getting in the saddle and on the way this morning was an ordeal that made Carley actually sick. Glenn and Flo both saw how it was with her, and they left her to herself. Carley was grateful for this understanding. It seemed to proclaim their respect. She found further matter for satisfaction in the astonishing circumstance that after the first dreadful quarter of an hour in the saddle she began to feel easier. And at the end of several hours of riding she was not suffering any particular pain, though she was weaker.
At length the cut-over land ended in a forest of straggling pines, through which the road wound southward, and eventually down into a wide shallow canyon. Through the trees Carley saw a stream of water, open fields of green, log fences and cabins, and blue smoke. She heard the chug of a gasoline engine and the baa-baa of sheep. Glenn waited for her to catch up with him, and he said: “Carley, this is one of Hutter’s sheep camps. It’s not a—a very pleasant place. You won’t care to see the sheep-dip. So I’m suggesting you wait here—”
“Nothing doing, Glenn,” she interrupted. “I’m going to see what there is to see.”
“But, dear—the men—the way they handle sheep—they’ll—really it’s no sight for you,” he floundered.
“Why not?” she inquired, eying him.
“Because, Carley—you know how you hate the—the seamy side of things. And the stench—why, it’ll make you sick!”
“Glenn, be on the level,” she said. “Suppose it does. Wouldn’t you think more of me if I could stand it?”
“Why, yes,” he replied, reluctantly, smiling at her, “I would. But I wanted to spare you. This trip has been hard. I’m sure proud of you. And, Carley—you can overdo it. Spunk is not everything. You simply couldn’t stand this.”
“Glenn, how little you know a woman!” she exclaimed. “Come along and show me your old sheep-dip.”
They rode out of the woods into an open valley that might have been picturesque if it had not been despoiled by the work of man. A log fence ran along the edge of open ground and a mud dam held back a pool of stagnant water, slimy and green. As Carley rode on the baa-baa of sheep became so loud that she could scarcely hear Glenn talking.
Several log cabins, rough hewn and gray with age, stood down inside the inclosure; and beyond there were large corrals. From the other side of these corrals came sounds of rough voices of men, a trampling of hoofs, heavy splashes, the beat of an engine, and the incessant baaing of the sheep.
At this point the members of Hutter’s party dismounted and tied their horses to the top log of the fence. When Carley essayed to get off Glenn tried to stop her, saying she could see well enough from there. But Carley got down and followed Flo. She heard Hutter call to Glenn: “Say, Ryan is short of men. We’ll lend a hand for a couple of hours.”
Presently Carley reached Flo’s side and the first corral that contained sheep. They formed a compact woolly mass, rather white in color, with a tinge of pink. When Flo climbed up on the fence the flock plunged as one animal and with a trampling roar ran to the far side of the corral. Several old rams with wide curling horns faced around; and some of the ewes climbed up on the densely packed mass. Carley rather enjoyed watching them. She surely could not see anything amiss in this sight.
The next corral held a like number of sheep, and also several Mexicans who were evidently driving them into a narrow lane that led farther down. Carley saw the heads of men above other corral fences, and there was also a thick yellowish smoke rising from somewhere.
“Carley, are you game to see the dip?” asked Flo, with good nature that yet had a touch of taunt in it.
“That’s my middle name,” retorted Carley, flippantly.
Both Glenn and this girl seemed to be bent upon bringing out Carley’s worst side, and they were succeeding. Flo laughed. The ready slang pleased her.
She led Carley along that log fence, through a huge open gate, and across a wide pen to another fence, which she scaled. Carley followed her, not particularly overanxious to look ahead. Some thick odor had begun to reach Carley’s delicate nostrils. Flo led down a short lane and climbed another fence, and sat astride the top log. Carley hurried along to clamber up to her side, but stood erect with her feet on the second log of the fence.
Then a horrible stench struck Carley almost like a blow in the face, and before her confused sight there appeared to be drifting smoke and active men and running sheep, all against a background of mud. But at first it was the odor that caused Carley to close her eyes and press her knees hard against the upper log to keep from reeling. Never in her life had such a sickening nausea assailed her. It appeared to attack her whole body. The forerunning qualm of seasickness was as nothing to this. Carley gave a gasp, pinched her nose between her fingers so she could not smell, and opened her eyes.
Directly beneath her was a small pen open at one end into which sheep were being driven from the larger corral. The drivers were yelling. The sheep in the rear plunged into those ahead of them, forcing them on. Two men worked in this small pen. One was a brawny giant in undershirt and overalls that appeared filthy. He held a cloth in his hand and strode toward the nearest sheep. Folding the cloth round the neck of the sheep, he dragged it forward, with an ease which showed great strength, and threw it into a pit that yawned at the side. Souse went the sheep into a murky, muddy pool and disappeared. But suddenly its head came up and then its shoulders. And it began half to walk and half swim down what appeared to be a narrow boxlike ditch that contained other floundering sheep. Then Carley saw men on each side of this ditch bending over with poles that had crooks at the end, and their work was to press and pull the sheep along to the end of the ditch, and drive them up a boarded incline into another corral where many other sheep huddled, now a dirty muddy color like the liquid into which they had been emersed. Souse! Splash! In went sheep after sheep. Occasionally one did not go under. And then a man would press it under with the crook and quickly lift its head. The work went on with precision and speed, in spite of the yells and trampling and baa-baas, and the incessant action that gave an effect of confusion.
Carley saw a pipe leading from a huge boiler to the ditch. The dark fluid was running out of it. From a rusty old engine with big smokestack poured the strangling smoke. A man broke open a sack of yellow powder and dumped it into the ditch. Then he poured an acid-like liquid after it.
“Sulphur and nicotine,” yelled Flo up at Carley. “The dip’s poison. If a sheep opens his mouth he’s usually a goner. But sometimes they save one.”
Carley wanted to tear herself away from this disgusting spectacle. But it held her by some fascination. She saw Glenn and Hutter fall in line with the other men, and work like beavers. These two pacemakers in the small pen kept the sheep coming so fast that every worker below had a task cut out for him. Suddenly Flo squealed and pointed.
“There! that sheep didn’t come up,” she cried. “Shore he opened his mouth.”
Then Carley saw Glenn energetically plunge his hooked pole in and out and around until he had located the submerged sheep. He lifted its head above the dip. The sheep showed no sign of life. Down on his knees dropped Glenn, to reach the sheep with strong brown hands, and to haul it up on the ground, where it flopped inert. Glenn pummeled it and pressed it, and worked on it much as Carley had seen a life-guard work over a half-drowned man. But the sheep did not respond to Glenn’s active administrations.
“No use, Glenn,” yelled Hutter, hoarsely. “That one’s a goner.”
Carley did not fail to note the state of Glenn’s hands and arms and overalls when he returned to the ditch work. Then back and forth Carley’s gaze went from one end to the other of that scene. And suddenly it was arrested and held by the huge fellow who handled the sheep so brutally. Every time he dragged one and threw it into the pit he yelled: “Ho! Ho!” Carley was impelled to look at his face, and she was amazed to meet the rawest and boldest stare from evil eyes that had ever been her misfortune to incite. She felt herself stiffen with a shock that was unfamiliar. This man was scarcely many years older than Glenn, yet he had grizzled hair, a seamed and scarred visage, coarse, thick lips, and beetling brows, from under which peered gleaming light eyes. At every turn he flashed them upon Carley’s face, her neck, the swell of her bosom. It was instinct that caused her hastily to close her riding coat. She felt as if her flesh had been burned. Like a snake he fascinated her. The intelligence in his bold gaze made the beastliness of it all the harder to endure, all the stronger to arouse.
“Come, Carley, let’s rustle out of this stinkin’ mess,” cried Flo.
Indeed, Carley needed Flo’s assistance in clambering down out of the choking smoke and horrid odor.
“Adios, pretty eyes,” called the big man from the pen.
“Well,” ejaculated Flo, when they got out, “I’ll bet I call Glenn good and hard for letting you go down there.”
“It was—my—fault,” panted Carley. “I said I’d stand it.”
“Oh, you’re game, all right. I didn’t mean the dip.... That sheep-slinger is Haze Ruff, the toughest hombre on this range. Shore, now, wouldn’t I like to take a shot at him?... I’m going to tell dad and Glenn.”
“Please don’t,” returned Carley, appealingly.
“I shore am. Dad needs hands these days. That’s why he’s lenient. But Glenn will cowhide Ruff and I want to see him do it.”
In Flo Hutter then Carley saw another and a different spirit of the West, a violence unrestrained and fierce that showed in the girl’s even voice and in the piercing light of her eyes.
They went back to the horses, got their lunches from the saddlebags, and, finding comfortable seats in a sunny, protected place, they ate and talked. Carley had to force herself to swallow. It seemed that the horrid odor of dip and sheep had permeated everything. Glenn had known her better than she had known herself, and he had wished to spare her an unnecessary and disgusting experience. Yet so stubborn was Carley that she did not regret going through with it.
“Carley, I don’t mind telling you that you’ve stuck it out better than any tenderfoot we ever had here,” said Flo.
“Thank you. That from a Western girl is a compliment I’ll not soon forget,” replied Carley.
“I shore mean it. We’ve had rotten weather. And to end the little trip at this sheep-dip hole! Why, Glenn certainly wanted you to stack up against the real thing!”
“Flo, he did not want me to come on the trip, and especially here,” protested Carley.
“Shore I know. But he let you.”
“Neither Glenn nor any other man could prevent me from doing what I wanted to do.”
“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” drawled Flo, “I’ll differ with you. I reckon Glenn Kilbourne is not the man you knew before the war.”
“No, he is not. But that does not alter the case.”
“Carley, we’re not well acquainted,” went on Flo, more carefully feeling her way, “and I’m not your kind. I don’t know your Eastern ways. But I know what the West does to a man. The war ruined your friend—both his body and mind.... How sorry mother and I were for Glenn, those days when it looked he’d sure ‘go west,’ for good!... Did you know he’d been gassed and that he had five hemorrhages?”
“Oh! I knew his lungs had been weakened by gas. But he never told me about having hemorrhages.”
“Well, he shore had them. The last one I’ll never forget. Every time he’d cough it would fetch the blood. I could tell!... Oh, it was awful. I begged him not to cough. He smiled—like a ghost smiling—and he whispered, ‘I’ll quit.’... And he did. The doctor came from Flagstaff and packed him in ice. Glenn sat propped up all night and never moved a muscle. Never coughed again! And the bleeding stopped. After that we put him out on the porch where he could breathe fresh air all the time. There’s something wonderfully healing in Arizona air. It’s from the dry desert and here it’s full of cedar and pine. Anyway Glenn got well. And I think the West has cured his mind, too.”
“Of what?” queried Carley, in an intense curiosity she could scarcely hide.
“Oh, God only knows!” exclaimed Flo, throwing up her gloved hands. “I never could understand. But I hated what the war did to him.”
Carley leaned back against the log, quite spent. Flo was unwittingly torturing her. Carley wanted passionately to give in to jealousy of this Western girl, but she could not do it. Flo Hutter deserved better than that. And Carley’s baser nature seemed in conflict with all that was noble in her. The victory did not yet go to either side. This was a bad hour for Carley. Her strength had about played out, and her spirit was at low ebb.
“Carley, you’re all in,” declared Flo. “You needn’t deny it. I’m shore you’ve made good with me as a tenderfoot who stayed the limit. But there’s no sense in your killing yourself, nor in me letting you. So I’m going to tell dad we want to go home.”
She left Carley there. The word home had struck strangely into Carley’s mind and remained there. Suddenly she realized what it was to be homesick. The comfort, the ease, the luxury, the rest, the sweetness, the pleasure, the cleanliness, the gratification to eye and ear—to all the senses—how these thoughts came to haunt her! All of Carley’s will power had been needed to sustain her on this trip to keep her from miserably failing. She had not failed. But contact with the West had affronted, disgusted, shocked, and alienated her. In that moment she could not be fair minded; she knew it; she did not care.
Carley gazed around her. Only one of the cabins was in sight from this position. Evidently it was a home for some of these men. On one side the peaked rough roof had been built out beyond the wall, evidently to serve as a kind of porch. On that wall hung the motliest assortment of things Carley had ever seen—utensils, sheep and cow hides, saddles, harness, leather clothes, ropes, old sombreros, shovels, stove pipe, and many other articles for which she could find no name. The most striking characteristic manifest in this collection was that of service. How they had been used! They had enabled people to live under primitive conditions. Somehow this fact inhibited Carley’s sense of repulsion at their rude and uncouth appearance. Had any of her forefathers ever been pioneers? Carley did not know, but the thought was disturbing. It was thought-provoking. Many times at home, when she was dressing for dinner, she had gazed into the mirror at the graceful lines of her throat and arms, at the proud poise of her head, at the alabaster whiteness of her skin, and wonderingly she had asked of her image: “Can it be possible that I am a descendant of cavemen?” She had never been able to realize it, yet she knew it was true. Perhaps somewhere not far back along her line there had been a great-great-grandmother who had lived some kind of a primitive life, using such implements and necessaries as hung on this cabin wall, and thereby helped some man to conquer the wilderness, to live in it, and reproduce his kind. Like flashes Glenn’s words came back to Carley—“Work and children!”
Some interpretation of his meaning and how it related to this hour held aloof from Carley. If she would ever be big enough to understand it and broad enough to accept it the time was far distant. Just now she was sore and sick physically, and therefore certainly not in a receptive state of mind. Yet how could she have keener impressions than these she was receiving? It was all a problem. She grew tired of thinking. But even then her mind pondered on, a stream of consciousness over which she had no control. This dreary woods was deserted. No birds, no squirrels, no creatures such as fancy anticipated! In another direction, across the canyon, she saw cattle, gaunt, ragged, lumbering, and stolid. And on the moment the scent of sheep came on the breeze. Time seemed to stand still here, and what Carley wanted most was for the hours and days to fly, so that she would be home again.
At last Flo returned with the men. One quick glance at Glenn convinced Carley that Flo had not yet told him about the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff.
“Carley, you’re a real sport,” declared Glenn, with the rare smile she loved. “It’s a dreadful mess. And to think you stood it!... Why, old Fifth Avenue, if you needed to make another hit with me you’ve done it!”
His warmth amazed and pleased Carley. She could not quite understand why it would have made any difference to him whether she had stood the ordeal or not. But then every day she seemed to drift a little farther from a real understanding of her lover. His praise gladdened her, and fortified her to face the rest of this ride back to Oak Creek.
Four hours later, in a twilight so shadowy that no one saw her distress, Carley half slipped and half fell from her horse and managed somehow to mount the steps and enter the bright living room. A cheerful red fire blazed on the hearth; Glenn’s hound, Moze, trembled eagerly at sight of her and looked up with humble dark eyes; the white-clothed dinner table steamed with savory dishes. Flo stood before the blaze, warming her hands. Lee Stanton leaned against the mantel, with eyes on her, and every line of his lean, hard face expressed his devotion to her. Hutter was taking his seat at the head of the table. “Come an’ get it—you-all,” he called, heartily. Mrs. Hutter’s face beamed with the spirit of that home. And lastly, Carley saw Glenn waiting for her, watching her come, true in this very moment to his stern hope for her and pride in her, as she dragged her weary, spent body toward him and the bright fire.
By these signs, or the effect of them, Carley vaguely realized that she was incalculably changing, that this Carley Burch had become a vastly bigger person in the sight of her friends, and strangely in her own a lesser creature.
