"By Jove! I didn't think you'd even attempt it!" he declared, manifestly
pleased. "I made sure I'd have to pack you over--in fact, rather liked
the idea."
"I wouldn't advise you to employ any such means again--to dare me," she
retorted.
"That's a nifty outdoor suit you've on," he said, admiringly. "I was
wondering what you'd wear. I like short outing skirts for women, rather
than trousers. The service sort of made the fair sex dippy about pants."
"It made them dippy about more than that," she replied. "You and I will
never live to see the day that women recover their balance."
"I agree with you," replied Glenn.
Carley locked her arm in his. "Honey, I want to have a good time today.
Cut out all the other women stuff.... Take me to see your little gray
home in the West. Or is it gray?"
He laughed. "Why, yes, it's gray, just about. The logs have bleached
some."
Glenn led her away up a trail that climbed between bowlders, and
meandered on over piny mats of needles under great, silent, spreading
pines; and closer to the impondering mountain wall, where at the base of
the red rock the creek murmured strangely with hollow gurgle, where
the sun had no chance to affect the cold damp gloom; and on through
sweet-smelling woods, out into the sunlight again, and across a wider
breadth of stream; and up a slow slope covered with stately pines, to a
little cabin that faced the west.
"Here we are, sweetheart," said Glenn. "Now we shall see what you are
made of."
Carley was non-committal as to that. Her intense interest precluded any
humor at this moment. Not until she actually saw the log cabin Glenn had
erected with his own hands had she been conscious of any great interest.
But sight of it awoke something unaccustomed in Carley. As she stepped
into the cabin her heart was not acting normally for a young woman who
had no illusions about love in a cottage.
Glenn's cabin contained one room about fifteen feet wide by twenty long.
Between the peeled logs were lines of red mud, hard dried. There was a
small window opposite the door. In one corner was a couch of poles, with
green tips of pine boughs peeping from under the blankets. The floor
consisted of flat rocks laid irregularly, with many spaces of earth
showing between. The open fireplace appeared too large for the room,
but the very bigness of it, as well as the blazing sticks and glowing
embers, appealed strongly to Carley. A rough-hewn log formed the mantel,
and on it Carley's picture held the place of honor. Above this a rifle
lay across deer antlers. Carley paused here in her survey long enough to
kiss Glenn and point to her photograph.