"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!"