"There! we've licked the platter clean," she said. "What starved bears we were! ... . I wonder if I shall enjoy eating–when I get home. I used to be so finnicky and picky."
"Carley, don't talk about home," said Glenn, appealingly.
"You dear old farmer, I'd love to stay here and just dream–forever," replied Carley, earnestly. "But I came on purpose to talk seriously."
"Oh, you did! About what?" he returned, with some quick, indefinable change of tone and expression.
"Well, first about your work. I know I hurt your feelings when I wouldn't listen. But I wasn't ready. I wanted to–to just be gay with you for a while. Don't think I wasn't interested. I was. And now, I'm ready to hear all about it–and everything."
She smiled at him bravely, and she knew that unless some unforeseen shock upset her composure, she would be able to conceal from him anything which might hurt his feelings.
"You do look serious," he said, with keen eyes on her.
"Just what are your business relations with Hutter?" she inquired.
"I'm simply working for him," replied Glenn. "My aim is to get an interest in his sheep, and I expect to, some day. We have some plans. And one of them is the development of that Deep Lake section. You remember–you were with us. The day Spillbeans spilled you?"
"Yes, I remember. It was a pretty place," she replied.
Carley did not tell him that for a month past she had owned the Deep Lake section of six hundred and forty acres. She had, in fact, instructed Hutter to purchase it, and to keep the transaction a secret for the present. Carley had never been able to understand the impulse that prompted her to do it. But as Hutter had assured her it was a remarkably good investment on very little capital, she had tried to persuade herself of its advantages. Back of it all had been an irresistible desire to be able some day to present to Glenn this ranch site he loved. She had concluded he would never wholly dissociate himself from this West; and as he would visit it now and then, she had already begun forming plans of her own. She could stand a month in Arizona at long intervals.
"Hutter and I will go into cattle raising some day," went on Glenn. "And that Deep Lake place is what I want for myself."
"What work are you doing for Hutter?" asked Carley.
"Anything from building fence to cutting timber," laughed Glenn. "I've not yet the experience to be a foreman like Lee Stanton. Besides, I have a little business all my own. I put all my money in that."
"You mean here–this–this farm?"
"Yes. And the stock I'm raisin'. You see I have to feed corn. And believe me, Carley, those cornfields represent some job."
"I can well believe that," replied Carley. "You–you looked it."
"Oh, the hard work is over. All I have to do now it to plant and keep the weeds out."
"Glenn, do sheep eat corn?"
"I plant corn to feed my hogs."
"Hogs?" she echoed, vaguely.
"Yes, hogs," he said, with quiet gravity. "The first day you visited my cabin I told you I raised hogs, and I fried my own ham for your dinner."
"Is that what you–put your money in?"
"Yes. And Hutter says I've done well."
"Hogs!" ejaculated Carley, aghast.
"My dear, are you growin' dull of comprehension?" retorted Glenn. "H-o-g-s." He spelled the word out. "I'm in the hog-raising business, and pretty blamed well pleased over my success so far."
Carley caught herself in time to quell outwardly a shock of amaze and revulsion. She laughed, and exclaimed against her stupidity. The look of Glenn was no less astounding than the content of his words. He was actually proud of his work. Moreover, he showed not the least sign that he had any idea such information might be startlingly obnoxious to his fiancee.
"Glenn! It's so–so queer," she ejaculated. "That you–Glenn Kilbourne should ever go in for–for hogs! ... It's unbelievable. How'd you ever–ever happen to do it?"
"By Heaven! you're hard on me!" he burst out, in sudden dark, fierce passion. "How'd I ever happen to do it? ... What was there left for me? I gave my soul and heart and body to the government–to fight for my country. I came home a wreck. What did my government do for me? What did my employers do for me? What did the people I fought for do for me? ... Nothing–so help me God–nothing! ... I got a ribbon and a bouquet–a little applause for an hour–and then the sight of me sickened my countrymen. I was broken and used. I was absolutely forgotten... . But my body, my life, my soul meant all to me. My future was ruined, but I wanted to live. I had killed men who never harmed me–I was not fit to die... . I tried to live. So I fought out my battle alone. Alone! ... No one understood. No one cared. I came West to keep from dying of consumption in sight of the indifferent mob for whom I had sacrificed myself. I chose to die on my feet away off alone somewhere... . But I got well. And what made me well–and saved my soul–was the first work that offered. Raising and tending hogs!"
The dead whiteness of Glenn's face, the lightning scorn of his eyes, the grim, stark strangeness of him then had for Carley a terrible harmony with this passionate denunciation of her, of her kind, of the America for whom he had lost all.
"Oh, Glenn!–forgive–me! " she faltered. "I was only–talking. What do I know? Oh, I am blind–blind and little!"
She could not bear to face him for a moment, and she hung her head. Her intelligence seemed concentrating swift, wild thoughts round the shock to her consciousness. By that terrible expression of his face, by those thundering words of scorn, would she come to realize the mighty truth of his descent into the abyss and his rise to the heights. Vaguely she began to see. An awful sense of her deadness, of her soul-blighting selfishness, began to dawn upon her as something monstrous out of dim, gray obscurity. She trembled under the reality of thoughts that were not new. How she had babbled about Glenn and the crippled soldiers! How she had imagined she sympathized! But she had only been a vain, worldly, complacent, effusive little fool. She had here the shock of her life, and she sensed a greater one, impossible to grasp.
"Carley, that was coming to you," said Glenn, presently, with deep, heavy expulsion of breath.
"I only know I love you–more–more," she cried, wildly, looking up and wanting desperately to throw herself in his arms.
"I guess you do–a little," he replied. "Sometimes I feel you are a kid. Then again you represent the world–your world with its age-old custom–its unalterable... . But, Carley, let's get back to my work."
"Yes–yes," exclaimed Carley, gladly. "I'm ready to–to go pet your hogs–anything."
"By George! I'll take you up," he declared. "I'll bet you won't go near one of my hogpens."
"Lead me to it!" she replied, with a hilarity that was only a nervous reversion of her state.
"Well, maybe I'd better hedge on the bet," he said, laughing again. "You have more in you than I suspect. You sure fooled me when you stood for the sheep-dip. But, come on, I'll take you anyway."
So that was how Carley found herself walking arm in arm with Glenn down the canyon trail. A few moments of action gave her at least an appearance of outward composure. And the state of her emotion was so strained and intense that her slightest show of interest must deceive Glenn into thinking her eager, responsive, enthusiastic. It certainly appeared to loosen his tongue. But Carley knew she was farther from normal than ever before in her life, and that the subtle, inscrutable woman's intuition of her presaged another shock. Just as she had seemed to change, so had the aspects of the canyon undergone some illusive transformation. The beauty of green foliage and amber stream and brown tree trunks and gray rocks and red walls was there; and the summer drowsiness and languor lay as deep; and the loneliness and solitude brooded with its same eternal significance. But some nameless enchantment, perhaps of hope, seemed no longer to encompass her. A blow had fallen upon her, the nature of which only time could divulge.