swell clothes to have sense. Mebbe
you'll learn thet the West is bigger'n you think. A man's a man East or
West. But if your Eastern men stand for such dresses as thet white
one they'd do well to come out West awhile, like your lover, Glenn
Kilbourne. I've been rustlin' round here ten years, an' I never before
seen a dress like yours--an' I never heerd of a girl bein' insulted,
either. Mebbe you think I insulted you. Wal, I didn't. Fer I reckon
nothin' could insult you in thet dress.... An' my last hunch is this,
Pretty Eyes. You're not what a hombre like me calls either square or
game. Adios."

His bulky figure darkened the doorway, passed out, and the light of the
sky streamed into the cabin again. Carley sat staring. She heard Ruff's
spurs tinkle, then the ring of steel on stirrup, a sodden leathery sound
as he mounted, and after that a rapid pound of hoofs, quickly dying
away.

He was gone. She had escaped something raw and violent. Dazedly she
realized it, with unutterable relief. And she sat there slowly gathering
the nervous force that had been shattered. Every word that he had
uttered was stamped in startling characters upon her consciousness.
But she was still under the deadening influence of shock. This raw
experience was the worst the West had yet dealt her. It brought back
former states of revulsion and formed them in one whole irrefutable and
damning judgment that seemed to blot out the vaguely dawning and growing
happy susceptibilities. It was, perhaps, just as well to have her mind
reverted to realistic fact. The presence of Haze Ruff, the astounding
truth of the contact with his huge sheep-defiled hands, had been
profanation and degradation under which she sickened with fear and
shame. Yet hovering back of her shame and rising anger seemed to be a
pale, monstrous, and indefinable thought, insistent and accusing, with
which she must sooner or later reckon. It might have been the voice of
the new side of her nature, but at that moment of outraged womanhood,
and of revolt against the West, she would not listen. It might, too,
have been the still small voice of conscience. But decision of mind
and energy coming to her then, she threw off the burden of emotion and
perplexity, and forced herself into composure before the arrival of
Glenn.

The dust had ceased to blow, although the wind had by no means died
away. Sunset marked the west in old rose and gold, a vast flare. Carley
espied a horseman far down t