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.