“Carley, we’re not well acquainted,” went on Flo, more carefully feeling her way, “and I’m not your kind.  I don’t know your Eastern ways.  But I know what the West does to a man.  The war ruined your friend—­both his body and mind. . . .  How sorry mother and I were for Glenn, those days when it looked he’d sure ‘go west,’ for good! . . .  Did you know he’d been gassed and that he had five hemorrhages?”

“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.