The hoofs of the horses sank in the cinders. A fine choking dust
assailed Carley's nostrils. Presently, when there appeared at least a
third of the ascent still to be accomplished and Flo dismounted to walk,
leading their horses. Carley had no choice but to do likewise. At first
walking was a relief. Soon, however, the soft yielding cinders began to
drag at her feet. At every step she slipped back a few inches, a very
annoying feature of climbing. When her legs seemed to grow dead Carley
paused for a little rest. The last of the ascent, over a few hundred
yards of looser cinders, taxed her remaining strength to the limit. She
grew hot and wet and out of breath. Her heart labored. An unreasonable
antipathy seemed to attend her efforts. Only her ridiculous vanity held
her to this task. She wanted to please Glenn, but not so earnestly that
she would have kept on plodding up this ghastly bare mound of cinders.
Carley did not mind being a tenderfoot, but she hated the thought of
these Westerners considering her a weakling. So she bore the pain of
raw blisters and the miserable sensation of staggering on under a leaden
weight.
Several times she noted that Flo and Stanton halted to face each other
in rather heated argument. At least Stanton's red face and forceful
gestures attested to heat on his part. Flo evidently was weary of
argument, and in answer to a sharp reproach she retorted, "Shore I
was different after he came." To which Stanton responded by a quick
passionate shrinking as if he had been stung.
Carley had her own reaction to this speech she could not help hearing;
and inwardly, at least, her feeling must have been similar to Stanton's.
She forgot the object of this climb and looked off to her right at the
green level without really seeing it. A vague sadness weighed upon her
soul. Was there to be a tangle of fates here, a conflict of wills, a
crossing of loves? Flo's terse confession could not be taken lightly.
Did she mean that she loved Glenn? Carley began to fear it. Only another
reason why she must persuade Glenn to go back East! But the closer
Carley came to what she divined must be an ordeal the more she dreaded
it. This raw, crude West might have confronted her with a situation
beyond her control. And as she dragged her weighted feet through the
cinders, kicking, up little puffs of black dust, she felt what she
admitted to be an unreasonable resentment toward these Westerners and
their barren, isolated, and boundless world.