light so shadowy that no one saw her distress,
Carley half slipped and half fell from her horse and managed somehow to
mount the steps and enter the bright living room. A cheerful red fire
blazed on the hearth; Glenn's hound, Moze, trembled eagerly at sight of
her and looked up with humble dark eyes; the white-clothed dinner table
steamed with savory dishes. Flo stood before the blaze, warming her
hands. Lee Stanton leaned against the mantel, with eyes on her, and
every line of his lean, hard face expressed his devotion to her.
Hutter was taking his seat at the head of the table. "Come an' get
it--you-all," he called, heartily. Mrs. Hutter's face beamed with the
spirit of that home. And lastly, Carley saw Glenn waiting for her,
watching her come, true in this very moment to his stern hope for her
and pride in her, as she dragged her weary, spent body toward him and
the bright fire.

By these signs, or the effect of them, Carley vaguely realized that she
was incalculably changing, that this Carley Burch had become a vastly
bigger person in the sight of her friends, and strangely in her own a
lesser creature.

CHAPTER VI

If spring came at all to Oak Creek Canyon it warmed into summer before
Carley had time to languish with the fever characteristic of early June
in the East.

As if by magic it seemed the green grass sprang up, the green buds
opened into leaves, the bluebells and primroses bloomed, the apple and
peach blossoms burst exquisitely white and pink against the blue sky.
Oak Creek fell to a transparent, beautiful brook, leisurely eddying in
the stone walled nooks, hurrying with murmur and babble over the little
falls. The mornings broke clear and fragrantly cool, the noon hours
seemed to lag under a hot sun, the nights fell like dark mantles from
the melancholy star-sown sky.

Carley had stubbornly kept on riding and climbing until she killed her
secret doubt that she was really a thoroughbred, until she satisfied her
own insistent vanity that she could train to a point where this outdoor
life was not too much for her strength. She lost flesh despite increase
of appetite; she lost her pallor for a complexion of gold-brown she knew
her Eastern friends would admire; she wore out the blisters and aches
and pains; she found herself growing firmer of muscle, lither of line,
deeper of chest. And in addition to these physical manifestations there
were subtle intimations of a delight in a freedom of body she ha