s warmer. Spring is late here, you
know, and we'll have nasty weather yet. You really happened on Oak Creek
at its least attractive season. But then it's always--well, just Oak
Creek. You'll come to know."

"I dare say I'll remember my first sight of it and the ride down that
cliff road," said Carley, with a wan smile.

"Oh, that's nothing to what you'll see and do," returned Flo, knowingly.
"We've had Eastern tenderfeet here before. And never was there a one of
them who didn't come to love Arizona."

"Tenderfoot! It hadn't occurred to me. But of course--" murmured Carley.

Then Mrs. Hutter returned, carrying a tray, which she set upon a chair,
and drew to Carley's side. "Eat an' drink," she said, as if these
actions were the cardinally important ones of life. "Flo, you carry her
bags up to that west room we always give to some particular person
we want to love Lolomi." Next she threw sticks of wood upon the fire,
making it crackle and blaze, then seated herself near Carley and beamed
upon her.

"You'll not mind if we call you Carley?" she asked, eagerly.

"Oh, indeed no! I--I'd like it," returned Carley, made to feel friendly
and at home in spite of herself.

"You see it's not as if you were just a stranger," went on Mrs. Hutter.
"Tom--that's Flo's father--took a likin' to Glenn Kilbourne when he
first came to Oak Creek over a year ago. I wonder if you all know how
sick that soldier boy was.... Well, he lay on his back for two solid
weeks--in the room we're givin' you. An' I for one didn't think he'd
ever get up. But he did. An' he got better. An' after a while he went
to work for Tom. Then six months an' more ago he invested in the sheep
business with Tom. He lived with us until he built his cabin up West
Fork. He an' Flo have run together a good deal, an' naturally he told
her about you. So you see you're not a stranger. An' we want you to feel
you're with friends."

"I thank you, Mrs. Hutter," replied Carley, feelingly. "I never could
thank you enough for being good to Glenn. I did not know he was so--so
sick. At first he wrote but seldom."

"Reckon he never wrote you or told you what he did in the war," declared
Mrs. Hutter.

"Indeed he never did!"

"Well, I'll tell you some day. For Tom found out all about him. Got some
of it from a soldier who came to Flagstaff for lung trouble. He'd been
in the same company with Glenn. We didn't know this boy's name while he
was in Flagstaff. But later Tom found ou