The trail led along the creek, threading a maze of bowlders, passing
into the shade of cottonwoods, and crossing sun-flecked patches of sand.
Carley's every step seemed to become slower. Regrets were assailing
her. Long indeed had she overstayed her visit to the West. She must not
linger there indefinitely. And mingled with misgiving was a surprise
that she had not tired of Oak Creek. In spite of all, and of the dislike
she vaunted to herself, the truth stared at her--she was not tired.

The long-delayed visit to see Glenn working on his own farm must result
in her talking to him about his work; and in a way not quite clear she
regretted the necessity for it. To disapprove of Glenn! She received
faint intimations of wavering, of uncertainty, of vague doubt. But these
were cried down by the dominant and habitable voice of her personality.

Presently through the shaded and shadowed breadth of the belt of forest
she saw gleams of a sunlit clearing. And crossing this space to the
border of trees she peered forth, hoping to espy Glenn at his labors.
She saw an old shack, and irregular lines of rude fence built of poles
of all sizes and shapes, and several plots of bare yellow ground,
leading up toward the west side of the canyon wall. Could this clearing
be Glenn's farm? Surely she had missed it or had not gone far enough.
This was not a farm, but a slash in the forested level of the canyon
floor, bare and somehow hideous. Dead trees were standing in the lots.
They had been ringed deeply at the base by an ax, to kill them, and so
prevent their foliage from shading the soil. Carley saw a long pile of
rocks that evidently had been carried from the plowed ground. There
was no neatness, no regularity, although there was abundant evidence of
toil. To clear that rugged space, to fence it, and plow it, appeared at
once to Carley an extremely strenuous and useless task. Carley persuaded
herself that this must be the plot of ground belonging to the herder
Charley, and she was about to turn on down the creek when far up under
the bluff she espied a man. He was stalking along and bending down,
stalking along and bending down. She recognized Glenn. He was planting
something in the yellow soil.