"I found some flour and pork had gone. Since one can't get food between here and the settlement, it looked as if somebody meant to pull out before we broke camp."
Jim nodded. "The fellow said he'd made a cache. You're very smart. But why didn't you tell Jake?"
"I suppose I ought to have told him," Carrie replied.
He mused for a few moments and then broke out: "We have taken you for granted. When a thing needs doing you don't talk, but get to work. Perhaps this has drawbacks; it doesn't always strike one how fine you really are."
Carrie said nothing, and he went on. "Now I come to think of it, I've been strangely dull. You have cooked for us, and cared for us in ways we didn't know. I'd sometimes a notion my clothes were wearing longer than they ought—there was a jacket I meant to mend and when I got it out one evening I couldn't find the hole." He paused and spread out his hands. "Well, that's the kind of fool I am and the kind of girl you are!"
"The hole had bothered me for a long time. It was getting bigger and one doesn't like untidiness."
"I've been very dull, but so has Jake," Jim declared. "I saw a neat patch on his overalls and thought he'd made a better job than he generally does when he starts sewing. I imagine he doesn't know how that patch got there."
"I don't think he knows there is a patch," Carrie rejoined.
"It's possible," Jim agreed, and studied her, for the moon was bright. Her plain dress was very neat and seemed to have stood rough wear well. Besides, it was remarkably becoming; Carrie was tall and graceful. In fact, she was prettier than he had thought.
"The way you keep your clothes is rather wonderful," he went on. "One never sees you untidy; all you wear looks just as it ought to look. One feels it wouldn't look half as well if it was worn by anybody else. Yet you're generally occupied and your work's not clean. I can't touch a cooking pot without getting black, and Jake gets blacker."