That smile made up to Carley for all the clamoring sensations of stiff, sore muscles. It made her ashamed that she could not fling herself into this adventure with all her heart. Carley essayed to sit up. “Oh, I’m afraid my anatomy has become disconnected!... Glenn, do I look a sight?” She never would have asked him that if she had not known she could bear inspection at such an inopportune moment.
“You look great,” he asserted, heartily. “You’ve got color. And as for your hair—I like to see it mussed that way. You were always one to have it dressed—just so.... Come, Carley, rustle now.”
Thus adjured, Carley did her best under adverse circumstances. And she was gritting her teeth and complimenting herself when she arrived at the task of pulling on her boots. They were damp and her feet appeared to have swollen. Moreover, her ankles were sore. But she accomplished getting into them at the expense of much pain and sundry utterances more forcible than elegant. Glenn brought her warm water, a mitigating circumstance. The morning was cold and thought of that biting desert water had been trying.
“Shore you’re doing fine,” was Flo’s greeting. “Come and get it before we throw it out.”
Carley made haste to comply with the Western mandate, and was once again confronted with the singular fact that appetite did not wait upon the troubles of a tenderfoot. Glenn remarked that at least she would not starve to death on the trip.
“Come, climb the ridge with me,” he invited. “I want you to take a look to the north and east.”
He led her off through the cedars, up a slow red-earth slope, away from the lake. A green moundlike eminence topped with flat red rock appeared near at hand and not at all a hard climb. Nevertheless, her eyes deceived her, as she found to the cost of her breath. It was both far away and high.
“I like this location,” said Glenn. “If I had the money I’d buy this section of land—six hundred and forty acres—and make a ranch of it. Just under this bluff is a fine open flat bench for a cabin. You could see away across the desert clear to Sunset Peak. There’s a good spring of granite water. I’d run water from the lake down into the lower flats, and I’d sure raise some stock.”
“What do you call this place?” asked Carley, curiously.
“Deep Lake. It’s only a watering place for sheep and cattle. But there’s fine grazing, and it’s a wonder to me no one has ever settled here.”