But he was
the embodiment of the raw, crude violence of the West. He was the eyes of
the natural primitive man, believing what he saw. He had seen in Carley
Burch the paraded charm, the unashamed and serene front, the woman seeking
man. Haze Ruff had been neither vile nor base nor unnatural. It had been
her subjection to the decadence of feminine dress that had been unnatural.
But Ruff had found her a lie. She invited what she did not want. And his
scorn had been commensurate with the falsehood of her. So might any man
have been justified in his insult to her, in his rejection of her. Haze
Ruff had found her unfit for his idea of dalliance. Virgil Rust had found
her false to the ideals of womanhood for which he had sacrificed all but
life itself. What then had Glenn Kilbourne found her? He possessed the
greatness of noble love. He had loved her before the dark and changeful
tide of war had come between them. How had he judged her? That last sight
of him standing alone, leaning with head bowed, a solitary figure trenchant
with suggestion of tragic resignation and strength, returned to flay
Carley. He had loved, trusted, and hoped. She saw now what his hope had
been--that she would have instilled into her blood the subtle, red, and
revivifying essence of calling life in the open, the strength of the wives
of earlier years, an emanation from canyon, desert, mountain, forest, of
health, of spirit, of forward-gazing natural love, of the mysterious saving
instinct he had gotten out of the West.
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