The feat seemed monstrous and impossible of accomplishment for Carley.  Yet such was her temper at the moment that she would have undertaken anything.

“Why, shore I will, as Flo says,” replied Carley, extending her ungloved hands.  “Come here, piggy.  I christen you Pinky.”  And hiding an almost insupportable squeamishness from Glenn, she took the pig in her hands and fondled it.

“By George!” exclaimed Glenn, in huge delight.  “I wouldn’t have believed it.  Carley, I hope you tell your fastidious and immaculate Morrison that you held one of my pigs in your beautiful hands.”

“Wouldn’t it please you more to tell him yourself?” asked Carley.

“Yes, it would,” declared Glenn, grimly.

This incident inspired Glenn to a Homeric narration of his hog-raising experience.  In spite of herself the content of his talk interested her.  And as for the effect upon her of his singular enthusiasm, it was deep and compelling.  The little-boned Berkshire razorback hogs grew so large and fat and heavy that their bones broke under their weight.  The Duroc jerseys were the best breed in that latitude, owing to their larger and stronger bones, that enabled them to stand up under the greatest accumulation of fat.

Glenn told of his droves of pigs running wild in the canyon below.  In summertime they fed upon vegetation, and at other seasons on acorns, roots, bugs, and grubs.  Acorns, particularly, were good and fattening feed.  They ate cedar and juniper berries, and pinyon nuts.  And therefore they lived off the land, at little or no expense to the owner.  The only loss was from beasts and birds of prey.  Glenn showed Carley how a profitable business could soon be established.  He meant to fence off side canyons and to segregate droves of his hogs, and to raise abundance of corn for winter feed.  At that time there was a splendid market for hogs, a condition Hutter claimed would continue indefinitely in a growing country.  In conclusion Glenn eloquently told how in his necessity he had accepted gratefully the humblest of labors, to find in the hard pursuit of it a rejuvenation of body and mind, and a promise of independence and prosperity.

When he had finished, and excused himself to go repair a weak place in the corral fence, Carley sat silent, wrapped in strange meditation.

Whither had faded the vulgarity and ignominy she had attached to Glenn’s raising of hogs?  Gone—­like other miasmas of her narrow mind!  Partly she understood him now.  She shirked consideration of his sacrifice to his country.  That must wait.  But she thought of his work, and the more she thought the less she wondered.