s
when I first got sight of you over here. We went to the bottom and it
took me quite a while to find a way out. That's why I was so long
getting here." Ford explained indifferently, with his back to her,
while he rubbed commiseratingly the swelling shoulder.

"Oh." The girl waited. "It seems to me you need help yourself. I don't
see how you expect to help any one else, with your horse in that
condition," she added. And when he still did not speak, she asked: "Do
you know how far it is to the nearest ranch?"

"No. I told you I'm a stranger in this country. I was heading for the
Double Cross, but I don't know just--"

"We're eight miles, straight across, from there; ten, the way we would
have to go to get there. There are other washouts in this country--which
it is unwise to attempt jumping, Mr.--"

"Campbell," Ford supplied shortly.

"I beg your pardon? You mumbled--"

"Campbell!" Ford was tempted to shout it but contented himself with a
tart distinctness. A late, untoward incident had made him somewhat
touchy over his name, and he had not mumbled.

"Oh. Did you skin your face and blacken your eye, Mr. Campbell, when
you tried to jump that washout?"

"No." Ford did not offer any explanation. He remembered the scars of
battle which were still plainly visible upon his countenance, and he
turned red while he bent over the fore ankles of Rambler, trying to
discover other sprains. He felt that he was going to dislike this girl
very much before he succeeded in getting her to shelter. He could not
remember ever meeting before a woman under forty with so unpleasant a
manner and with such a talent for disagreeable utterances.

"Then you must have been fighting a wildcat," she hazarded.

"Pardon me; is this a Methodist experience meeting?" he retorted,
looking full at her with lowering brows. "It seems to me the only
subject which concerns us mutually is the problem of getting to a ranch
before dark."

"You'll have to solve it yourself. I never attempt puzzles." The girl,
somewhat to his surprise, showed no resentment at his rebuff. Indeed, he
began to suspect her of being secretly amused. He began also mentally
to accuse her of not being too badly hurt to walk, if she wanted to;
indeed, his skepticism went so far as to accuse her of deliberately
baiting him--though why, he did not try to conjecture. Women were queer.
Witness his own late experience with one.

Being thus in a finely soured mood, Ford suggested that