chill had not yet gone out of
the air. But then, Willard had earned his ducking.

The girl cleared her throat. "We have had an accident," she informed the
rider, her voice a little husky.

At this word he swept his hat from his head and bowed to her. "Why, I
reckon you have, ma'am," he said. "Didn't you have no driver?"

"Why, yes," returned the girl hesitatingly, for she thought she detected
sarcasm in his voice, and she had to look twice at him to make sure--and
then she couldn't have told. "The gentleman on the bank, there, is our
driver."

"The gentleman on the bank, eh?" drawled the rider. And now for the first
time he seemed to become aware of Willard's presence, for he looked
narrowly at him. "Why, he's all wet!" he exclaimed. "I expect he come
pretty near drownin', didn't he, ma'am?" He looked again at the girl,
astonishment in his eyes. "An' so he drove you into that suck-hole, an'
he got throwed out! Wasn't there no one to tell him that Calamity ain't
to be trusted?"

"Mr. Vickers told us to keep to the right after reaching the middle,"
said the girl.

"I distinctly understood him to say the left, Ruth," growled Willard.

The rider watched the girl's face, saw the color come into it, and his
lips twitched with some inward emotion. "I reckon your brother's right,
ma'am. Vickers wanted to drownd you-all."

"Mr. Masten isn't my brother," denied the girl. The color in her face
heightened.

"Well, now," said the rider. He bent his head and patted the pony's mane
to hide his disappointment. Again, so it seemed to the girl, he was
deliberately delaying, and she bit her lips with vexation.

Willard also seemed to have the same thought, for he shouted angrily:
"While you are talking there, my man, I am freezing. Isn't there some way
for you to get my party and the wagon out of there?"

"Why, I expect there's a way," drawled the rider, fixing Masten with a
steady eye; "I've been wonderin' why you didn't mention it before."

"Oh Lord!" said Masten to the girl, his disgust making his voice husky,
"can you imagine such stupidity?"

But the girl did not answer; she had seen a glint in the rider's eyes
while he had been looking at Masten which had made her draw a deep
breath. She had seen guile in his eyes, and subtlety, and much humor.
Stupidity! She wondered how Masten could be so dense!

Then she became aware that the rider was splashing toward her, and the
next instant she was looking straight at him, w