“That was an hour ago,” she interrupted accusingly, with a measuring glance at the sun, which was settling toward the sky-line.

“I had trouble getting across that washout down there.  I don’t know this part of the country, and I went down it instead of up.  What are you crying about—­if you don’t need any help?”

She eyed him askance, and chewed upon a corner of her lip, and flipped the upturned hem of her riding skirt down over one spurred foot with a truly feminine instinct, before she answered him.  She seemed to be thinking hard and fast, and she hesitated even while she spoke.  Ford wondered at the latent antagonism in her manner.

“I was crying because my foot hurts so and because I don’t see how I’m going to get back to the ranch.  I suppose they’ll hunt me up if I stay away long enough—­but it’s getting toward night, and—­I’m scared to death of coyotes, if you must know!”

Ford laughed—­at her defiance, in the face of her absolute helplessness, more than at what she said.  “And you tell me you don’t need any help?” he bantered.

“I might borrow your horse,” she suggested coldly, as if she grudged yielding even that much to circumstance.  “Or you might catch mine for me, I suppose.”

“Sure.  But you needn’t hate me because you’re in trouble,” he hinted irrelevantly.  “I’m not to blame, you know.”

“I—­I hate to ask help from—­a stranger,” she said, watching him from under her lashes.  “And I can’t help showing what I feel.  I hate to feel under an obligation—­”

“If that’s all, forget it,” he assured her calmly.  “It’s a law of the open—­to help a fellow out in a pinch.  When I headed for here, I thought it was a man had been set afoot.”

She eyed him curiously.  “Then you didn’t know—­”

“I thought you were a man,” he repeated.  “I didn’t come just because I saw it was a girl.  You needn’t feel under any obligation whatever.  I’m a stranger in the country and a stranger to you.  I’m perfectly willing to stay that way, if you prefer.  I’m not trying to scrape acquaintance on the strength of your being in trouble; but you surely don’t expect a man to ride on and leave a woman out here on the bald prairie—­do you?  Especially when she’s confessed she’s afraid of the dark—­and coyotes!”

She was staring at him while he spoke, and she continued to stare after he had finished; the introspective look which sees without seeing, it became at last, and Ford gave a shrug at her apparent obstinacy and turned away to where Rambler stood with his head drooped and his eyes half closed.  He picked up the reins and chirped to him, and the horse hesitated, swung his left foot painfully forward, hobbled a step, and looked at Ford reproachfully.

“Your horse is crippled as badly as I am, it would seem,” the girl observed, from where she sat watching them.

“I strained his shoulder, trying to make him jump that washout.  That was 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.