“Oh, where’s Chester?” she wailed.  “The whole garret’s on fire—­and I can’t carry Phenie—­and she’s asleep and can’t walk anyway!” She rushed half across the room and stopped, pointing toward a closed door, with Ford at her heels.

“She’s in there!” she cried tragically.  “Save her, quick—­and I’ll find Chester.  You’d think, with all the men there are on this ranch, there’d be some one around—­oh, and my new piano!”

She ran out of the house, scolding hysterically because the men were gone, and Ford laughed a little as he went to the door she had indicated.  When his fingers touched the knob, it turned fumblingly under another hand than his own; the door opened, and he confronted the girl whom he had tried to befriend the day before.  She had evidently just gotten out of bed, and into a flimsy blue kimono, which she was holding together at the throat with one hand, while with the other she steadied herself against the wall.  She stared blankly into his eyes, and her face was very white indeed, with her hair falling thickly upon either side in two braids which reached to her hips.

Ford gave her one quick, startled glance, said “Come on,” quite brusquely, and gathered her into his arms with as little sentiment as he would have bestowed upon the piano.  His eyes smarted with the smoke, which blinded him so that he bumped into chairs on his way to the door.  Outside he stopped, and looked down at the girl, wondering what he should do with her.  Since Kate had stated emphatically that she could not walk, it seemed scarcely merciful to deposit her on the ground and leave her to her own devices.  She had closed her eyes, and she looked unpleasantly like a corpse; and there was an insistent crackling up in the roof, which warned Ford that there was little time for the weighing of fine points.  He was about to lay her on the bare ground, for want of a better place, when he glimpsed Mose running heavily across the bridge, and went hurriedly to meet him.

“Here!  You take her down and put her in one of the bunks, Mose,” he commanded, when Mose confronted him, panting a good deal because of his two hundred and fifty pounds of excess fat and a pair of down-at-the-heel slippers which hampered his movements appreciably.  Mose looked at the girl and then at his two hands.

“I can’t take her,” he lamented.  “I got m’hands full of aigs!”

Ford’s reply was a sweep of the girl’s inert figure against Mose’s outstretched hands, which freed them effectually of their burden of eggs.  “You darned chump, what’s eggs in a case like this?” he cried sharply, and forced the girl into his arms.  “You take her and put her on a bunk.  I’ve got to put out that fire!”