“I did tell her,” Mason confessed sheepishly.  “She wanted to know who you was, and I told her before I thought.  And she wanted to know what was the matter with your face, ‘poor fellow,’ and I told her that, too—­as near as I knew it.  I told her,” he stated sweepingly, “that you’d been on a big jamboree and had licked fourteen men hand-running.  There ain’t,” he confided with a twinkle, “any use at all in trying to keep a secret from your wife; not,” he qualified, “from a wife like Kate!  So she knows the whole darned thing, and she’s sore as the deuce because I didn’t bring you up to the house right away when you came.  She thinks you’re sufferin’ from them wounds and she’s going to doctor ’em.  That’s the way with a woman—­you never can tell what angle she’s going to look at a thing from.  You’re the man that packed me down out of the Wrangel mountains on your back, and that’s enough for her—­dang it, Kate thinks a lot of me!  Besides, you done the heroic this afternoon.  You’ve got to come.”

“There ain’t anything heroic in sloshing a few buckets of water on a barrel of burning rags,” Ford belittled, seeking in his pockets for his cigarette papers.

“How about rescuing a lady?” Mason twitted.  “You come along.  I want you up there myself.  Gosh!  I want somebody I can talk to about something besides dresses and the proper way to cure sprained ankles, and whether the grocer sent out the right brand of canned peaches.  Women are all right—­but a man wants some one around to talk to.  You ain’t married!”

“Oh.  Ain’t I?” Ford snorted.  “And what if I ain’t?”

“Say, there’s a mighty nice girl staying with us; the one you rescued.  She’s laid up now—­got bucked off, or fell off, or something yesterday, and hurt her foot—­but she’s a peach, all right.  You’ll—­”

“I know the lady,” Ford cut in dryly.  “I met her yesterday, and we commenced hating each other as soon as we got in talking distance.  She sent me to catch her horse, and then she pulled out before I got back.  She’s a peach, all right!”

“Oh.  You’re the fellow!” Mason regarded him attentively.  “Now, I don’t believe she said a word to Kate about that, and she must have known who it was packed her out of the house.  I wonder why she didn’t say anything about it to Kate!  But she wasn’t to blame for leaving you out there, honest she wasn’t.  I went out to hunt her up—­Kate got kinda worried about her—­and she told me about you, and we did wait a little while.  But it was getting cold, and she was hurt pretty bad and getting kinda wobbly, so I put her on my horse and brought her home.  But she left a note for you, and I sent a man back after you with a horse.  He come back and said he couldn’t locate you.  So we thought you’d gone to some other ranch.”  He stopped and looked quizzically at Ford.  “So you’re the man!  And you’re both here for the winter—­at least, Kate says she’s going to keep her all winter.  Gosh!  This is getting romantic!”