Lucy watched the slow, laborious struggle of the boatmen with the heavy oars until she suddenly remembered the object of her visit down to the ford.  She appeared to be alone on her side of the river.  At the landing opposite, however, were two men; and presently Lucy recognized Joel Creech and his father.  A second glance showed Indians with burros, evidently waiting for the boat.  Joel Creech jumped into a skiff and shoved off.  The elder man, judging by his motions, seemed to be trying to prevent his son from leaving the shore.  But Joel began to row up-stream, keeping close to the shore.  Lucy watched him.  No doubt he had seen her and was coming across.  Either the prospect of meeting him or the idea of meeting him there in the place where she was never herself made her want to turn at once and ride back home.  But her stubborn sense of fairness overruled that.  She would hold her ground solely in the hope of persuading Joel to be reasonable.  She saw the big flatboat sweep into line of sight at the same time Joel turned into the current.  But while the larger craft drifted slowly the other way, the smaller one came swiftly down and across.  Joel swept out of the current into the eddy, rowed across that, and slid the skiff up on the sand-bar.  Then he stepped out.  He was bareheaded and barefooted, but it was not that which made him seem a stranger to Lucy.

“Are you lookin’ fer me?” he shouted.

Lucy waved a hand for him to come up.

Then he approached.  He was a tall, lean young man, stoop-shouldered and bow-legged from much riding, with sallow, freckled face, a thin fuzz of beard, weak mouth and chin, and eyes remarkable for their small size and piercing quality and different color.  For one was gray and the other was hazel.  There was no scar on his face, but the irregularity of his features reminded one who knew that he had once been kicked in the face by a horse.

Creech came up hurriedly, in an eager, wild way that made Lucy suddenly pity him.  He did not seem to remember that the stallion had an antipathy for him.  But Lucy, if she had forgotten, would have been reminded by Sarchedon’s action.

“Look out, Joel!” she called, and she gave the black’s head a jerk.  Sarchedon went up with a snort and came down pounding the sand.  Quick as an Indian Lucy was out of the saddle.

“Lemme your quirt,” said Joel, showing his teeth like a wolf.

“No.  I wouldn’t let you hit Sarch.  You beat him once, and he’s never forgotten,” replied Lucy.

The eye of the horse and the man met and clashed, and there was a hostile tension in their attitudes.  Then Lucy dropped the bridle and drew Joel over to a huge drift-log, half buried in the sand.  Here she sat down, but Joel remained standing.  His gaze was now all the stranger for its wistfulness.  Lucy was quick to catch a subtle difference in him, but she could not tell wherein it lay.

“What’d you want?” asked Joel.