"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, with not more than five feet of space between them. His gaze was on her with frank curiosity, his lean, strong face glowing with the bloom of health; his mouth was firm, his eyes serene, virility and confidence in every movement of his body. And then he was speaking to her, his voice low, gentle, respectful, even deferential. He seemed not to have taken offense at Willard, seemed to have forgotten him. "I reckon you-all will have to ride out of here on my horse, ma'am," he said, "if you reckon you'd care to. Why, yes, I expect that's right; I'd ought to take the old lady an' gentleman first, ma'am," as the girl indicated them. He backed his pony and smiled at Aunt Martha, who was small, gray, and sweet of face. He grinned at her--the grin of a grown boy at his grandmother. "I reckon you'll go first, Aunty," he said to her. "I'll have you high an' dry in a jiffy. You couldn't ride there, you know," he added, as Aunt Martha essayed to climb on behind him. "This Patches of mine is considerable cantankerous an' ain't been educated to it. It's likely he'd dump us both, an' then we'd be freezin' too." And he glanced sidelong at Willard. Aunt Martha was directed to step on the edge of the buckboard. Trembling a little, though smiling, she was lifted bodily and placed sidewise on the saddle in front of him, and in this manner was carried to the bank, far up on the slope out of the deep mud that spread over the level near the water's edge, and set down gently, voicing her thanks.