He had almost given up hope of finding her, when he turned his head and saw her off to one side, lying half concealed by a clump of low rose bushes. She was not unconscious, as he had thought, but was crying silently, with her face upon her folded arms and her hat askew over one ear. He stooped and touched her upon the shoulder. She lifted her head and looked at him, and drew away with a faint, withdrawing gesture, which was very slight in itself but none the less eloquent and unmistakable. Ford backed a step when he saw it and closed his lips without speaking the words he had meant to say. [Illustration: She lifted her head and looked at him, and drew away.] "Well, what do you want?" the girl asked ungraciously, after a minute spent in fumbling unseen hairpins and in straightening her hat. "I don't know why you're standing there like that, staring at me. I don't need any help." "Appearances are deceitful, then," Ford retorted. "I saw you limping over the hill, after your horse, and I saw you fall down and stay down. I had an idea that a little help would be acceptable, but of course--" "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--"