In a sort of incredulous wonder, of charmed horror, the girl heard
herself thus unfeelingly described.

"You--you barbarian!" she cried.

"Ready? We're off for town now."

"I'll run my car in the ditch and wreck it if you so much as pull it
another inch!"

"I don't like to be frustrated in my generous acts; they are so few,
according to common report. Well, we'll leave the car, but it must be
drawn off the road."

When this was accomplished, Weir replaced the rope in his machine.
Then he returned to her.

"What now? Do you intend to sit here in the hot sunshine, to say
nothing of missing your dinner?"

"That doesn't concern you."

Weir shook his head gravely.

"You must be saved from your own folly," said he.

Before she had realized what was happening, he had opened the door of
the runabout, swung her out upon the ground and was marching her
towards his own machine. Stupefaction at this quick, atrocious deed
left her an automaton; and before she had fully regained her control
they were speeding towards San Mateo, she at his side.

"This is outrageous!" she gasped.

Steele Weir did not speak until they entered town.

"Where is your home?" he asked.

"Turn to the right at the end of the street."

It was before a house of modern structure, banked with a bewildering
number of flowers and shaded by trees, that he halted the car. He
alighted, bared his head, assisted her to descend, bowed and then
without a word drove away, leaving her to stare after him with a
baffling mixture of feelings and the single indignant statement, "And
he didn't even wait long enough for me to thank him!" Nor did her
perplexity lessen when her car was left before the door during the
afternoon by one of the camp mechanics to whom Weir had telephoned
from San Mateo and who had put it in running order.

Weir himself proceeded to Bowenville, where matters regarding
shipments and the unloading of machinery engaged him the rest of the
day. Into his mind, however, there floated at moments the image of the
girl's face, banish it as he would. He had learned her name by asking
who was the owner of the house where she had alighted, information
necessary to direct the mechanic as to the delivery of the stalled
car. Hosmer it was; and the residence was that of Dr. Hosmer.
Presumably she was his daughter. And what a vivid, charming,
never-surrender enemy! Lucky the chap who had won this high-spirited
girl.

The memory of her eyes and