so fast!" he yelled. "I can't follow yuh."

"Who--who is it?" The voice sounded perturbed; and it was, moreover, the
voice of a woman.

Vaughan pulled up short and swore into his collar. Women are not, as a
rule, to be met out on the blank prairie in a blizzard. His voice, when
he spoke again, was not ironical, as it had been; it was placating.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I thought it was a man. I'm looking for
the Cross L; you don't happen to know where it is, do yuh?"

"No--I don't," she declared dismally. "I don't know where any place is.
I'm teaching school in this neighborhood--or in some other. I was going
to spend Sunday with a friend, but this storm came up, and I'm--lost."

"Same here," said Rowdy pleasantly, as though being lost was a matter
for congratulation.

"Oh! I was in hopes--"

"So was I, so we're even there. We'll have to pool our chances, I guess.
Any gate down that way--or haven't you followed the fence?"

"I followed it for miles and miles--it seemed. It must be some big field
of the Cross L; but they have so very many big fields!"

"And you couldn't give a rough guess at how far it is to the Cross
L?"--insinuatingly.

He could vaguely see her shake of head. "Ordinarily it should be about
six miles beyond Rodway's, where I board. But I haven't the haziest idea
of where Rodway's place is, you see; so that won't help you much. I'm
all at sea in this snow." Her voice was rueful.

"Well, if you came up the fence, there's no use going back that way; and
there's sure nothing made by going away from it.--that's the way I came.
Why not go on the way you're headed?"

"We might as well, I suppose," she assented; and Rowdy turned and rode
by her side, grateful for the plurality of the pronoun which tacitly
included him in her wanderings, and meditating many things. For one, he
wondered if she were as nice a girl as her voice sounded. He could not
see much of her face, because it was muffled in a white silk scarf. Only
her eyes showed, and they were dark and bright.

When he awoke to the fact that the wind, grown colder, beat upon her
cruelly, he dropped behind a pace and took the windy side, that he might
shield her with his body. But if she observed the action she gave no
sign; her face was turned from him and the wind, and she rode without
speaking. After long plodding, the line of posts turned unexpectedly a
right angle, and Vaughan took a long, relieved breath.

"We'll have the wind on