seemed to be about, lately."

"Well, I never saw any on this road! I've a revolver, anyhow."

"I'm g-glad," said Paulette; and the word jerked out of her, and my arms
jerked nearly out of me. In the dark the wagon had hit something that
felt like nothing but a boulder in the middle of my decent road. The
wagon stopped dead, with an up-ending lurch, and nothing holding it to
the horses but the reins. Why on earth they held I don't know. For with
one almighty bound my two young horses tried to get away from me,--and
they would have, if the reins had not been new ones. As it was I had a
minute's hard fighting before I got them under. When they stood still
the girl beside me peered over the front of the wagon into the dark.
"It's the whiffletree, I think," she said, as if she were used to
wagons.

I peered over myself and hoped so. "Mercy if it is," said I. "If it's a
wheel we're stuck here. Scott, I wonder if I've a bit of rope!"

Paulette Brown pulled out ten feet of spun yarn from under her coat; and
if you come to think of it, it was a funny thing for a girl to have. It
struck me, rather oddly, that she must have come prepared for accidents.
"There," she said, "I expect you can patch us up if I hold the horses.
Here's a knife, too, and"--I turned hot all over, for she was putting
something else into my hand, just as if she knew I had been wondering
about it since first we started; but she went on without a
break--"here's my revolver. Put it in your pocket. I'd sooner you kept
it."

I was thankful I had had the decency to trust her before she gave the
weapon to me. But I was blazingly angry with myself when I got out of
the wagon and saw just what had happened. Fair in the middle of my new
road was a boulder that the frost must have loosened from the steep
hillside that towered over us; and the front of the wagon had hit it
square,--which it would not have done if I had been looking at the road
instead of talking to a girl who was no business of mine, now or ever. I
got the horses out of the traces and the pole straps, and let Paulette
hold them while I levered the boulder out of the way, down the hillside.
I was scared to do it, too, for fear they would get away from her, but
she was evidently as used to horses as to wagons: Bob and Danny stood
for her like lambs, while I set to work to repair damages. The pole was
snapped, and the whiffletree smashed, so that the traces were useless. I
did some fair jury work with