ght pretty boots of yours
wouldn't spoil 'em. I'll lead the blacks over an' you can work your jaw
on 'em."

"Thanks," said Masten, sneering, "I've had enough wettings for one day. I
have no doubt that you can get the wagon out, by your own crude methods.
I shall not interfere, you may be sure."

He stalked away from the water's edge and ascended the slope to a point
several feet in advance of the wagon. Standing there, he looked across
the mud at the girl and the others, as though disdaining to exchange
further words with the rider.

The latter gazed at him, sidelong, with humorous malice in his glance.
Then he wheeled his pony, rode back toward the wagon, veered when almost
to it and forced the pony to climb the slope, thus getting Masten between
the rope and the mud. He pulled the rope taut again, swinging wagon
tongue and wheels at a sharp angle toward him, drove the spurs into the
flanks of the pony and headed it toward the mud level, swinging so that
the rope described a quarter circle. It was a time-honored expedient
which, he expected, would produce the jerk releasing the wagon.

If he expected the action would produce other results, the rider gave no
indication of it. Only the girl, watching him closely and seeing a hard
gleam in his eyes, sensed that he was determined to achieve a double
result, and she cried out to Masten. The warning came too late. The taut
rope, making its wide swing, struck Masten in the small of the back,
lifted him, and bore him resistlessly out into the mud level, where he
landed, face down, while the wagon, released, swished past him on its way
to freedom.

The rider took the wagon far up the sloping trail before he brought it to
a halt. Then, swinging it sideways so that it would not roll back into
the mud, he turned and looked back at Masten. The latter had got to his
feet, mud-bespattered, furious.

The rider looked from Masten to the girl, his expression one of
hypocritical gravity. The girl's face was flushed with indignation over
the affront offered her friend. She had punished him for his jealousy,
she had taken her part in mildly ridiculing him. But it was plain to the
rider when he turned and saw her face, that she resented the indignity
she had just witnessed. She was rigid; her hands were clenched, her arms
stiff at her sides; her voice was icy, even, though husky with suppressed
passion.

"I suppose I must thank you for getting the wagon out," she said. "But
that--t