enly that she screamed. She felt
splashes, saw a swimming flood, and found herself lifted down upon the
shore. The rider said something to her about cheering up, and its being
all right, but her wits were stock-still, so she did not speak and thank
him. After four days of train and thirty hours of stage, she was having
a little too much of the unknown at once. Then the tall man gently
withdrew leaving her to become herself again. She limply regarded the
river pouring round the slanted stage, and a number of horsemen with
ropes, who righted the vehicle, and got it quickly to dry land, and
disappeared at once with a herd of cattle, uttering lusty yells.

She saw the tall one delaying beside the driver, and speaking. He spoke
so quietly that not a word reached her, until of a sudden the driver
protested loudly. The man had thrown something, which turned out to be
a bottle. This twisted loftily and dived into the stream. He said
something more to the driver, then put his hand on the saddle-horn,
looked half-lingeringly at the passenger on the bank, dropped his
grave eyes from hers, and swinging upon his horse, was gone just as the
passenger opened her mouth and with inefficient voice murmured, "Oh,
thank you!" at his departing back.

The driver drove up now, a chastened creature. He helped Miss Wood in,
and inquired after her welfare with a hanging head; then meek as his own
drenched horses, he climbed back to his reins, and nursed the stage on
toward the Bow Leg Mountains much as if it had been a perambulator.

As for Miss Wood, she sat recovering, and she wondered what the man on
the horse must think of her. She knew that she was not ungrateful, and
that if he had given her an opportunity she would have explained to him.
If he supposed that she did not appreciate his act--Here into the midst
of these meditations came an abrupt memory that she had screamed--she
could not be sure when. She rehearsed the adventure from the beginning,
and found one or two further uncertainties--how it had all been while
she was on the horse, for instance. It was confusing to determine
precisely what she had done with her arms. She knew where one of his
arms had been. And the handkerchief with the flowers was gone. She made
a few rapid dives in search of it. Had she, or had she not, seen him
putting something in his pocket? And why had she behaved so unlike
herself? In a few miles Miss Wood entertained sentiments of maidenly
resentment towar