Before they reached that definite conclusion, the storm which had been brewing for several days swooped down upon them, and drove Ford to the alternative of riding in the teeth of it to town, which was not only unpleasant but dangerous, if it grew any worse, or retracing his steps to the Double Cross and waiting there until it was over.  So that is what he did, with Rock to bear him willing company.

They met Dick and Curly on the way, and though Ford stopped them and suggested that they turn back also, neither would do so.  Curly intimated plainly that the joys of town were calling to him from afar, and that facing a storm was merely calculated to make his destination more alluring by contrast.  “Turn back with two months’ wages burning up my inside pocket?  Oh, no!” he laughed, and rode on.  Dick did not say why, but he rode on also.  Ford turned in the saddle and looked after them, as they disappeared in a swirl of fine snow.

“That’s what I ought to do,” he said, “but I’m not going to do it, all the same.”

“Which only goes to prove,” bantered Rock, “that the Double Cross pulls harder than all the preacher could tell you.  I wonder if there isn’t a girl at the Double Cross, now!”

“There is,” Ford confessed, with a grin of embarrassment.  “And you shut up.”

“I just had a hunch there was,” Rock permitted himself to say meekly, before he dropped the subject.

It was ten minutes before Ford spoke again.

“I’ll take you up to the house and introduce you to her, Rock, if you’ll behave yourself,” he offered then, with a shyness in his manner that nearly set Rock off in one of his convulsions of mirth.  “But the missus isn’t wise—­so watch out.  And if you don’t behave yourself,” he added darkly, “I’ll knock your block off.”

“Sure.  But my block is going to remain right where it’s at,” Rock assured him, which was a tacit promise of as perfect behavior as he could attain.

They looked like snow men when they unsaddled, with the powdery snow beaten into the very fabric of their clothing, and Ford suggested that they go first to the bunk-house to thaw out.  “I’d sure hate to pack all this snow into Mrs. Kate’s parlor,” he added whimsically.  “She’s the kind of housekeeper that grabs the broom the minute you’re gone, to sweep your tracks off the carpet.  Awful nice little woman, but—­”

“But not The One,” chuckled Rock, treading close upon Ford’s heels.  “And I’ll bet fifteen cents,” he offered rashly, looking up, “that the person hitting the high places for the bunk-house is The One.”

“How do you know?” Ford demanded, while his eyes gladdened at sight of Josephine, with a Navajo blanket flung over her head, running down the path through the blizzard to the bunk-house kitchen.

“’Cause she shied when she saw you coming.  Came pretty near breaking back on you, too,” Rock explained shrewdly.

They reached the kitchen together, and Ford threw open the door, and held it for her to pass.