So Mose, a reluctant knight and an awkward one, carried the girl to the bunk-house, and left Ford free to save the house if he could.  Fortunately the fire had started in a barrel of old clothing which had stood too close to the stovepipe, and while the smoke was stifling, the flames were as yet purely local.  And, more fortunately still, that day happened to be Mrs. Mason’s wash-day and two tubs of water stood in the kitchen, close to the narrow stairway which led into the loft.  Three or four pails of water and some quick work in running up and down the stairs was all that was needed.  Ford, standing in the low, unfinished loft, looked at the rafter which was burnt half through, and wiped his perspiring face with his coat sleeve.

“Lordy me!” he observed aloud, “I sure didn’t come any too soon!”

“Oh, it’s all out!  I don’t know how I ever shall thank you in this world!  With Phenie in bed with a sprained ankle so she couldn’t walk, and the men all gone, I was just wild!  I—­why—­” Kate, standing upon the stairs so that she could look into the loft, stopped suddenly and stared at Ford with some astonishment.  Plainly, she had but then discovered that he was a stranger—­and it was quite as plain that she was taking stock of his blackened eyes and other bruises, and that with the sheltered woman’s usual tendency to exaggerate the disfigurements.

“That’s all right; I don’t need any thanks.”  Ford, seeing no other way of escape, approached her steadily, the empty bucket swinging in his hand.  “The fire’s all out, so there’s nothing more I can do here, I guess.”

“Oh, but you’ll have to bring Josephine back!” Kate’s eyes met his straightforward glance reluctantly, and not without reason; for Ford had dark, greenish purple areas in the region of his eyes, a skinned cheek, and a swollen lip; his chin was scratched and there was a bruise on his forehead where, on the night of his marriage, he had hit the floor violently under the impact of two or three struggling male humans.  Although they were five days old—­six, some of them—­these divers battle-signs were perfectly visible, not to say conspicuous; so that Kate Mason was perhaps justified in her perfectly apparent diffidence in looking at him.  So do we turn our eyes self-consciously away from a cripple, lest we give offense by gazing upon his misfortune.

“I can’t carry her, and she can’t walk—­her ankle is sprained dreadfully.  So if you’ll bring her back to the house, I’ll be ever so much—­”

“Certainly; I’ll bring her back right away.”  Ford came down the stairs so swiftly that she retreated in haste before him, and once down he did not linger; indeed, he almost ran from the house and from her embarrassed gratitude.  On the way to the bunk-house it occurred to him that it might be no easy matter, now, for Mason to conceal Ford’s identity and his sins.  From the way in which she had stared wincingly at his battered countenance, he realized that she did, indeed, have