The next morning, feeling a little foolish in his new rôle of gallant—as the Professor called it—Stamford stretched his five-feet-odd on the seat of the buckboard beside the towering six-feet-three of his tormentor. Down the river trail, and thence along the edge of the rough beach rock below the corrals, the skeleton buggy bounced eastward to the only ford west of the Double Bar-O. The one consolation to the injured pride of the smaller man was that his companion insisted on letting him drive. Stamford had always considered his accomplishments with the reins as born of necessity rather than of experience, but the Professor frankly refused to expose himself to his own driving.
"I'd even let Isabel do the driving," he confided, "if it weren't that I'd rather die a man's death than live a male baby with a female chaperon."
The ford was used only at long intervals as access to pastures across the river. It was plain enough at its southern entrance to the river flood, but to those who did not know it the course thereafter was a matter of conjecture. Stamford drove into the water with more trepidation than he allowed himself to show, anxiously searching the torrent ahead. Mid-stream the water bubbled through the slats of the buckboard, and the team, terrified by the prospect, pulled up. Stamford urged them on, but Gee-Gee leaped against his mate, forcing him into deep water. The buckboard would have overturned were it not built for almost any situation into which a horse might force it. Stamford stood up to get a shorter hold of the lines, but the Professor swept him back to the seat with one strong arm and took control. Immediately the team seemed to find bottom and courage together.
As they climbed the gently sloping grade on the north side, the Professor lifted his hands and stared at the reins.
"Goodness! How did I get them? Did you—did you give them to me? I hope I didn't use force. Honest, Mr. Stamford, I never did such a thing in my life before. Was I very frightened? Don't tell the women, please. I'm horribly and disgustingly proud." He squared his shoulders. "Say! with practice I believe I could get on to the hang of the thing. Let's get the practice right now when my spirits are high. We'll do that crossing again. It looks shallower up this way."
Before Stamford could voice his protest the team was around and re-entering the water. With much waving of arms and shouting they completed the double passage of the river in safety by a better route.
"There!" The Professor handed the reins back and mopped his forehead with the big handkerchief. "I'm more puffed up than when they Ph.D.'ed me. Will you be good enough to steer for that bulge in the cliff? I like the looks of the flexure there."
All day Stamford yawned and slept and tried to read, and opened his eyes to the blazing sky and heated rocks. The Professor, his round spectacles pressed close to the ground, poked off among the rocks. At lunch-time he reported his delight at the prospects and could scarcely stop to eat, though he managed his share easily enough when he started. In the evening they drove back over the ford, Stamford hot and irritated, the Professor gushing with anticipation.
"You know," he said, "I wonder more neurasthenics don't give this climate a chance at them."
"Good heavens! You don't think I'm a neurasthenic?"