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.