dancing with Malachi. Her glance rested on Dover as the rancher and his men entered, but she at once looked away. The doctor danced well, and had taken the trouble to improve his appearance. But he was his usual flippant self.
'I will wager a waltz that I can guess your thoughts,' he said: 'Is it a bet?'
'Why, yes,' she smiled.
'You are wondering what I am doing out here in the wilds.' The girl flushed. 'You win,' she said. 'Now tell me.'
'I might answer with your own question,' he parried. 'Mister Trenton is my sole remaining relative.'
'Tough luck,' he murmured, and noting the tiny crease between her level brows, 'I mean, of course, being reduced to one. Now I had too many relations, and they all had ideas as to what 1 should do with my life, so I ran away.'
'But why choose such a--sordid place?'
'Sordid? Well, I suppose to Eastern eyes it would seem so; a wit once said that Rainbow started with a saloon to supply the necessaries of life, and the store came later to provide the luxuries. But have you reflected that this same sordid settlement may one day become a great city, of which--as an early inhabitant--I may be regarded as a foundation stone?'
'Now you are laughing at me,' she protested.
'No, I'm serious. `Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, may stop a hole to keep the rats away.' At present, I'm only stopping the holes these foolish people make in one another. Which reminds me, you must see our cemetery--it is really pretty.'
'You would naturally be interested in it,' she replied, paying him in his own coin of raillery.
'Very little,' he smiled. 'Most of those within it required no aid from my profession to enter the other world. Ah, the fiddle has beaten the piano by a whole bar. Hello, Dan, you've met Miss Trenton?'
The young rancher, by whose side they had stopped, looked into the girl's cool, unsmiling eyes, and said, 'No.'
'Well, you have now,' Malachi replied. 'Ask her prettily and perhaps she'll dance with you.'
He left them, and Dan's gaze travelled over the slender, simply but perfectly-clad figure. 'Will you?' he queried.
She made a pretence of consulting her card. 'I have no vacancy,' she said icily. 'Besides, only a skunk can dance with a skunk.'
Dan's mouth hardened; it had been an effort to ask, and the scornful reminder of his rudeness made him reckless. His eyes swept the room, noting that many Wagon-wheel riders were present.
'You shore fetched along plenty partners,' he flung back, and turned away.
Garstone found her red and angry. 'I don't like that young man,' she told him.
'That's something else we have in common,' he said. 'I hate the sight of him.'
He slid a possessive arm about her and steered into the throng. He was easily the best-dressed and most striking man in the company, and in spite of his bigness, light on his feet. Dan, watching with narrowed eyes, was conscious that they made a perfect pair. He was also painfully aware that everyone else seemed to be having a good time. As usual, on these occasions, males predominated, but this did not trouble the cowboys, for when ladies were lacking, they just grabbed another of their kind and jigged about, exchanging quaint expletives when a collision occurred. Blister and Slow--the late fracas now only a matter for mirth--were performing together, and a fragment of their conversation reached him. Blister was the gentleman.
'Never seen you lookin' so peart, pardner,' he complimented in dulcet tones. 'You bin washin', or somethin'?'
'Yeah, y'oughta try it,' the 'lady' instantly retorted.
'you'd dance well too, if you knowed what to do with yore feet,' Blister went on.
'I'll shore know what to do with one if you trample on 'em any more,' was the spirited response.
At any other time this, and the sight of Tiny, carefully convoying the school-mistress--an austere-faced lady of uncertain age--and holding her bony form as though it were a piece of delicate china, would have moved him to merriment, but now...
'Might be goin' to his own funeral,' he muttered. 'Hell, I'll get me a drink.'
Again he met with disappointment; he ran- into Maitland - and had to be introduced to the banker's wife--a colourless little woman with a tired face. Then he found himself dancing with the daughter.
'When we came here, I didn't think I was going to like it,' she confided, 'but I am. The cowboys are so picturesque, and I'm longing to see a ranch.'
'You'd be disappointed,' he told her. 'Just a lot o' land, with some cows sprinkled around.'
The expected invitation not having materialized, she changed the subject. 'Isn't Miss Trenton charming-- quite the prettiest girl here, but perhaps you don't care for brunettes?'
'If a fella likes a woman I reckon the colour of her hair don't matter,' he fenced.
'See, she's dancing with that sick-looking boy; she must be real kind.'
Miss Maitland was right, and wrong. Beth, anxious to humiliate the man who had again been rude to her, had hit upon a means; the honour he had solicited should be conferred upon the least important of his outfit. Yorky, feeling rather unsure of himself, despite his contempt for the 'hayseeds,' suddenly found the belle of the evening sitting by and looking kindly at him.
'You must be the boy Doctor Malachi was telling me about,' she said. 'Like myself, you come from the East.'
'Yes'm, li'l ol' Noo York,' he stammered, and added, 'Allus sump'n doin' there.'
'Far too much doing,' she smiled. 'Unending noise and hustle, never any rest. I didn't like it.'
This was another blow to the boy's faith in 'li'l ol' Noo York.'
'Jim don't neither,' he admitted.
'And who is Jim?'
'He's my pal,' Yorky said proudly. 'I useter loaf aroun' the house all th' time, but Jim sez, 'Quit smokin', go a-ridin' an' git th' breath o' th' pines.' So I done it, an' I'm better a'ready.'
'The breath of the pines,' she repeated. 'Your friend must be something of a poet.'
'Not on yer life,' the boy defended. 'Nuttin' slushy 'bout Jim. Gee! y'oughter see him stripped--I mean, he's--'
'A finely-made man,' she helped him out. 'You must tell me about him, and yourself, while we dance. You do dance, don't you?'
'I c'n shake a leg,' he said; and conscious that he had omitted something, 'but I dasn't ask--'
'Nonsense,' she smiled. 'I am going to enjoy it.'
And enjoy it she did, for her partner had the gamin'sinstinct for rhythm in his toes. Thus she learned how Old Man Dover had brought the boy to the ranch, and how he had hated it until a black-haired hero had come to change his outlook entirely. She was told about Flint, and what 'fine guys' the boys were.
'And Mister Dan, is he a fine guy too?' she asked. 'Shore he is, white clean t'rough,' Yorky said loyally.
Miss Trenton stole a glance at the rancher as he passed, and failed to experience the exultation she had expected. When the music ceased, she dismissed her partner with a gracious word of thanks. Garstone stepped to her side.
'Why on earth were you dancing with that tramp?' he asked.
There was a warning flash in the dark eyes. 'I believe it is a lady's privilege to select her partner.'
'Of course, but if you must take one of the opposite camp, surely it need not be the stable-boy.'
'The stable-boy behaved like a gentleman,' she said coldly. 'No, I am tired, and wish to rest a little. Miss Maitland is looking appealingly in this direction; I am sure she will oblige.'
'That's a good suggestion--we have to keep in with the fellow who holds the purse-strings,' the big man laughed, but there was a frown on his face when he had turned away. Meanwhile, Yorky's sharp eyes had noticed something, and he disappeared to investigate. He returned during the next interval, and got Dan's attention.
'Say, Boss,' he whispered. 'Five or six o' th' Wagon-wheel fellers, includin' Flint, has beaten it.'
'Gone to Sody's to tank up,' Dan suggested.
'They ain't--I've bin ter see. Their hosses is missin' too,' the boy replied. 'Man I asked said he hadn't seen Flint since soon after the second hop.'---
