The big room they went into was a roil of confusion; two large beds covered with great cocoons—each one a baby, wrapped in its own quilt or shawl; several mothers of somewhat older children—though babies still—trying to convince their offspring that it was time to go to sleep—and not being very successful at it.

Jammed in anyway, were girls and women getting out of riding skirts and into dancing trim, excited, laughing, squabbling over pins or a chance at the mirror. Mrs. Marchbanks pushed through with the big box that held the things for Maybelle and Hilda. She helped them to dress, calling back and forth to the others, introducing Hilda to every one, hardly taking her gaze off her, even while she hooked up Maybelle’s waist. Hilda’s glimpse in the glass had shown her that her color was flaming high. How big and bright it made her eyes look! She was almost as beautiful in the party dress as she had dreamed of being.

“There, you’re both all right now,” said Mrs. Marchbanks at last, and whispered in Hilda’s ear as she pushed them toward the door, “Mabs looks nice—but you’re a beauty!”

Maybelle, who had certainly heard her stepmother’s words, didn’t seem to mind. It appeared that she had something to think about that pleased her.

Outside, the big room was full of people. Maybelle had been right; surely everybody within twenty miles was there. It was a very big room indeed, with an earthen floor. The Grainger place, like the house at the Alamositas, was adobe, and the canvas ceiling, tacked to beams that were unpeeled logs, bulged with every draft. The deep window-seats were occupied by young couples. Some of the girls wore shirt waists and one or two from Juan Chico, or visitors bringing the fashions of the larger towns, had evening gowns of silk or chiffon. Hilda was very sure that her own dress, made by Mrs. Johnnie, would bear comparison with any of them. Mothers were still hurrying youngsters across the corner of the room. Occasionally these held back and had to be lifted and carried, protesting, away from the lights and the music which was beginning to tune up.

Alessandro Galindro’s sheep-shearer musicians were softly touching the great harp, a violin and two guitars. The lamps were already beginning to make the room hot. There would be no lack of partners, for the young men outnumbered the girls almost two to one. They were riders from the ranges, in full cowboy regalia, young fellows from town, in clothing nearer ball-room usage. Hilda knew a good many of them—had cared a lot for their admiration and their liking. If Maybelle hadn’t said that about Pearse—this afternoon when they were trying on the party dresses—she felt that this would have been a proud and happy moment. As it was, most that might have been enjoyment was swallowed up in the thought that if she met Pearse to-night—and saw when she met him that what Maybelle said was true—she must show him—

What was it Hilda was going to show Pearse Masters? At thought of it, whatever it was, her head went up, her face glowed till she shone out among the other girls as though they were pictures on a canvas, and she one that had been painted on something transparent so that the moving, rising, bending fires of life itself shone through. Oh,—she was likely to show Pearse Masters!

“The JIC crowd hasn’t come yet,” Maybelle whispered, after a quick glance around, “but will you look at old Mr. Hipp?”

A sun-baked ancient with a wrinkled frock coat ambled out into the open of the dancing floor, displaying the horseman’s bowed legs.

“Hello, Hippy—going to dance?” Lefty Adams shouted.

“Sure,” crowed the aged one. “Cain’t you see I’m dyked out for dancin’? Do you figger that I cain’t dance? Jest watch me a spell—you’ll see me cuttin’ ’em right along with the yearlin’s.”

“Come on, quick,” whispered Maybelle. “That old thing is fixing to ask one of us to dance. Let’s go down where Fayte is.”

Hilda was following perforce, since Maybelle had not let go of her wrist, when somebody halted them both. She glanced at the tall figure, a glance that despite the effort of girlish pride, herded all her blood in one great pulse. The breath paused on her lips as somebody said,

“Hilda!”

Now was the time for dignity and reserve. She raised her eyes and tried to look coolly at Pearse, but she lowered them instantly before his gaze.

She never knew when Lefty Adams took possession of Maybelle and led her out to dance. She was not aware of Fayte’s coming from down the room, pushing people out of his way to get to her, and then halting, glowering and listening. She had schooled herself to show Pearse a front of indifference, of smiling unconcern, when she should meet him. But, after all, this almost young lady was the same Hilda Van Brunt whose eager little face with its great questioning, welcoming eyes Hank Pearsall had seen first looking out of the El Centro stage, and thought how open a way happiness and pain would find to that young heart. She had no skill at building barricades, at wrapping veils around her spirit. It just would rush out and answer with artless candor whenever life hailed it. At the utterance of her name by Pearse in that tone, the pride and resentment she had tried to gather about her melted away from her clutch like smoke-wreaths.

She tried in vain to steady her gaze beneath his, to hold that highly desirable attitude of friendly indifference. As they stood together looking into each other’s eyes, the earth floor beneath her feet seemed to sink gently and slew around a bit; or was it that a great hand lifted her and turned her bodily about, so that in a flash all things were changed; she saw them—at a new angle?

Fayte Marchbanks, over there, with his half insolent flattery, his open pursuit that had been disturbing, yet somehow fascinating—he and it were as though they were not. She forgot that her first dance would be due to him as her escort. The musicians had finally got their instruments tuned; the violin sent out a little cry, the great harp throbbed and twanged, the lesser beat and strum of guitars answered, and all launched away on the music of a Spanish waltz; Pearse said something, she hardly knew what. She had a swimming sense of sweetness and relief as his arm went lightly around her waist, her hand was clasped in his, and they swung forth on the recurring surge and ebb of sound. Down the long room they circled without once stopping. They crossed close by the dark-faced musicians, and came slowly up the other side.

“Hilda”—Pearse found words by this time—“I hardly know you—yet it could not have been anybody else in the world!”

She looked up into his face and smiled a bit, making no attempt to reply.

“I saw you from across the room,” he went on eagerly. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. Why, when I think of the little girl I saw last—”

He broke off and Hilda laughed at the recollection of her stained, torn, cotton riding dress on that occasion, her sunburned face, streaked with dust and perspiration, the soaked hair sticking to it.

“I must have looked a fright that day,” she half whispered.

“No—of course you didn’t!” Then he added, “But—but such a child, Hilda! And now, all in a moment—”

“Oh, it’s been a good many moments.” She did try to make her tone a bit sarcastic, though her voice was tremulous. “And maybe you only thought I looked such a baby. I’m nearly seventeen. You”—she tried to laugh—“you offered me the kids at the ranches to play with.”

“I was just a plain fool,” said Pearse. “I’d got used to thinking of you as a child—and I—but you’ll forgive me, Hilda, and,” eagerly, “give me the next dance and let’s sit it out. I’ve got so many things to say to you.”

In their absorption, they did not notice that harp and violin were stilled. Now Fayte’s voice broke in upon them.

“Mightn’t you folks just as well quit when the music does?”

They looked about them. The other couples were seeking seats.

“I’m to have the next I suppose, Hilda,” Fayte said, rather stiffly. He stood squarely between them and the chairs to which Pearse would have led his partner. He spoke only to the girl herself.

“Oh, why, I—I just promised that to—”

Hilda glanced up, in confusion. Pearse’s tone, cool, decisive, solved the situation.

“She’s promised it to me, Marchbanks,” he finished for her. “The room’s hot. We were going to sit on the porch.” Then he added civilly, “She thought you’d excuse her.”

Fayte’s eye flashed. He seemed to restrain a hot retort. But Pearse, choosing to see nothing amiss, pushed past him and kept himself between Marchbanks and Hilda. The press of dancers around the door opened out to let them through. Hilda went almost without volition of her own. She had a sense of a great listening pause in her being.

Outside the door, Pearse passed ahead of her, leaping down off the porch end, reaching up to lift her and settle her comfortably on its edge.

“This’ll do,” he said. “We’ll get half a chance for a little talk here.”

From his seat on the grass below he studied her, a radiant, victorious Hilda, in the first exquisiteness of girlish bloom. She got only a reflected light on his face, yet she could see that he was trying to identify her with the little brown girl he had found playing romances in the cyclone cellar, the half-seen girl at the camp-fire beside the trail from Sandoval County, who had just been making—as she told him—a full hand in a long, hard cattle drive, the dusty, unkempt rider of that last interview in the little hollow by the creek, so few months ago.

“Tell me,” he said suddenly, “why didn’t you give me a chance to see you before? You must have been out here in Encinal County several months.”

“Exactly three, Pearse.” Hilda’s eyes were dancing. “I’ve just about finished my first term with Miss Ferguson. She’s a splendid teacher. You’ll be interested to know about my studies. That’s what you said in your letter.”

“My letter?” Pearse looked foolish.

“Yes,” nodding her head seriously. “It was an awfully good letter, Pearse—sort of noble—but it scared me, too. I was hardly hoping you would speak to me if you met me on the street over here. It was such a relief to have you ask me to dance to-night—as though we were really friends, after all.”

“Oh, come, Hilda—it wasn’t as bad as all that, was it?” he pleaded.

“Or worse.” Her delicate, three-cornered face was all eyes. She caught her breath and took the plunge. “And—and I hadn’t heard then, didn’t know till late this afternoon—about—about your going to Galveston.”

That was as far as she could trust her voice. A curious darkening of everything—darting lights in it that were like pain. Pearse’s voice speaking swiftly.

“Oh, that’ll be all off—now I’ve seen you.”

What did that mean? What could it mean? Had she heard it right? Yes, for he was going on:

“Couldn’t drive me out of Encinal County—while you’re in it, Hilda. Remember those days in your old cyclone cellar at the Sorrows? I’ll never forget them—that’s certain.”

He would never forget. Ah, but he’d not reminded her of them before with such glowing eyes, spoken of them in such a tone!

“But you were going to Galveston to be—” she couldn’t finish. The words, “to be married,” just wouldn’t come. Pearse didn’t seem to notice. He was all taken up with her—with the fact that they were sitting there together on the porch edge, people all around, but no one paying any attention to them.

“Yes,” he said finally, “I was going down to the wedding. Several from the ranch are. Fanny May’s marrying our assistant manager, you know, and she’s the manager’s niece. Nice girl. But you and I aren’t interested—are we?”

All Hilda’s forces deserted in a body to the enemy. The overwhelming sweetness of the moment frightened her into hasty speech.

“Oh, Pearse,” she whispered, “I—do you know why I came over here? Uncle Hank didn’t really want me to. I could see that. But he let me choose—and I chose to come—because you were here. I did. It’s the truth.”

People at the tub, getting lemonade. Too close to risk even another whispered word. Pearse reached down into the shadows and caught a slim hand that swung over the porch edge. The last time he had held it, it was a brown little fist, the palm showing small round callouses from ungloved use. Now three months at the Alamositas, under the tuition of a lady who believed in, and honored, the tradition of lily-white feminine fingers, had brought it into its own. The Rensselaer hand, famous through generations for its pink palm, tapering fingers and filbert nails, lay in Pearse’s and when those slim fingers curled up and clasped his own, they took a grasp upon his heartstrings.

“It’s awkward—your being with those people,” he said, when they again had a chance not to be overheard. “But we’ll manage.”

“You don’t seem to find Fayte much in your way.” Hilda laughed a little, because she was so happy.

“Not much.” Pearse’s tone was fairly preoccupied.

“I really must give him the next dance,” Hilda sighed. “But I don’t want to ride home with him—and I suppose I’ll have to.”

“Of course you won’t. I’ll see that you don’t. Here he comes now. Well—the dance—if you must.” And he helped her up.

From the doorway behind them Fayte’s voice, raised in a curious jeering anger, answered some one there:

“I put my gun back on, because I want it on, Billy Grainger. I’m liable to catch cold without it.”

He strode through the door. They got the outline of his figure in the light, with the bulge the weapon made under his coat.

“Oh—don’t have any trouble with him,” Hilda whispered. “You heard him. He’s armed.”

“And I’m not armed,” said Pearse, quite loud enough for Fayte to hear. “There won’t be any trouble, Hilda. Don’t you be scared.” Then to Fayte, himself. “Hilda and I are old friends. She may have told you? Well—I want to be sure of it, because she’s going to give you this dance—I suppose that’s what you came after?—and as a friend of hers I want you to take off that gun you’re packing before she does so.”

“I’ll take it off when she asks me to,” Fayte returned, but there was no real defiance in his voice, and when Hilda made the request, he was rather glad to be rid of it.

Fayte had his dance. Then there were other partners for Hilda—many of them; she could get out of dancing with him again. Pearse had gone straight to Mrs. Marchbanks, and now sat beside her, talking to her. Hilda wondered what they were saying. Later, she saw him dancing with Maybelle.

When Fayte caught sight of this couple, his sister plainly with her whole battery of fascinations brought to bear, he was furious. The waltz over, he got her outside and began:

“You dance with Pearse Masters just once more, Miss, and I’ll see what dad’s got to say about the man you rode over here with to-night.”

“Let go of me.” Maybelle shook her arm free. The two dark faces so alike confronted. “I rode over here with you and Hilda. If it comes to telling things to pa——I guess I’ll have a little something to say that you don’t want told. Who fixed it for me to ride with Gene——while you went on with Hilda?”

She turned and went back into the house; her brother, swearing under his breath, flung away toward the corral for such consolation as was to be found among the rougher fellows who were drinking down there.

Within, the Grainger dance, a great success from the start, was in full swing.

“They need one more couple here,” Pearse Masters greeted Maybelle as she reËntered. “Come on,” and they joined a set where Hilda and Billy Grainger stood as one of the head couples. Big John Martin, famous all over the range for his improvisations, was “calling off,” dealing heavily in freehand epithet, comment and admonition.

Supper was to have been served at twelve o’clock; but a little after eleven the dust kicked up by the dancing feet from the hard earth floor became so thick that they could scarcely see each other’s faces. Even Big John’s stentorian tones broke off occasionally in a sort of barking snort. The company had just retired somewhat worsted from a polka, when an inspired genius in cowboy boots and clinking spurs He observed with a bucket of water sprinkling the floor.

“Hi, hi, you Red LeGraw!” bellowed Big John from his seat on the edge of the musicians’ table. “For the Lord’s sake, what you doin’? Quit that! Do you aim to bog this dance down right here?”

LeGraw stopped and confronted Martin, the bucket in his left hand, while he gesticulated with his right, flinging large drops of water into the bystanders’ eyes.

“Well, I’ve had two partners mighty nigh choked to death, an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to—”

Big Martin sneezed at this point, a sneeze that fairly shook the solid adobe walls. Then he began to get off the edge of the table. LeGraw set down the bucket and squared his shoulders. There was a backward movement in the crowd about. But Billy Grainger’s voice fell soothingly on the disturbance.

“Aw, say, boys, don’t worry about it. Supper’s ready, anyhow. Come on, people, and eat. We’ll get this floor fixed by the time you’re done your suppers.”

Out to the side yard went the company, sniffling and Wiping its eyes, and streamed over to the tables made of rough boards laid on barrels, where the barbecued meats were served with bread, potatoes roasted in the ashes, coffee in tin cups, and pies, cakes, preserves, and sweetmeats, that had come from scores of baskets. Fayte, with Hilda, was among the first to go; Maybelle and Lefty Adams followed close. Pearse Masters, with an eye on their movements, took out Mrs. Burkett, from over Caliente way, a comparatively new neighbor of the Flying M household, and a warm friend of young Masters. They sat just across from the Flying M party.

Hilda, intensely aware of his presence, did not lift her eyes to look at him. She never knew what she ate, or if she ate at all. They walked back to the house after supper, Pearse and jolly, loud-voiced Mrs. Burkett somewhere over to the left of Hilda and Fayte in the semi-obscurity; and that cheek of Hilda’s, that shoulder and arm, seemed to her to glow and palpitate in great electric waves, as she answered Fayte at hasty, joyous random.

In the house, the floor had been, as Big Martin somewhat discontentedly expressed it, “hoed off into pretty decent shape.” Presently came “the roundup,” the cowboy’s own cotillion, in which the couples are all in one great set, each pair going through every all-around figure. Pearse came and asked Hilda, and with a throb of joy touched with fear, she rose. Under cover of the round-up’s boisterous romping, and during the long waits, these two talked eagerly, swiftly.

“You’re not going to ride home with that fellow, Hilda.”

“I don’t want to, Pearse, but—”

“You’re not going to—dear.”

The final word was so low that Hilda didn’t actually hear it—she was only thrillingly certain that it was there.

At the end of that dance, the Alamnositas party was leaving. Pearse must have known that. He went right along with Mrs. Marchbanks, gathering wraps and belongings, carrying Jinnie. Hilda saw, with a sinking heart, that her pony, saddled, stood near the buggy along with Fayte’s and Maybelle’s. There was Maybelle herself. Fayte was coming from the corral. Lefty Adams rode up.

The buggy was double-seated, carrying four. Pearse pushed past Lefty Adams, tucked in robes and bundles, around the children, and reached a hand to help Hilda with:

“Hilda’s going to ride home with you, Mrs. Marchbanks. She’s too tired for the pony. Lefty will lead it over. Good night.”

“Well, I must say—” Mrs. Marchbanks unconsciously lifted the lines. The shivering impatient ponies sprang away at a lope. What Mrs. Marchbanks must say would have to be said on the way home, for her hands were now full looking after the team she was driving.

And, oddly enough to Hilda, no further mention of the matter was made during the drive. Miss Ferguson saw nothing strange in the new arrangement. An eastern woman, it seemed to her natural enough that a girl who had raced to the Grainger ranch and danced as much as Hilda had, should need rest. It was in the hall at home, in front of her own bedroom door that Mrs. Marchbanks said,

“Hilda, I’ll have to speak to the colonel in the morning about this. You know—or maybe you didn’t know?—that he doesn’t allow any of the JIC men on the ranch.”

No need to answer that. Pearse hadn’t come on the ranch. He hadn’t offered to. But how splendidly he’d handled the situation. How Fayte gave ground before him. She went silently into her room and shut the door.