Part 10 (2/2)

Then, resuming the thread of her discourse: ”You don't think, now, you've got toothpicks enough? They'd set things off real nice.” But Lem had departed.

”I s'pose he's kind o' fl.u.s.tered with givin' their first dance,” she said apologetically to her coadjutor among the sandwiches.

Lem was a great favorite with Mrs. Luella. She liked him better than she did Joe. She was one of the few people who could, at a glance, tell the two brothers apart. She always spoke of Lem as the ”little chap,” though he was in fact precisely of a height with his brother; and she gave as the reason for the preference, that ”the little chap wasn't a ramper.”

Unfortunately for Lem, perhaps, she was right. He was not a ramper.

As Lem stepped out into the other room, the caller-out was shouting, ”Promen-_ade_ all--you know where!” The sets were breaking up, and Joe with his best manner was leading his partner to a seat. The face had vanished from the window. Bub Quinn was striding across the room, and now planted himself in front of the recreant pair.

”You're to come with me, Aggy,” he growled.

”Pray don't mention it!” cried Joe, relinquis.h.i.+ng the girl to Quinn with a mocking reverence.

Shrugging her shoulders, and pouting, Aggy moved away with her captor; not, however, without a parting glance over her shoulder at Joe. The two brothers met at the kitchen-door.

”I say, Joe,” Lem begged, ”don't dance with that girl again.”

”And why not!”

”You wouldn't ask why not if you had seen that ruffian's face at the window.”

”Didn't I see it, though?” scoffed Joe, in high spirits, and Lem knew that he had blundered.

A new caller-out had taken the floor, and was shouting, ”Seventeen to twenty-four, get on the floor and dance!”

The pauses are short at a ranch dance, for each man, having a right in only one dance out of three or four, is eager for his turn. The women on this particular occasion might have been glad of a rest, for there were only ten of them to satisfy the demands of all the men, and steady dancing from eight o'clock to three is no light task. Nevertheless, each one rose with sufficient alacrity in response to the polite inquiry, ”Will you a.s.sist me with this dance?” and in a few minutes the same many-colored woollen gowns, and much befrizzled heads, which had diversified the last sets, were lending l.u.s.tre to the present dance.

Neither Bub Quinn nor Joe Keith was included this time among those admonished to ”get on the floor and dance,” and Lem, thankful for the respite, stepped out on the piazza, where a group of men were lounging and smoking. The air outside was sharp and invigorating; the moon was full, and in its cold, clear light the Peak glimmered white and ghostly.

Lem strolled off the piazza, and over to the group of sorry-looking broncos, in saddle or harness, standing hitched to the fence. He pushed in among them, patting their heads, or righting the blankets of the few that were fortunate enough to have such luxuries. He felt as though he should like to enter into confidential relations with them. They seemed, somehow, more of his own kind than the rough, jostling, pugnacious beings pa.s.sing themselves off as men and brothers within there. He poked about from one to the other of the st.u.r.dy, plush-coated little beasts, till he came to a great white plow-horse harnessed to a sulky, and looking like a giant in contrast with the scrubby broncos. The amiability which is supposed to wait upon generous proportions proved to be a characteristic of this equine Goliath, for at Lem's approach he c.o.c.ked his ears and turned his head with marked friendliness. Lem looked across the creature's rough neck to the firm, strong outlines of ”the range,” showing clearly in the moonlight; he drew his lungs full of the keen, thin air. But neither ”the strength of the hills,” nor the elixir of the air, could restore his equanimity. He could not throw off the weight that oppressed him. There was no s.h.i.+rking the truth. He was deadly afraid of Bub Quinn; the sight of that lowering face at the window had caused in him a horrible physical shrinking; the dread of an undefined mischief brewing weighed upon his spirit like a nightmare.

”Great heavens! What a coward I am!” he groaned aloud.

The white horse rubbed his velvet nose in mute sympathy against the young man's shoulder; but there was no solace that the white horse could give. Lem leaned against the friendly neck, and shut his teeth hard together. A lifelong chagrin welled up in him, flooding his soul with bitterness.

If Lemuel Keith had not adored his brother, he would have hated him--hated him for possessing that one quality of rash courage beside which every other virtue seemed mean and worthless.

Presently he found himself looking in at the window again. Joe had disappeared from the scene. Bub Quinn and his Aggy were sitting side by side in stony silence. The fiddles had fallen into a more sentimental strain; hints of ”The Mocking Bird” might be heard struggling for utterance in the strings. In this ambitious attempt the pitch would get lower and lower, and then recover itself with a queer falsetto effect.

Charley Leroy, the crack ”bronco-buster” of the region, was caller-out this time. He was less inventive than the curly-headed boy, but he gave out his commands in the same chanting measure, and the tramp, tramp of the feet was as rhythmic as ever. The curly-headed boy was having his turn at the dance, ”a.s.sisted” by a sallow, middle-aged woman in a brown woollen dress, who made frequent dashes into the adjoining room to quiet her baby. Lem noticed that the hands of the curly-headed boy were so tanned that the finger-nails showed white by contrast. He also observed that Aggy's neck was as pink as her cheeks, which had not been the case half an hour before. In his effort not to look at Bub Quinn, Lem's attention had become vague and scattered. He fixed his eyes upon an elderly man of an anxious countenance, with a shock of tow-colored hair sticking straight out in all directions. The man was having some difficulty in steering his partner through an intricate figure; he was the only person on the floor who did not keep step, and his movements became at every moment more vague and undecided. When, at last, the wiry, determined-looking ”bronco-buster” sprang upon the company the somewhat abstruse direction:

”Lady round the gent, and the gent don't go; Lady round the lady, and the gent so-_lo_!”

the ”gent” in question became hopelessly bewildered, and stood stock still in the middle of the floor. By the time the set was disentangled, the dance seemed to be over, and the ”bronco-buster” dismissed the dancers with the cynical prophecy, ”You'll all get married on a _stor-my day_!”

At this juncture, midnight being well pa.s.sed, supper was announced. The kitchen door swung open, and the fragrant smell of the coffee took possession of the room, and floated out through the open window. As some one closed the window in his face, Lem followed the other loungers into the house. The men had all made a stampede for the kitchen; the women sat on chairs and benches against the wall, some of them leaning their heads back wearily, while others fanned themselves and their neighbors with vigor, not relaxing for a moment the somewhat strained vivacity which they felt that the occasion demanded. Bub Quinn's Aggy--no one knew her last name--sat a little apart from the others. She was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of her pocket-handkerchief, a piece of coa.r.s.e finery, which she held by the exact middle, flirting it across her face in lieu of the fan, which had slid to the floor.

Lem paused on his way to the kitchen, and observed her closely. He saw the pink of her neck take on a deeper tinge, and at the same moment Bub Quinn and Joe brushed past him and stood before the girl, each offering her a plate on which reposed two sandwiches and a section of cuc.u.mber pickle.

This was Aggy's opportunity. She shrugged her shoulders, which were encased in red velveteen; she lifted and then dropped her eyes, poising her head first on one side and then on the other; she clasped her hands and wrinkled her forehead. Lem felt as though he were watching the capricious sparks which mark the progress of a slow match toward a powder-train. Bub Quinn, meanwhile, stood rooted before the girl, while Joe, having possessed himself of the fallen fan, met her coquetry with blandishments of the most undisguised nature. At length, hesitatingly, deprecatingly, she took Quinn's plate, but at the same time she moved along on the bench and offered Joe a seat. He promptly took it, and Quinn went away with the calmness of a silently gathering thunder-cloud.

<script>