“I don’t like your family—­”

in some such dreadful way it expressed itself—­

“They do not look good to me. 
I don’t think your Uncle John
Ever had a collar on ...”

She played it very loud.

Hilliard stood up and came close to Sheila.

“She’s mad as a March hare,” he whispered, “and she doesn’t like me a little bit.  Come out while I patch up Dusty, won’t you, please?  It’s moonlight.  I’ll be going.”  He repeated this very loud for Miss Blake’s benefit with no apparent effect upon her enjoyment of the song.  She was rocking to its rhythm.

Hilliard was overwhelmed suddenly by the appearance of her.  He put his hand to his mouth and bolted.  Sheila, following, found him around the corner of the house rocking and gasping with mirth.  He looked at her through tears.

“Puss-in-Boots,” he gasped, and Sheila ran to the edge of the clearing to be safe in a mighty self-indulgence.

There they crouched like two children till their laughter spent itself.  Hilliard was serious first.

“You’re a bad, ungrateful girl,” he said weakly, “to laugh at a sweet old lady like that.”

“Oh, I am!” Sheila took it almost seriously.  “She’s been wonderful to me.”

“I bet she works you,” he said jealously.

“Oh, no.  Not a bit too hard.  I love it.”

“Well,” he admitted, “you do look pretty fine, that’s a fact.  Better than you did at Hudson’s.  What did you quit for?”

Sheila was sober enough now.  The moonlight let some of its silver, uncaught by the twinkling aspen leaves, splash down on her face.  It seemed to flicker and quiver like the leaves.  She shook her head.

He looked a trifle sullen.  “Oh, you won’t tell me....  Funny idea, you being a barmaid.  Hudson’s notion, wasn’t it?”

Sheila lifted her clear eyes.  “I thought asking questions wasn’t good manners in the West.”

“Damn!” he said.  “Don’t you make me angry!  I’ve got a right to ask you questions.”

She put her hand up against the smooth white trunk of the tree near which she stood.  She seemed to grow a little taller.

“Oh, have you?  I don’t think I quite understand how you got any such right.  And you like to be questioned yourself?”

She had him there, had him rather cruelly, though he was not aware of the weapon of her suspicion.  She felt a little ashamed when she saw him wince.  He slapped his gloves against his leather chaps, looking at her with hot, sulky eyes.

“Oh, well...  I beg your pardon....  Listen—­” He flung his ill-humor aside and was sweet and cool again like the night.  “Are you going to take the little horse?”

“I don’t know.”

His face shadowed and fell so expressively, so utterly, that she melted.

“Oh,” he stammered, half-turning from her, “I was sure.  I brought him up.”

This completed the melting process.  “Of course I’ll take him!” she cried. 
“Where is he?”