“Walk her up and down,” said Barker.  “Keep her moving.  I’ll look what I can find.  Keep her moving brisk.”  At once he was out of the door; and before his running steps had died away, the fiddle had taken up its tune across the quadrangle.

“‘Buffalo Girls!’” exclaimed the woman.  “Old times!  Old times!”

“Come,” said McLean.  “Walk.”  And he took her.

Her head was full of the music.  Forgetting all but that, she went with him easily, and the two made their first turns around the room.  Whenever he brought her near the entrance, she leaned away from him toward the open door, where the old fiddle tune was coming in from the dark.  But presently she noticed that she was being led, and her face turned sullen.

“Walk,” said McLean.

“Do you think so?” said she, laughing.  But she found that she must go with him.  Thus they took a few more turns.

“You’re hurting me,” she said next.  Then a look of drowsy cunning filled her eyes, and she fixed them upon McLean’s dogged face.  “He’s gone, Lin,” she murmured, raising her hand where Barker had disappeared.

She knew McLean had heard her, and she held back on the quickened pace that he had set.

“Leave me down.  You hurt,” she pleaded, hanging on him.

The cow-puncher put forth more strength.

“Just the floor,” she pleaded again.  “Just one minute on the floor.  He’ll think you could not keep me lifted.”

Still McLean made no answer, but steadily led her round and round, as he had undertaken.

“He’s playing out!” she exclaimed.  “You’ll be played out soon.”  She laughed herself half-awake.  The man drew a breath, and she laughed more to feel his hand and arm strain to surmount her increasing resistance.  “Jessamine!” she whispered to him.  “Jessamine!  Doc’ll never suspicion you, Lin.”

“Talk sense,” said he.

“It’s sense I’m talking.  Leave me go to sleep.  Ah, ah, I’m going!  I’ll go; you can’t—­”

“Walk, walk!” he repeated.  He looked at the door.  An ache was numbing his arms.

“Oh yes, walk!  What can you and all your muscle—­Ah, walk me to glory, then, craziness!  I’m going; I’ll go.  I’m quitting this outfit for keeps.  Lin, you’re awful handsome to-night!  I’ll bet—­I’ll bet she has never seen you look so.  Let me—­let me watch yus.  Anyway, she knows I came first!”

He grasped her savagely.  “First!  You and twenty of yu’ don’t—­God!! what do I talk to her for?”

“Because—­because—­I’m going; I’ll go.  He slung me off—­but he had to sling—­you can’t—­stop—­”