“Now, say you’re my little schoolma’am.  Quick, before I do it again.”  He threatened with his lips, and he looked as if he were quite anxious to carry out his threat.

“I’m your—­” the schoolma’am hid her face from him.  “Oh, Will!  Whatever made you go off like that, and I—­I nearly died wanting to see you—­”

Weary laid his cheek very tenderly against hers, and held her close.  No words came to either, just then.

“What if I’d kept on being a fool—­and hadn’t come back at all, Girlie?” he asked softly, after a while.

The schoolma’am shuddered eloquently in his arms.

“It was sure lonesome—­it was hell out there alone,” he observed, reminiscently.

“It was sure—­h-hell back here alone, too,” murmured a smothered voice which did not sound much like the clear, self-assertive tones of Miss Satterly.

“Well, it come near serving you right,” Weary told her, relishfully grinning over the word she used.

“What made yuh chase me off?”

“I—­don’t know; I—­”

“I guess yuh don’t, all right,” agreed Weary, giving a little squeeze by way of making quite sure he had her there.  “Say, what was that yarn Myrt Forsyth told yuh about me?”

“I—­I don’t know.  She—­she hinted a lot—­”

“I expect she did—­that’s Myrt, every rattle uh the box,” Weary cut in dryly.

“And she—­she said you had to leave home—­in the night—­”

“Oh, she did, eh?  Well, Girlie, if the time-table hasn’t changed, Miss Myrt Forsyth sneaked off the same way.  The train west leaves—­or did leave—­Chadville along about midnight, so—­Say, it feels good to be back, little schoolma’am.  You don’t know how good—­”

“I guess I do,” cried the schoolma’am very emphatically.  “I just guess I know something about that, myself.  Oh you dear, great, tall—­”

Something happened just then to the schoolma’am’s lips, so that she could not finish the sentence.

FIRST AID TO CUPID

The floor manager had just called out that it was “ladies’ choice,” and Happy Jack, his eyes glued in rapturous apprehension upon the thin, expressionless face of Annie Pilgreen, backed diffidently into a corner.  He hoped and he feared that she would discover him and lead him out to dance; she had done that once, at the Labor Day ball, and he had not slept soundly for several nights after.

Someone laid proprietary hand upon his cinnamon-brown coat sleeve, and he jumped and blushed; it was only the schoolma’am, however, smiling up at him ingratiatingly in a manner wholly bewildering to a simple minded fellow like Happy Jack.  She led him into another corner, plumped gracefully and with much decision down upon a bench, drew her skirts aside to make room for him and announced that she was tired and wanted a nice long talk with him.  Happy Jack, sending a troubled glance after Annie, who was leading Joe Meeker out to dance, sighed a bit and sat down obediently—­and thereby walked straight into the loop which the schoolma’am had spread for his unwary feet.