The others watched him eagerly as he removed the hot tin from the oven and set it upon the bare table.

“I’m thinkin’ it looks a bit dumpish midships, Ned,” said Battersleigh dubiously.  “But there’s one thing shure, ye’ll find all the apples in it, for I’ve watched the stove door meself, and there’s been no possibility fer them to escape.  And of course ye’ll not forgit that the apples is the main thing in an apple pie.  The crust is merely a secondary matter.”  Battersleigh said this in an airy manner which disarmed criticism.  Curly drew his clasp knife from his pocket and cut into the portion assigned to him.  Franklin was reserved, but Curly attained enthusiasm at the second bite.

“Rile Irish,” said he, “I’m not so sure you’re such a h——­l of a military man, but as a cook you’re a burnin’ success.  You kin sign with our outfit tomorrer if you want to.  Man, if I could bake pie like that, I’d break the Bar O outfit before the season was over!  An’ if I ever could git all the pie I wanted to eat, I wouldn’t care how quick after that I fanned out.  This here is the real thing.  That pie that our cook made on the Cimarron—­why, it was made of dried apples.  Why didn’t you tell me you had real apples?”

The pie, startling as it was in some regards, did not long survive the determined assault made upon it.  Curly wiped his knife on the leg of his “chaps” and his mouth on the back of his hand.

“But say, fellers,” he said, “I plumb forgot what I come over here for.  They’s goin’ to be a dance over to town, an’ I come to tell you about it.  O’ course you’ll come.”

“What sort of a dance can it be, man?” said Battersleigh.

“Why, a plumb dandy dance; reg’lar high-steppin’ outfit; mucha baille; best thing ever was in this settlement.”

“I’m curious to know where the ladies will come from,” said Franklin.

“Don’t you never worry,” rejoined Curly.  “They’s plenty o’ women-folks.  Why, there’s the section boss, his wife—­you know her—­she does the washin’ for most everybody.  There’s Nora, Sam’s girl, the head waiter; an’ Mary, the red-headed girl; an’ Kitty, the littlest waiter girl; an’ the new grocery man’s wife; an’ Hank Peterson’s wife, from down to his ranch.  Oh, there’ll be plenty o’ ladies, don’t you never doubt.  Why, say, Sam, he told me, last time he went down to Plum Centre, he was goin’ to ask Major Buford an’ his wife, an’ the gal that’s stayin’ with them—­tall gal, fine looker—­why, Sam, he said he would ast them, an’ maybe they’d come up to the dance—­who knows?  Sam, he says that gal ain’t no common sort—­whole outfit’s a puzzler to him, he says, Sam does.”

“And when does this all happen, Curly, boy?” asked Battersleigh.

“Why, night after to-morrer night, to the big stone hotel.  They’re goin’ to clean out the dinin’-room for us.  Three niggers, two fiddlers, an’ a ’cordion—­oh, we’ll have music all right!  You’ll be over, of course?”