“As keen a dancer as she is a looker.  And a flirt from the drop of the hat!  Had the last dance with her.  Which reminds me I better hurry and down my booze and get back.  I’m going to rope her for the next dance, too.”

Broderick went his way for his bottle.  Thornton did not speak, did not turn, did not move that a man might see.  But the fingers of the hand at his side twitched suddenly and for a moment were tense.

“Pollard can’t help being mostly rattlesnake,” he muttered angrily.  “But he ought to be man enough to keep his own blood kin away from Ben Broderick’s kind.  Lord, Lordy, but it’s sure enough hell folks can’t help having uncles like Ben Pollard.  Poor little girl!” And then, thoughtfully, his eyes filled with speculation as they rested upon Winifred Waverly, “Mother Mary Sturgis was absolutely right!”

Now the fiddler was tuning with long drawn bow, and the patting of the guitarist’s foot told that he was ready.  Thornton, tossing his hat to the teacher’s desk just outside the door, entered the building and strode straight to the girl.  Other men were hurrying across the floor eager to be first to ask this or that demurely waiting maiden for the dance, but Thornton was well in the lead.  He nodded and smiled and spoke to many of the women whom he knew, but he did not stop until he came to Winifred Waverly and Mrs. Sturgis.  There he was stopped by the older woman who had not read his intentions, and who, thinking that he was going by, took his arm in her two plump hands.

“Why, Buck Thornton, you rascal, you!” she cried heartily.  “Where you been all year?  I ain’t seen you since I c’n remember.  An’ where you think you’re goin’, stampedin’ along like a runaway horse?”

“Howdy, Mother Mary,” he returned as they shook hands.  “I was headed right here to see you and Miss Waverly.  Howdy, Miss Waverly.”

The eyes which the girl turned upon him were wide with surprise.  She had had no thought that he would come here tonight.  Surely he must know that her uncle, the man whom he had robbed, was here!  And Broderick, too—­another man whom he had robbed!  And how many others?  And yet he had come, he seemed careless and without uneasiness, he dared to speak with her quite as if that which had happened in Harte’s cabin had never occurred outside of his own imaginings.  He even had the assurance to put out his hand to her!  As though she would touch him!...

“Take your pardners for a waltz!” cried Chase Harper of the Tres Pinos, he of the small boots, coming in through the door, wiping his mouth and resuming his duties as “caller” of the dances.  “Shake a leg, boys!”

The hurried progress of men in search of “pardners” became a race, boots clumped noisily against the floor, the cowboys swooped down upon the line of women folks, often enough there was no spoken invitation to the waltz as a strong arm ran about a lithe waist, the fiddle scraped, the guitar thrummed into the tune, and with the first note they were dancing.