“Glenn, would you like to go to the Plaza with me again, and dance between dinner courses, as we used to?” she whispered up to him.

“Sure I would—­unless Morrison knew you were to be there,” he replied.

“Glenn! . . .  I would not even see him.”

“Any old time you wouldn’t see Morrison!” he exclaimed, half mockingly.

His doubt, his tone grated upon her.  Pressing closer to him, she said, “Come back and I’ll prove it.”

But he laughed and had no answer for her.  At her own daring words Carley’s heart had leaped to her lips.  If he had responded, even teasingly, she could have burst out with her longing to take him back.  But silence inhibited her, and the moment passed.

At the end of that dance Hutter claimed Glenn in the interest of neighboring sheep men.  And Carley, crossing the big living room alone, passed close to one of the porch doors.  Some one, indistinct in the shadow, spoke to her in low voice:  “Hello, pretty eyes!”

Carley felt a little cold shock go tingling through her.  But she gave no sign that she had heard.  She recognized the voice and also the epithet.  Passing to the other side of the room and joining the company there, Carley presently took a casual glance at the door.  Several men were lounging there.  One of them was the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff.  His bold eyes were on her now, and his coarse face wore a slight, meaning smile, as if he understood something about her that was a secret to others.  Carley dropped her eyes.  But she could not shake off the feeling that wherever she moved this man’s gaze followed her.  The unpleasantness of this incident would have been nothing to Carley had she at once forgotten it.  Most unaccountably, however, she could not make herself unaware of this ruffian’s attention.  It did no good for her to argue that she was merely the cynosure of all eyes.  This Ruff’s tone and look possessed something heretofore unknown to Carley.  Once she was tempted to tell Glenn.  But that would only cause a fight, so she kept her counsel.  She danced again, and helped Flo entertain her guests, and passed that door often; and once stood before it, deliberately, with all the strange and contrary impulse so inscrutable in a woman, and never for a moment wholly lost the sense of the man’s boldness.  It dawned upon her, at length, that the singular thing about this boldness was its difference from any, which had ever before affronted her.  The fool’s smile meant that he thought she saw his attention, and, understanding it perfectly, had secret delight in it.  Many and various had been the masculine egotisms which had come under her observation.  But quite beyond Carley was this brawny sheep dipper, Haze Ruff.  Once the party broke up and the guests had departed, she instantly forgot both man and incident.

Next day, late in the afternoon, when Carley came out on the porch, she was hailed by Flo, who had just ridden in from down the canyon.