Kitabı oku: «Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Schoolgirls Among Cowboys», sayfa 5
CHAPTER XII – THE MAN FROM TINTACKER
Ruth was just as scared as she could be. Although the bear did not seem particularly savage, there surely was not room enough on the path for him and Ruth to pass. The beast was ragged and gray looking. His little eyes twinkled and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, like that of an ox when it is plowing. Aside from a grunt, or two, he made at first no threatening manifestation.
Helen could not remain inactive and see a bear chase her chum over the rocks; therefore she picked up a good-sized stone and threw it at the beast. They say – at least, boys say! – that a girl can’t throw straight. But Helen hit the bear!
The stone must have hurt, for the beast let out a sudden growl that was in quite a different tone from the sounds he had made before. He turned sharply and bit at the place on his flank where the stone had hit him, and then, in a perfectly unreasonable manner, the bear turned sharp around and scampered after Ruth harder than ever. It was plain that he blamed her for throwing the stone. At least, she was nearest to him, and the bear was anxious to get out of the way of the screaming girls below.
Ruth did not give voice to her fear. Perhaps if she had shrieked as The Fox did the bear would have been afraid of her. As it was, he came on, growling savagely. And in half a minute he was fairly upon her heels!
The way up the height was in a gully with steep sides. Ruth, casting back over her shoulder a single terrified glance, saw the lumbering beast right upon her heels. The rocks on either hand were too steep to climb; it seemed as though the bear would seize her in a moment.
And then it was that the miracle happened. It seemed as though the girl must be torn and mangled by the bear, when a figure darted into sight above her. A voice shouted:
“Lie down! Lie down, so I can shoot!”
It was a man with a gun. In the second Ruth saw him she only knew he was trying to draw bead on the pursuing bear. She had no idea what her rescuer looked like – whether he was old, or young.
It took courage to obey his command. But Ruth had that courage. She flung herself forward upon her hands and knees and – seemingly – at the same instant the man above fired.
The roar of the weapon in the rocky glen and the roar of the stricken bear, was a deafening combination of sound. The bullet had hit the big brute somewhere in a serious spot and he was rolling and kicking on the rocks – his first throes of agony flinging him almost to Ruth’s feet.
But the girl scrambled farther away and heard the rifle speak again. A second bullet entered the body of the bear. At the same time a lusty shout arose from below. The boys and Jib having explored the river-tunnel as far as they found it practicable, had returned to the camp and there discovered where the girls had gone. Jib hastened after them, for he felt that they should not be roaming over the rocks without an armed escort.
“Hi, yi!” he yelped, tearing up the path with a rifle in his hand. “Keep it up, brother! We’re comin’!”
Tom and Bob came with him. Jib saw the expiring bear, and he likewise glimpsed the man who had brought bruin down. In a moment, however, the stranger darted out of sight up the path and they did not even hear his footsteps on the rocks.
“Why, that’s that feller from Tintacker!” cried the Indian. “Hey, you!”
“Not the crazy man?” gasped Jane Ann.
“Oh, surely he’ll come back?” said Helen.
Ruth turned, almost tempted to run after the stranger. “Do you really mean to say it is the young man who has been staying at the Tintacker properties so long?” she asked.
“That’s the feller.”
“We’d ought to catch him and see what Uncle Bill has to say to him about the fire,” said Jane Ann.
“Oh, we ought to thank him for shooting the bear,” cried Madge.
“And I wanted to speak with him so much!” groaned Ruth; but nobody heard her say this. The others had gathered around the dead bear. Of a sudden a new discovery was made:
“Where’s Mary?” cried Helen.
“The Fox has run away!” exclaimed Madge.
“I’ll bet she has!” exclaimed Jane Ann Hicks. “Didn’t you see her, Jib?”
“We didn’t pass her on the path,” said Tom.
Ruth’s keen eye discovered the missing girl first. She ran with a cry to a little shelf upon which the foxy maid had scrambled when the excitement started. The Fox was stretched out upon the rock in a dead faint!
“Well! would you ever?” gasped Madge. “Who’d think that Mary Cox would faint? She’s always been bold enough, goodness knows!”
Ruth had hurried to the shelf where The Fox lay. She was very white and there could be no doubt but that she was totally unconscious. Jib lent his assistance and getting her into his arms he carried her bodily down the steep path to the camp, leaving Tom and Bob to guard the bear until he returned to remove the pelt. The other girls strung out after their fainting comrade, and the journey to the summit of the natural bridge was postponed indefinitely.
Cold water from the mountain stream soon brought The Fox around. But when she opened her eyes and looked into the face of the ministering Ruth, she muttered:
“And you saw him, too!”
Then she turned her face away and began to cry.
“Aw, shucks!” exclaimed the ranchman’s niece, “don’t bawl none about it. The bear won’t hurt you now. He’s dead as can be.”
But Ruth did not believe that Mary Cox was crying about the bear. Her words and subsequent actions did puzzle the girl of the Red Mill. Ruth had whispered to Tom, before they left the scene of the bear shooting:
“See if you can find that man. If you can, bring him into camp.”
“But if he’s crazy?” Tom suggested, in surprise.
“He isn’t too crazy to have saved my life,” declared the grateful girl. “And if he is in his right mind, all the more reason why we should try to help him.”
“You’re always right, Ruthie,” admitted Helen’s brother. But when the boy and Jib returned to camp two hours later, with the bear pelt and some of the best portions of the carcass, they had to report that the stranger who had shot the bear seemed to have totally disappeared. Jib Pottoway was no bad trailer; but over the rocks it was impossible to follow the stranger, especially as he had taken pains to hide his trail.
“If you want to thank that critter for saving you from the b’ar, Miss Ruthie,” the Indian said, “you’ll hafter go clear over to Tintacker to do so. That’s my opinion.”
“How far away is that?” demanded Mary Cox, suddenly.
“Near a hundred miles from this spot,” declared Jib. “That is, by wagon trail. I reckon you could cut off thirty or forty miles through the hills. The feller’s evidently l’arnt his way around since Winter.”
Mary asked no further question about the man from Tintacker; but she had shown an interest in him that puzzled Ruth.
CHAPTER XIII – THE PARTY AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE
The bear fight and the runaway together so disturbed the minds of the picnicking party in the cañon that nobody objected to the suggestion of an early return to the ranch-house. Ruth was secretly much troubled in her mind over the mysterious individual who had killed the bear. She had not seen her rescuer’s face; but she wondered if Mary Cox had seen it?
The girls never did get to the top of the natural bridge. Jib and the boys in trying to trace the stranger had gone over the summit; but they did not tarry to look around. The girls and Ricardo got supper, immediately after which they set out on the return drive.
Jib insisted upon holding the lines over the backs of the team that had run away – and he saw that Mary Cox rode in that vehicle, too. But The Fox showed no vexation at this; indeed, she was very quiet all the way to Silver Ranch. She was much unlike her usual snappy, sharp-tongued self.
But, altogether, the party arrived home in very good spirits. The wonders of the wild country – so much different from anything the Easterners had seen before – deeply impressed Ruth and her friends. The routine work of the ranch, however, interested them more. Not only Tom and Bob, but their sisters and the other girls, found the free, out-of-door life of the range and corral a never-failing source of delight.
Ruth herself was becoming a remarkably good horsewoman. Freckles carried her many miles over the range and Jane Ann Hicks was scarcely more bold on pony-back than was the girl from the Red Mill.
As for the cowboys of the Silver outfit, they admitted that the visitors were “some human,” even from a Western standpoint.
“Them friends o’ yourn, Miss Jinny,” Jimsey said, to Old Bill’s niece, “ain’t so turrible ‘Bawston’ as some tenderfoots I’ve seen.” (“Boston,” according to Jimsey, spelled the ultra-East and all its “finicky” ways!) “I’m plum taken with that Fielding gal – I sure am. And I believe old Ike, here, is losin’ his heart to her. Old Lem Dickson’s Sally better bat her eyes sharp or Ike’ll go up in the air an’ she’ll lose him.”
It was true that the foreman was less bashful with Ruth than with any of the other girls. Ruth knew how to put him at his ease. Every spare hour Bashful Ike had he put in teaching Ruth to improve her riding, and as she was an early riser they spent a good many morning hours cantering over the range before the rest of the young people were astir at Silver Ranch.
It was on one of these rides that Bashful Ike “opened up” to Ruth upon the subject of the red-haired school-teacher at the Crossing.
“I’ve jest plumb doted on that gal since she was knee-high to a Kansas hopper-grass,” the big puncher drawled. “An’ she knows it well enough.”
“Maybe she knows it too well?” suggested Ruth, wisely.
“Gosh!” groaned Ike. “I gotter keep her reminded I’m on the job – say, ain’t I? Now, them candies you bought for me an’ give to her – what do you s’pose she did with ’em?”
“She ate them if she had right good sense,” replied Ruth, with a smile. “They were nice candies.”
“I rid over to Lem’s the next night,” said Ike, solemnly, “an’ that leetle pink-haired skeezicks opened up that box o’ sweetmeats on the counter an’ had all them lop-eared jack-rabbits that sits around her pa’s store o’ nights he’pin’ themselves out o’ my gift-box. Talk erbout castin’ pearls before swine!” continued Bashful Ike, in deep disgust, “that was suah flingin’ jewels to the hawgs, all right. Them ’ombres from the Two-Ten outfit, an’ from over Redeye way, was stuffin’ down them bonbons like they was ten-cent gumdrops. An’ Sally never ate a-one.”
“She did that just to tease you,” said Ruth, sagely.
“Huh!” grunted Ike. “I never laid out to hurt her feelin’s none. Dunno why she should give me the quirt. Why, I’ve been hangin’ about her an’ tryin’ to show her how much I think of her for years! She must know I wanter marry her. An’ I got a good bank account an’ five hundred head o’ steers ter begin housekeepin’ on.”
“Does Sally know all that?” asked Ruth, slyly.
“Great Peter!” ejaculated Ike. “She’d oughter. Ev’rybody else in the county does.”
“But did you ever ask Sally right out to marry you?” asked the Eastern girl.
“She never give me a chance,” declared Ike, gruffly.
“Chance!” gasped Ruth, wanting to laugh, but being too kind-hearted to do so. “What sort of a chance do you expect?”
“I never git to talk with her ten minutes at a time,” grumbled Ike.
“But why don’t you make a chance?”
“Great Peter!” cried the foreman again. “I can’t throw an’ hawg-tie her, can I? I never can git down to facts with her – she won’t let me.”
“If I were a great, big man,” said Ruth, her eyes dancing, “I surely wouldn’t let a little wisp of a girl like Miss Dickson get away from me – if I wanted her.”
“How am I goin’ to he’p it?” cried Ike, in despair. “She’s jest as sassy as a cat-bird. Ye can’t be serious with her. She plumb slips out o’ my fingers ev’ry time I try to hold her.”
“You are going to the dance at the schoolhouse, aren’t you?” asked Ruth.
“I reckon.”
“Can’t you get her to dance with you? And when you’re dancing can’t you ask her? Come right out plump with it.”
“Why, when I’m a-dancin’,” confessed Ike, “I can’t think o’ nawthin’ but my feet.”
“Your feet?” cried Ruth.
“Yes, ma’am. They’re so e-tar-nal big I gotter keep my mind on ’em all the time, or I’ll be steppin’ on Sally’s. An’ if I trod on her jest wunst – wal, that would suah be my finish with her. She ain’t got that red hair for nawthin’,” concluded the woeful cowpuncher.
Ike was not alone at the Silver Ranch in looking forward to the party at the schoolhouse. Every man who could be spared of the – X0 outfit (“Bar-Cross-Naught”) planned to go to the Crossing Saturday night. Such a rummaging of “war-bags” for fancy flannel shirts and brilliant ties hadn’t occurred – so Old Bill Hicks said – within the remembrance of the present generation of prairie-dogs!
“Jest thinkin’ about cavortin’ among the gals about drives them ’ombres loco,” declared the ranchman. “Hi guy! here’s even Jimsey’s got a bran’ new shirt on.”
“’Tain’t nuther!” scoffed Bud. “Whar’s your eyes, Boss? Don’t you reckernize that gay and festive shirt? Jimsey bought it ‘way back when Mis’ Hills’ twins was born.”
“So it’s as old as the Hills, is it?” grunted Mr. Hicks. “Wal, he ain’t worn it right frequent in this yere neck o’ woods – that I’ll swear to! An’ a purple tie with it – Je-ru-sha! Somebody’ll take a shot at him in that combination of riotin’ colors – you hear me!”
The girls too were quite fluttered over the prospect of attending the party. Helen had agreed to take her violin along and Bob offered to help out with the music by playing his harmonica – an instrument without which he never went anywhere, save to bed or in swimming!
“And I can’t think of anything more utterly sad, Bobbie,” declared his sister, “than your rendition of ‘the Suwanee River’ on that same mouth-organ. When it comes to your playing for square dances, I fear you would give our Western friends much cause for complaint – and many of them, I notice, go armed,” she continued, significantly.
“Huh!” sniffed Bob. “I guess I don’t play as bad as all that. Busy Izzy could dance a jig to my playing.”
“That’s what I thought,” responded Madge. “You’re just about up to playing jig-tunes on that old mouth-organ.”
Just the same, Bob slipped the harmonica into his pocket. “You never can tell what may happen,” he grunted.
“It’ll be something mighty serious, then, Bobbie, if it necessitates the bringing forth of that instrument of torture,” said his sister, bound to have the last word.
At dusk the big automobile got away from Silver Ranch, surrounded by a gang of wall-eyed ponies that looked on the rattling machine about as kindly as they would have viewed a Kansas grain thrasher. The visitors and Jane Ann all rode in the machine, for even Ruth’s Freckles would have turned unmanageable within sight and sound of that touring car.
“That choo-choo cart,” complained Bud, the cowboy, “would stampede a battalion of hoptoads. Whoa, you Sonny! it ain’t goin’ tuh bite yuh.” This to his own half-crazy mount. “Look out for your Rat-tail, Jimsey, or that yere purple necktie will bite the dust, as they say in the storybooks.”
The hilarious party from Silver Ranch, however, reached the Crossing without serious mishap. They were not the first comers, for there were already lines of saddle ponies as well as many various “rigs” hitched about Lem Dickson’s store. The schoolhouse was lit brightly with kerosene lamps, and there was a string of Chinese lanterns hung above the doorway.
The girls, in their fresh frocks and furbelows, hastened over to the schoolhouse, followed more leisurely by their escorts. Sally Dickson, as chief of the committee of reception, greeted Jane Ann and her friends, and made them cordially welcome, although they were all some years younger than most of the girls from the ranches roundabout.
“If you Eastern girls can all dance, you’ll sure help us out a whole lot,” declared the brisk little schoolmistress. “For if there’s anything I do dispise it’s to see two great, hulking men paired off in a reel, or a ‘hoe-down.’ And you brought your violin, Miss Cameron? That’s fine! You can play without music, I hope?”
Helen assured her she thought she could master the simple dance tunes to which the assembly was used. There were settees ranged around the walls for the dancers to rest upon, and some of the matrons who had come to chaperone the affair were already ensconced upon these. There was a buzz of conversation and laughter in the big room. The men folk hung about the door as yet, or looked in at the open windows.
“Did that big gump, Ike Stedman, come over with you-all, Miss Fielding?” Sally Dickson asked Ruth, aside. “Or did he know enough to stay away?”
“I don’t believe Mr. Hicks could have kept him on the ranch to-night,” replied Ruth, smiling. “He has promised to dance with me at least once. Ike is an awfully nice man, I think – and so kind! He’s taught us all to ride and is never out of sorts, or too busy to help us out. We ‘tenderfoots’ are always getting ‘bogged,’ you know. And Ike is right there to help us. We all like him immensely.”
Sally looked at her suspiciously. “Humph!” said she. “I never expected to hear that Bashful Ike was so popular.”
“Oh, I assure you he is,” rejoined Ruth, calmly. “He is developing into quite a lady’s man.”
Miss Dickson snorted. Nothing else could explain her method of emphatically expressing her disbelief. But Ruth was determined that the haughty little schoolmistress should have her eyes opened regarding Bashful Ike before the evening was over, and she proceeded to put into execution a plan she had already conceived on the way over from Silver Ranch.
CHAPTER XIV – BASHFUL IKE COMES OUT STRONG
Ruth first of all took Jane Ann into her confidence. The ranchman’s niece had been going about the room renewing her acquaintance with the “neighbors,” some of whom lived forty miles from Silver Ranch. The Western girl was proud of the friends she had made “Down East,” too, and she was introducing them all, right and left. But Ruth pinched her arm and signified that she wished to see her alone for a moment.
“Now, Nita,” the girl from the Red Mill whispered, “we want to see that Mr. Stedman has a good time to-night. You know, he’s been awfully good to us all.”
“Bashful Ike?” exclaimed Jane Ann.
“Yes. And we must give him so good a time that he will forget to be bashful.”
“He’s a right good feller – yes,” admitted Jane Ann, somewhat puzzled. “But what can we do for him?”
“Every one of us girls from the ranch must dance with him.”
“Oh, crickey!” chuckled Jane Ann, suddenly. “You want to try to make Sally Dickson jealous, don’t you?”
“No. I only want to make her see that Ike is popular, even if she doesn’t think him worth being kind to. And Ike is worth being kind to. He’s a gentleman, and as kind-hearted a man as I ever saw.”
“He’s all of that,” admitted the Western girl. “But he’s so clumsy – ”
“Forget that!” exclaimed Ruth. “And make him forget his clumsiness. He’s as good as gold and deserves better treatment at the hands of Sally than he has been getting. Of course, she won’t be jealous of us young girls – ”
“Humph! ‘Young girls,’” scoffed Jane Ann. “I don’t think we’re so awful young.”
“Well, we’re too young to be accused of trying to take Sally’s beau away from her,” cried Ruth, merrily. “Now, you’ll make him dance with you – and first, too. He’ll have to if you say so, for he’s your uncle’s foreman.”
“I’ll do it,” agreed Jane Ann.
Ruth of course found Helen ready and willing to agree to her plan, and Madge did not need much urging. They all liked Ike Stedman, and although the brisk little schoolmistress seemed to be a very nice girl, the foreman of Silver Ranch was quite worthy of her.
“If he dares to dance with me,” chuckled Heavy, “I am willing to keep it up all the evening. That is, if you think such a course, Ruthie, will awaken Miss Dickson to poor Ike’s good points.”
“And how about those blisters you were complaining about the other day?” asked Madge, slyly.
“Pshaw! what girl ever remembered blisters when she could dance?” responded the stout girl, with scorn.
Ruth had all but The Fox in line when the violin struck up the first number; she did not think it wise to speak to Mary about the plan, for she feared that the latter would refuse to coöperate. The boys came straggling in at the first notes of Helen’s violin, and there were no medals on Ike Stedman for bashfulness at first. Tom Cameron, spurred on by his sister, broke the ice and went at once to the school-teacher and asked for the dance. Bob followed suit by taking Mary Cox for a partner (Mary engineered that), and soon the sets began to form while Helen played her sprightliest.
The young men crowded in awkwardly and when Jane Ann saw the tall figure of Ike just outside the door she called to him:
“Come on in, Mr. Stedman. You know this is our dance. Hurry up!”
Now Ike usually didn’t get up sufficient courage to appear upon the floor until half the evening was over, and there was a deal of chuckling and nudging when the foreman, his face flaming, pushed into the room. But he could not escape “the boss’ niece.” Jane Ann deliberately led him into the set of which Tom and Sally Dickson were the nucleus.
“My great aunt!” groaned Ike. “Just as like as not, honey, I’ll trample all over you an’ mash yo’ feet. It’s like takin’ life in your han’s to dance with me.”
“Mebbe I better take my feet in my hands, according to your warning, Ike,” quoth Jane Ann. “Aw, come on, I reckon I can dodge your feet, big as they are.”
Nor did Bashful Ike prove to be so poor a dancer, when he was once on the floor. But he went through the figures of the dance with a face – so Jane Ann said afterward – that flamed like a torchlight procession every time he came opposite to Sally Dickson.
“I see you’re here early, Mr. Stedman,” said the red-haired schoolmistress, as she was being swung by the giant cow puncher in one of the figures. “Usually you’re like Parson Brown’s cow’s tail – always behind!”
“They drug me in, Sally – they just drug me in,” explained the suffering Ike.
“Well, do brace up and look a little less like you was at your own funeral!” snapped the schoolmistress.
This sharp speech would have completely quenched Ike’s desire to dance had Ruth not laid her plans so carefully. The moment the music ceased and Ike made for the door, Heavy stopped him. She was between the bashful cow puncher and all escape – unless he went through the window!
“Oh, Mr. Stedman! I do so want to dance,” cried the stout girl, with her very broadest and friendliest smile. “Nobody asked me to this time, and I just know they’re all afraid of me. Do I look as though I bite?”
“Bless you, no, Miss!” responded the polite foreman of Silver Ranch. “You look just as harmless as though you’d never cut a tooth, as fur as that goes!”
“Then you’re not afraid to dance the next number with me? There! Helen’s tuning up.”
“If you re’lly want me to, Miss,” exclaimed the much-flurried foreman. “But I won’t mislead ye. I ain’t a good dancer.”
“Then there will be a pair of us,” was Heavy’s cheerful reply. “If the other folk run off the floor, we’ll be company for each other.”
Carefully rehearsed by Ruth Fielding, Jennie Stone likewise picked the group of dancers of which Sally Dickson and a new partner were members; and once again Bashful Ike found himself close to the object of his adoration.
“Hullo, Ike! you back again?” demanded Sally, cheerfully, as they clasped hands in a “walk-around.” “I believe you are getting to be a regular lady’s man.”
“Aw – now – Sally!”
“So that Ruth Fielding says,” laughed Sally. “You’re sure popular with those youngsters.”
Ike grinned feebly. But he was feeling better. He had actually forgotten his feet – even in Sally’s presence. Jennie Stone, although an all too solid bit of humanity, was remarkably light upon her feet when it came to dancing. Indeed, she was so good a dancer that she steered Ike over the floor to such good purpose that he – as well as other people – began to believe that Bashful Ike was no more awkward than the next man off the range.
“Why, Ruthie!” whispered Madge Steele, who was the next “victim” in line. “Ike is a regular Beau Brummel beside some of these fellows. Look at Heavy steering him around! And look at the teacher watching them. Humph! young lady I believe you’re got a ‘great head on you,’ to quote Master Bobbie.”
“Now, you be real nice to him, Madge,” Ruth urged.
“Of course I shall, child,” replied Miss Steele, with her most “grown-uppish” air. “He’s nice anyway; and if we can ‘wake teacher’ up to his importance, I’ll gladly do my part.”
“If it only gives him a grain of confidence in himself, I shall be satisfied,” declared Ruth. “That is what Ike lacks.”
The foreman of Silver Ranch was coming out pretty strong, however. The Virginia Reel was the favorite dance, and when Helen stopped playing the applause was so great, that she responded with a repetition of the whole figure; so Ike and Heavy continued on the floor for a much longer period, and the big cowpuncher gained more ease of manner. When they ceased dancing the stout girl led her escort right into the clutches of Madge Steele.
Now, Madge was taller than the schoolmistress and in her city-made gown looked years older. The boys were rather afraid of Madge when she “put on the real thing,” as her brother inelegantly expressed it, for she seemed then quite a young lady grown!
“I really believe you Western men are gallant, Mr. Stedman,” she announced. “Chivalrous, and unafraid, and bold, and all that. I am deeply disappointed.”
“How’s that, Miss?” exclaimed poor Ike.
“I haven’t had an invitation to dance yet,” pursued Madge. “If I had scarletina, or the measles – or even the mumps – I do not think I should be more avoided by the male portion of the assembly. What do you suppose is the matter with me, Mr. Stedman?”
“Why, I – I – ”
Ike was on the verge of declaring that he would find her a partner if he had to use a gun to get one to come forward; but he was inspired for once to do the right thing. He really bowed before Madge with something of a flourish, as the tinkle of the violin strings began again.
“If you think you can stand me, Miss Steele,” declared the big foreman, “I’d be near about tickled to death to lead you out myself.”
“You are very good,” said Madge, demurely. “But are you sure – I think that pretty little teacher is looking this way. You are not neglecting any old friends for me I hope, Mr. Stedman?”
Ike’s face flamed again furiously. He stole a glance at Sally Dickson, who had just refused Jimsey for a partner – and with sharpness.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be a whole lot better off with you, Miss,” he admitted. “Jest now, especially.”
Madge’s ringing laugh caught Sally’s ear, as the Eastern girl bore the foreman of Silver Ranch off to join the next set of dancers. The teacher did not dance that number at all.
Mrs. “Jule” Marvin, the young and buxom wife of the owner of the Two-Ten Ranch, caught Ike’s hand and whispered loudly:
“I never suspected you was such a heart-breaker, Ike. Goodness me! you’re dancing every dance, and with a new partner each time. I haven’t got to be left out in the cold just because I’m married to Tom, I hope? He can’t dance with that game leg, poor old man! You going to save a dance for me, Ike?”
“Suah’s your bawn, honey!” responded the foreman, who was beginning to enjoy his prominence and had known Mrs. Jule for years. “The next one’s yours if you say the word.”
“You’re my meat, then, Ike,” declared the jolly Western matron, as she glided away with her present partner.
So there was a little rift in Ruth Fielding’s scheme, for Ike danced next with the ranchman’s wife. But that pleased the girl from the Red Mill and her fellow conspirators quite as well. Ike was no neglected male “wall-flower.” Sally only skipped one dance; but she watched the big foreman with growing wonder.
A rest was due Helen anyway; and Bob Steele was at hand with his never-failing harmonica. “The heart-rending strains,” as Madge termed the rather trying music from the mouth-organ, were sufficiently lively for most of the party, and the floor was filled with dancers when Helen captured Ike and he led her into a set just forming.
“You must be the best dancer among the men, Mr. Ike,” declared Ruth’s chum, dimpling merrily. “You are in such demand.”
“I b’lieve you gals have jest been ladlin’ the syrup intuh me, Miss Cam’ron,” Ike responded, but grinning with growing confidence. “It’s been mighty nice of you.”
“You’d better give Sally a chance pretty soon,” whispered Helen. “There is surely fire in her eye.”
“Great Peter!” groaned Ike. “I’m almost afraid to meet up with her now.”
“Pluck up your spirit, sir!” commanded Helen. And she maneuvered so that, when the dance was done, they stood right next to Sally Dickson and her last partner.
“Well, ain’t you the busy little bee, Ike,” said the school-teacher, in a low voice. “Are you bespoke for the rest of the evening? These young-ones certainly have turned your head.”
“Me, Sally?” responded her bashful friend. “They like tuh dance, I reckon, like all other young things – an’ the other boys seem kinder backward with ’em; ’cause they’re Bawston, I s’pose.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Miss Sally; “you ain’t such a gump as to believe all that. That little Smartie, Ruth Fielding, planned all this, I bet a cent!”
“Miss Ruth?” queried Ike, in surprise. “Why, I ain’t danced with her at all.”
“Nor you ain’t a-goin’ to!” snapped Sally. “You can dance with me for a spell now.” And for the remainder of that hilarious evening Sally scarcely allowed Bashful Ike out of her clutches.
