e Keith boys
had seen to-night for the first time. He had paid his seventy-five cents,
and had received his numbered ticket like the others, by which simple
ceremony all the requirements of ranch etiquette were fulfilled. Bub
Quinn they called him--Bub Quinn from the Divide. Rather a nice-looking
fellow, the brothers had agreed, attracted by his brilliant smile and
hearty hand-shake. It was Bub Quinn who had brought the girl that Joe
was dancing with, and now that Lem came to think of it, he could not
remember having seen her dance with any one else, besides Quinn himself.
Lem's heart gave a heavy thump almost before his brain had grasped the
situation. Yet the situation was very plain. It was Joe and his little
fool of a partner that those malignant eyes were following.

They were light eyes, looking out from under level light eyebrows, and
Lem frankly quaked at sight of them. The man's face was clean-shaven,
showing high cheekbones and a firm, handsome mouth. He stood in an
indolent attitude, with his hands in his pockets; but all the reckless
passion of the desperado was concentrated in the level glance of those
menacing eyes.

"Meet your partner with a double _sashay_," cried the curly-headed boy.
Diddle-diddle-dee squeaked the fiddles. Lem looked again at his brother.
He was flirting outrageously.

A door opened behind Lem, and a woman called him by name. He stepped
into the kitchen, where two of his prairie neighbors were busy with the
supper. It was Mrs. Luella Jenkins who had summoned him, kind, queer,
warm-hearted Mrs. Luella. The "Keith boys" were giving their first
dance, and she had undertaken to engineer the supper.

"We've got the coffee on," she remarked, pointing over her shoulder at a
couple of gallon-cans on the stove, from which an agreeable aroma was
rising.

"That's first-rate," said Lem, who had a much more distinct vision of
Bub Quinn's eyes than of the mammoth tin cans. "Is there anything I can
do to help?"

"Well, I dunno," Mrs. Luella ruminated. Her speech was as slow as her
movements were quick. "I was thinkin' 't was 'most a pity you hadn't had
bun sandwiches." She looked regretfully at the rapidly growing pile of
the ordinary kind with which the table was being loaded. "The buns taste
kind o' sweet and pleasant, mixed up with the ham."

Through the closed door came the scraping of the indefatigable fiddles.
"Hold her tight, and run her down the middle!" shouted the voice of the
call