d the spring. A picnic had once been held there, but the
festivities had been marred by a severe thunderstorm that came just as
a wordy quarrel between two drunken cowpunchers was fast nearing the
gun-pulling stage. Lightning had struck the side hill just beyond the
grove, and the shock of it had knocked down and stunned the two
disputants, and three saddle horses standing in the muddy overflow
from the spring. For this reason, perhaps, and because it was on
Lorrigan land, the place had never thereafter been frequented save by
the stock that watered there.

But from the head of the little basin a wide view was had of the
broken land beyond Devil's Tooth. The spring was clear and cold and
never affected by drouth. By following the easy slope around the point
of the main trail from Jumpoff to the Lorrigan ranch, no road-building
was necessary, and in summer the cottonwoods looked very cool and
inviting--though at certain times they harbored buffalo gnats and many
red ants that would bite, which rendered the shade less grateful than
it looked. But to the Lorrigans it seemed an ideal site for a
schoolhouse.

Ten days after they had planned the deed, the schoolhouse stood ready
for the dance. In the lean-to shed, twelve shiny yellow desks that
smelled strongly of varnish were stacked in their heavy paper
swaddlings, waiting to be set in place when the dance was done. Belle
herself had hemmed scrim curtains for the windows, which Riley had
washed copiously. The blackboard, with the names of various Devil's
Tooth men and a "motto" or two scrawled upon it was in place; the
globe was on the teacher's desk, and the water bucket on its shelf in
the corner, with a shiny new tin dipper hanging on a nail above it.

If you were to believe the frequent declarations, every puncher on the
ranch had done his durnedest to put 'er up, and put 'er up right. Sam
Pretty Cow had nailed a three-foot American flag to the front gable,
and had landed on a nail when he jumped from the eaves. On the night
of the dance he was hobbling around the chuck-wagon with half a pound
of salt pork bound to his foot, helping Riley, who had driven over to
the spring early, burdened with the importance of his share in the
entertainment.

A dance in the Black Rim country has all the effect of a dog fight in
a small village with empty streets. No sooner does it start than one
wonders where all the people came from.

At eight o'clock toiling horses drawing full