the kittens. Please, Aunt Pen!"

Jo was promptly on hand this time.

"This is mine," he asserted, "unless you're danced out by that gink."

"My dancing blood isn't up yet," she said, slipping into his arms. She
didn't care to know the name of the dance. All she knew was the ecstasy of
the moment in the flowing, melting rhythm. Jo had the easy assurance of
the dancer born, and she went where he willed, as if she were floating on
silver wires. Finally, Sleepy Sandy, watching them in envious admiration,
was aware that he had played as long as the law of limit allowed.

"Isn't this better than Reilly's?" she asked demurely.

"There will never in the world be to me a night like the one at Reilly's,"
he replied.

"Jo, why don't you go into vaudeville? Your dancing would bring you twice
what your work here must."

"Mine is a man's job," he retorted. "I'd rather dance horseback than on
any stage. I have to go over to Farley with a lot of cattle to-morrow. It
will take me three days. You will arrange to see me again when I come
back?"

"I surely will, Jo," she promised.

"Don't let Jo monopolize you," said Kingdon, coming up to them at the
close of the dance. "We try to give the boys plenty of recreation, and
they don't get many girls to dance with. None like you."

Pen dutifully promised to do penance with the rank and file.

"I'll go and ask the cook," said Jo mournfully, "else I won't get half
rations. Then I'll come back for you."

Reluctantly he gave way to Gene and approached the cook.

"Say!" he asked with a quirk to his mouth, "want to hook on to the
wishbone?"

"Those darned brats fetch and carry everything they hear," she exclaimed.

"Forget it. A wishbone's the best bone to pick anyway."

Thereafter he waited patiently for Pen to do her duty dances and slip one
in with him.

Pen went to sleep that night with blissful recollections of her wonderful
dances with Jo and a vague curiosity as to whether Kurt Walters could
dance.

For the greater part of three days she sewed assiduously, surrounded the
while by three admiring children who listened entranced to a new kind of
Scheherazade tales. Between times she gathered flowers for the many jugs
and jars, learned to make salads and to perform little household duties
hitherto unknown. Then suddenly there came a swift change of mood. The
sense of uneasiness, the need of freedom, the desire that pervades the
wistful note of the imprisoned bird was in her b