him, but with a reddening
grin. To Thornton came a swift inspiration.

"Wonder if Miss Waverly will be over from the Corners?" he asked.

"Dunno," Bud replied innocently, so innocently that Thornton laughed
again.

Thornton rode back to the Poison Hole. And as he went, his thoughts ran
now to the mission upon which old man King had set forth, now upon the
wisdom of shaving, putting on his best suit and new hat and going to a
dance....

"It isn't so much I want to see her again," he told himself, "as I want
to give back her spur rowel!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE DANCE AT DEER CREEK SCHOOLHOUSE

Deer Creek schoolhouse stood in a tiny, emerald valley half a dozen
miles from Hill's Corners, some fifteen miles from Thornton's cabin, its
handful of barefooted pupils coming from the families scattered through
the valley. It was a one roomed building with two low doors and six
square windows. And yet it offered ample enough floor space and bench
accommodations for the valley dances, its one room being twenty-four
feet long and twelve feet wide, certainly over large for the single
"school marm" and her small flock, having been constructed with an eye
to just such social gatherings as the one tonight.

The teacher's desk had been taken outdoors by willing hands; the pupils'
benches stood along the walls for the "women folk" during the
intermissions; upon the slightly raised platform at one end of the room
were the chairs for the musicians, fiddler and guitarist. And upon the
floor was much shaved candle. For light there were the four coal-oil
lamps with their foolish reflectors against the walls, and a full moon
shining in through door and windows.

Thornton came late, late that is, for a country dance. It was after
nine o'clock when, riding Comet, he saw the schoolhouse lamps winking at
him through the oaks and heard the merry music of fiddle and guitar in
the frolic of a heel-and-toe polka. Already he made out here and there
the saddle horses which had brought so many "stags" so many miles to the
dance, and which stood tied to tree and shrub. Also there were the usual
spring wagons that had brought their family loads of father, mother,
son, daughter, hired man and the baby; while the inevitable cart was in
evidence speaking unmistakably of mooning couples whose budding interest
in each other did not permit of the drive in the family carry-all.

Thornton noted the vehicles as he passed them, and turned to look at