ith long strides to his own bottle
under his own bush where he might conceal the tremor of the new
happiness he had but come from and drink to the big-eyed girl in the
pink dress with the cascades of baby-ribbon; there was Ruf Ettinger with
his new overalls turned back the regulation six inches from the bottoms
in a cowboy cuff that permitted of the vision of six inches of grey
trouser leg below; there was Chase Harper of Tres Pinos in the smallest
boots man ever wore, with the highest heels, their newness a thing of
which in their pride they shrieked manfully as he walked; and there was
Ben Broderick, the miner, quietly dressed in black broadcloth, looking
almost the man of the city. To him Thornton merely nodded, briefly,
knowing the man but little, liking him less. But Broderick put out his
hand, saying cordially:

"Hello, Buck. Going to shake a leg a little?"

"I might." They were just outside the door, and the cowboy's eyes
running on past the miner sought up and down the lines of chatting women
for the girl who had tempted him to his first dance in many months. He
had seen Pollard's team, but he had not seen Pollard or his niece.
Broderick watched him, smiling a little. "Have a drink, Buck?" he asked,
seeming not to have noticed the other's curtness of word and manner.
"I've got something prime outside."

"Not thirsty right now, Broderick," Thornton returned coolly.

Then he heard a man's voice from the shadows at his back, and without
turning knew that Henry Pollard was out there, just behind him. At the
same instant his busy eyes found the girl he sought.

Winifred Waverly's days in Hill's Corners had had little enough of the
joy of life in them for her; she had felt that she breathed an
atmosphere charged with forces which she could not understand; upon her
spirit had rested a weight of uncertainty and uneasiness and suspicion;
the men she saw had hard, sinister faces and seemed cast for dark,
merciless things; even her uncle appeared a strange sort of stranger to
her and she shrank from following her natural train of surmise and
suspicion when now and then she surprised a certain look upon his face
or when she saw him with the type of man with whom he mixed.

Tonight it was as though after a long period of gloomy, overcast skies,
a storm had passed and the sun had broken through. About her were light
and music, the merry faces of children and girls with everywhere joyous,
full throated, light hearted lau