ot want to dance with Thornton; it had
been upon the tip of her tongue to make the old excuse and tell him that
she was engaged for this waltz. In that way the whole episode would have
passed unnoticed. But now, if they stopped, if she had him take her to
her seat and leave her, everybody would see, everybody would talk,
gossip would remember that when she had first come to Hill's Corners
John Smith had ridden with her as far as the Bar X, and that Smith had
told there how Buck Thornton had ridden as far as his place with her;
and then gossip would go on into endless speculation as to what had
happened upon the trail which now made her refuse to dance with him.

That was why she hesitated, undecided, at first. Then Thornton began to
speak and she wanted to know what he was going to say. Besides, she
admitted to herself, begrudgingly, that she had never known a man dance
as this man danced, and the magic of the waltz was on her.

"I had to return something you left at Harte's Camp," were his first
words. "That's the reason I rode over tonight."

"What is it?" she asked quickly.

Now suddenly there rose up into her heart a swift hope that after all he
was not entirely without principle, that he had grown ashamed of having
taken from a girl the money with which she had been entrusted and that
he was bringing it back to her. If he were man enough to do this ... the
blood ran up higher in her cheeks at the thought ... she could almost
forgive him for that other thing he had done.

So they moved on in the dance, her hand resting lightly in his, his
fingers closing about it with no hint of a pressure to tell her that
again he would take what small advantage he could, his eyes looking
gravely down into the eyes which flashed up at him with her question.

"Didn't you lose anything that night?" he countered. "In the cabin after
I went for the horses?"

"Well?" she countered, the quick hope leaping higher within her.

"You did?"

She wondered why his eyes were so grave, so stern now, why they had
ceased to say flattering things of her and merely hinted of a mind at
work on a puzzle. How could she know that while she was thinking of a
yellow, cloth lined envelope, he was thinking of a horse lamed with a
knife, and hoping to learn from her something of the man who had wounded
the animal?

"Well?" she asked again, hardly above a whisper. Did he dare even talk
of it here, among all these men and women? She glanced about her