nking of it. She did not know much about God--Mormon Joe
was not religious--but she felt vaguely that she must have Him to thank
for this wonderful happiness. It was the most important happening since
she had run, terrified, from home that black night three years ago.

There had not been a night since Hughie had given her the invitation
that she had not lain awake for hours staring at the stars with a smile
on her lips as she visualized situations. She saw herself dividing
dances as belles did in books, taking her part in lively conversations,
the center of merry groups. Oh, no, life would never be the same again;
she was certain of it.

Hughie had kept his word and ridden over several times to teach her the
steps, and they had practised them on the hard-trodden ground in front
of the cook tent, where the dust could be kept down by frequent
sprinkling. If the waltz and the polka and schottische sent her blood
racing under such adverse conditions, what must it be like on a real
floor with real music, she asked herself ecstatically. These dancing
lessons were provocative of much merriment and teasing from the Toomeys.
While Hugh did not resent it or defend Kate, he did not join in their
ridicule of her. She was "green," he could not deny that, yet not in the
sense the Toomeys meant. Naive, ingenuous, he felt were better words.
She knew nothing of social usages, and she was without a suspicion of
the coquetry that he looked for in girls before they had begun to do up
their hair. She spoke with startling frankness upon subjects which he
had been taught were taboo. He admired and was accustomed to soft,
helpless, clinging femininity, and it grated upon him to see Kate at the
woodpile swinging an axe in a matter-of-fact way.

"It's because there's no one else around," he told himself, to explain
the eagerness with which he rode over while he was teaching Kate to
dance.

The boy was intelligent enough to recognize the fact that, however
unschooled Kate might be in the things that counted in the outside
world, she was not ignorant when it came to those within her ken. She
knew the habits and peculiarities of wild animals and insects, every
characteristic of sheep, and she was a nearly unfailing weather prophet
through her interpretation of the meaning of wind and sky and clouds.
Her knowledge of botany was a constant surprise to him, for she seemed
to know the name and use of the tiniest plant that grew upon the range.

Bu