CHAPTER VI.

I ask Beryl King to Dance.


If I were just yarning for the fun there is in it, I should say that I was
back in King's Highway, helping Beryl King gather posies and brush up her
repartee, the very next morning--or the second, at the very latest. As a
matter of fact, though, I steered clear of that pass, and behaved myself
and stuck to work for six long weeks; that isn't saying I never thought
about her, though.

On the very last day of June, as nearly as I could estimate, Frosty rode
into Kenmore for something, and came back with that in his eyes that boded
mischief; his words, however, were innocent enough for the most
straight-laced.

"There's things doing in Kenmore," he remarked to a lot of us. "Old King
has a party of aristocrats out from New York, visiting--Terence Weaver,
half-owner in the mines, and some women; they're fixing to celebrate the
Fourth with a dance. The women, it seems, are crazy to see a real Montana
dance, and watch the cowboys _chasse_ around the room in their chaps and
spurs and big hats, and with two or three six-guns festooned around their
middles, the way you see them in pictures. They think, as near as I could
find out, that cowboys always go to dances in full war-paint like
that--and they'll be disappointed if said cowboys don't punctuate the
performance by shooting out the lights, every so often." He looked across
at me, and then is when I observed the mischief brewing in his eyes.