They was all dead agin me when I tole 'em what was the matter. They said the other gals danced with Mexic, and bein' Macie was the Bar Y gal, she couldn't give him the go-by if she took the rest of the outfit fer pardners. Just the same, I made up my mind she wouldn't dance with that _greaser_. And I says to myself, "This is where you show you're a-goin' to run the Lloyd house. She'll like you all the better if you git the upper hand." So when I got her coaxed outside again, I led her to where my bronc was tied. She liked the little hoss, and whilst we was chinnin', I put her into the saddle. Next minute, I was on behind her, and the bronc was makin' quick tracks fer home. Wal, sir, she was madder'n a hen in a thunder-shower. She tried to pull in the bronc; she twisted and scolted and cried. Tole me she hated me like arsenic. "Alec Lloyd," she says, "after t'night, I'll never, never speak to you again!" When we rode up to the corral, I lifted her down, and she went tearin' away to the house. The ole man heerd her comin', and thought she was singin'. He slung open the door on the porch. "Aw, give that calf more rope!" he calls out. Say! she went by him like a streak of lightnin', almost knockin' him down. And the door slammed so hard you could 'a' heerd it plumb t' Galveston. I hung 'round the corral fer as much as half a' hour, listenin' to the pow-wow goin' on at the house. But nobody seemed to be a-hollerin' fer me t' come in, so I made fer the straw. "Aw, wal," I says to myself, "her dander 'll cool off t'-morra." But the next day, she passed me by without speakin'. And I, like a sap-head, didn't speak neither. I was on my high hoss,--wouldn't speak till _she_ did. So off I had t' go to Hasty Creek fer three days--and no good-bye t' the little gal. I got back late one afternoon. At the bunk-house, I noticed a change in the boys. They all seemed just about t' bust over somethin'--not laughin', y' savvy, but anxious, kinda, and achin' to tell news. Fin'lly, I went over to Hairoil. "Pardner," I says, "spit it out." He looked up. "Cupid," he says, "us fellers don't like t' git you stirred up, but we think it's about time someone oughta speak--and put you next." "Next about what?" I ast. The way he said it give me a kinda start. "We've saw how things was a-goin', but we didn't say nothin' to you 'cause it wasn't none of our funeral. Quite a spell back, folks begun to talk about how crazy Macie Sewell was gittin' to be on the singin' question. It leaked out that she'd been tole she had a A1 voice----" "It ain't no lie, neither." "And that her warblin' come pretty clost to bein' as good as Melba's." "It's a heap _better'n_ Melba's." "Also"--Hairoil fidgited some--"you know, a-course, that she's been tackin' up photographs of op'ra singers and actresses in her room----" "Wal, what's the harm?" "And--and practicin' bows in front of a glass." I begun t' see what he was drivin' at.