I have said that much depends upon one's point of view. Mary Hope's viewpoint was not shared by the Devil's Tooth. They had one of their own, and to them it seemed perfectly logical, absolutely justifiable. They heard all about the Fourth of July picnic and dance, to be held at Cottonwood Spring and in the schoolhouse of their own building. Immediately they remembered that Cottonwood Spring was on Lorrigan land, that Lorrigan money had paid for the material that went into the schoolhouse, that Lorrigan labor had built it, Lorrigan generosity had given it over to the public as represented by Mary Hope Douglas and the children who came to her to be taught. In their minds loomed the fact that Lorrigan money had bought books for the school, and that Tom Lorrigan himself had paid close to four hundred dollars for the piano. They heard that invitations were being sent broadcast, that a crowd was coming from Pocatello, from Lava, from Jumpoff--invited to come and spend a day and night in merry-making. Yet no invitation came to the Devil's Tooth ranch, not a word was said to them by Mary Hope, not a hint that they were expected, or would be welcome. Belle met Mary Hope in the trail one day, just a week before the Fourth. Mary Hope was riding home from school; Belle was driving out from Jumpoff. It is the custom of the outland places for acquaintances to stop for a bit of friendly conversation when they meet, since meetings are so far between. But, though Belle slowed the pintos to a walk, Mary Hope only nodded, said, "How do you do," and rode on. "She looked guilty," Belle reported wrathfully to Tom and the boys at the supper table. "Guilty as sin. She seemed to be afraid I was going to ask her if I couldn't come to her dance. The little fool! Does she think for a minute I'd _go?_ She hasn't so much as thanked you for that piano, Tom. She hasn't said one word." "Well, I didn't put my name and _ad_-dress on it," Tom palliated the ingratitude while he buttered a hot biscuit generously. "And there wasn't any name on the books to show who bought 'em. Maybe she thinks--" "I don't care what she thinks! It's the way she acts that counts. Everybody in Jumpoff has got invitations to her picnic and dance. They say it's to pay us for the piano--and they think she's doing some wonderful stunt. And we're left out in the cold!" "We never was in where it was right warm, since I can remember," said Al. "Except when we made it warm ourselves." "Sam Pretty Cow was saying yesterday--" and Duke repeated a bit of gossip that had a gibe at the Lorrigans for its point. "He got it over to Hitchcocks. It come from the Douglases. I guess Mary Hope don't want nothing of us--except what she can get out of us. We been a good thing, all right--easy marks."