He had put out his arm as though her affirmative were a foregone conclusion. She stared at him, wondering where were the limits to this man's audacity. Then, before she could reply, Mrs. Sturgis had answered for her. For Mrs. Sturgis was a born match maker, Buck was like a son to her motherly heart, Winifred Waverly was the "sweetest little thing" she had ever seen, and they had in them the making of such a couple as Mrs. Sturgis couldn't find every day of the week. "Go 'long with you, Buck Thornton!" she cried, making a monumental failure of the frown with which she tried to draw her placid brows. "Here I thought all the time you was goin' to ask me!" Then she jerked him by the arm, dragging him nearer, playfully pushed the girl toward him, and before she well knew what had happened Winifred found herself in Thornton's arms, whirling with him to the merry-fiddled music, putting out her little slipper by the side of his big boot to the step of the rye-waltz. And Mrs. Sturgis, drawing her twinkling eyes away from them and turning upon Ben Broderick, who had arrived just too late, with as much malice in her smile as she knew how to put into it, remarked meaningly, "A little slow, Mr. Broderick! You got to keep awake when there's a man like Buck around." And she seemed very much pleased with the look in Broderick's eyes, a look of blended surprise and irritation. "Thornton and her uncle are not just exactly friends," he retorted coolly. "If they was," she flung back at him, "I'd think a heap sight more of ol' Ben Pollard!" Mrs. Sturgis's manoeuvre had so completely taken the girl by surprise that as she floated away in the cowboy's arms she was for a little undecided what to do. She did not 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.