“Oh! All right,” the singer said, the more friendly light sparkling in her eyes again. “What I wanted to ask you is, is that suit you got on really what they all wear in the East?” “Yes. Since nearly every one rides astride now, the habit is made mannish.” “Well, I’ve straddled a hoss ever since I can remember, but I never seen anything but a skirt and bloomers or a divided skirt like this on women before. But I must say them things you wear are plumb fetching.” Betty was amused. But she had reason for feeling kindly toward Nell Blossom. “You could easily cut over that corduroy skirt you wear into a pair of breeches like these,” she suggested. “You reckon so?” asked Nell with eagerness. “I’d like that a pile. But I don’t know——” “I could show you. We could cut a pattern. Has anybody in town a sewing machine?” “Sure thing. Mother Tubbs has got one. And I can run up a seam as good as she can.” “I’ll tell you,” proposed Betty with real interest. “You ride back to the hotel with me, and we’ll cut the pattern out of a newspaper.” Through such seemingly unimportant incidents as this the trend of great affairs are sometimes changed. Had Nell ridden on she might have seen the same fugitive Betty had noticed hiding in the chaparral. But Nell was easily persuaded to attend the parson’s sister to the Wild Rose. The two girls, who seemed to have so little in common, after all found much, besides the dressmaking plans, in each other to afford them interest. It was Nell’s strangely sweet voice that pleased Betty most. Even when the Western girl said the rudest things, her voice caressed one’s ear. And Betty began to realize that Nell’s “rudeness” was born of frankness and a certain bashfulness. Most bashful people are abrupt, at times quite startling, in speech. In another place, among other people, Nell Blossom would have betrayed timidity and hesitation. But, as she would have said, she would not have “got far” in Canyon Pass by yielding to any secret shrinking from her associates. “A girl’s got to keep her own end up in a place like this. They all root for me and clap me on and off the stage. But I’ve got to fight my own battles,” pursued the singer. “Men are like wolves, Betty. The pack will foller a leader so long as that leader keeps ahead. When the leader goes plumb lame and falls behind, they eat him.” “Oh!” “I’m popular with the boys. They’re strong for me just now. But ’twouldn’t take much to make ’em turn on me. I know ’em!” she concluded grimly. She knew a great many things, it was evident, of which Betty Hunt was ignorant. When the cabaret singer went away with her pattern she left Betty much to ponder about, which did not fundamentally deal with Nell Blossom’s problems. When Nell had gone a grimmer shadow overcame Betty’s mind—a shadow that had lain athwart her path since that bitter season just preceding the death of her Aunt Prudence Mason and Betty’s withdrawal from boarding school.