It was Old Mizzou, I believe, who steadied her stirrup, and Dave Kelly who helped her from her horse and held her a moment longer than was necessary, and, to his vast astonishment, instead of being slapped was heartily kissed for his temerity. There was a breathless element of unexpectedness in this which appealed to the miners' sense of humor, and they all laughed consumedly and felt good comrades at once. Old Mizzou mentally added another exception to his sweeping rule about "grass widders and school ma'ams." There sprang up a rapid fire of good-humored joking back and forth in which no man was favored, where each had a chance to enter the lists, and in the course of which each conceived an inner conviction that all he needed to "win out" was a chance unhindered by the crowd. Bismarck Anne stood in the centre of the group, flashing her black eyes back and forth from one to the other and showing her white teeth in a series of dazzling smiles. Just at this moment Cheyenne Harry and Molly Lafond, returning from one of their numerous expeditions, caught sight of the animated group near the hotel, and naturally turned aside to investigate its cause. Bismarck Anne faced toward them. "Why, Harry!" she cried, holding out both hands, "you here? I didn't know you-all hung out in this camp. You look just the same as ever. 'Spose you're goin' to take in th' dance to-night. Yes, that's what I came over for; that an' nothing else. We'll have to stir this camp up a bit and make her seem like old times. I'm afraid you boys have been getting a little slow," she flashed good-humoredly at the others. "Harry, you ought to have seen them when I kissed that boy over there, just for a 'kid,' you know. I don't believe you've got a girl in this camp who knows beans, and it's about time you did. I'm _mighty_ glad to see you. But you got to watch out, though! This is a pretty good-looking lot of boys, and you'll have to hustle to hold your job." She said this still holding both his hands in hers, and alternately smiling now at him, now at the men about her. She had taken rapid stock of Molly--whom she now ignored for the moment--and had as rapidly come to the conclusion that if a rival were to appear at all, it would be Harry's companion. She hoped her speech would at the same time attach Harry to herself, and render assiduous his devotions by a fear of rivalry. "You bet we will!" cried Harry. His manner was enthusiastic, not so much with joy over seeing Bismarck Anne, as with instinctive relief from the tension of his rather sentimental interview with Molly. He remembered the latter and performed some sort of an introduction. The two women looked each other in the eye. "How do you do?" asked Molly coolly, without moving an inch. "Very well, my dear," replied Bismarck Anne smiling, "and very glad to get here." The endearing epithet relegated Molly at once to the category of little girls.