Robin didn’t wait to eat supper. When the last tent stake was driven he mounted and bore away for home, a matter of ten miles. Twelve miles from Mayne’s to the schoolhouse. He would ride that twenty-two miles, dance all night, take Ivy three miles above the schoolhouse to a neighbor’s where she could sleep till noon and ride home at her leisure. He, himself, would get to the roundup in time to swallow a cup of coffee, catch a fresh horse and ride again. And he would enjoy every minute of it. So would Ivy Mayne. Music and a smooth floor. They both loved dancing. A dance in the summer was rare. There was always the important seasonal work of the range in summer. Winter was the time for play. Robin would not have missed that night’s fun for a month’s pay. And Ivy would never forgive him if he let her miss it. She wouldn’t go with any other man, and it wasn’t the thing in the cow country for nice girls to attend dances unescorted. So Robin rode his best horse, Red Mike, and whistled as he burned up the miles. A little after nine o’clock he was helping Ivy off her horse. Other saddle ponies, a score of them, were hitched to the rail fence that kept wild cattle out of the schoolhouse yard. Buggies and spring wagons loomed in the darkness. Light shone in the yellow squares from the windows. No one could ever accuse range folk of taking their pleasures sadly. Within rose a cheerful clatter of voices, laughter, the tuneful blend of a fiddle and a piano, the slither of feet on a floor made smooth by candlescrapings. They hurried in. While Ivy went into a sort of side room to change her riding boots for a pair of slippers carried in her hand, Robin stood in a short entryway, looking in. As a practiced cowman sweeps a bunch of stock and at a single glance notes marks and brands, so he took in the different faces, most of which he knew--the Davis girls, from the ranch nearby where Ivy’s small brother and sister lived while they attended school, the whole Santerre family from Sand Creek, a sprinkling of small cowmen and ranchers from within a radius of twenty miles, even a contingent from Big Sandy. Over in one corner, bulking large, his big face rosy like a rising sun sat Adam Sutherland, one leg crossed over the other, conversing with another man. Down at the far end Robin marked two couples just a little different, very subtly, indefinably so, from the general run of the crowd gathered for this merry-making. Of the quartette Robin knew one--Sutherland’s girl. The other three, two young men and a girl of twenty, he had never seen before. They were waltzing. As they came down the length of the floor May saw Robin in the doorway. She smiled, nodded over her partner’s shoulder. Just abreast of him the music ceased. May turned to him. “Hello, Robin Tyler.” “Howdy, Miss Sutherland.” “Let me introduce you--Mr. Stevens, Mr. Tyler.” Robin took a second look at young Stevens.