“What you tryin’ to do to me, Ivy?” he asked soberly. “Nothin’ at all. I’m just having a good time. Isn’t that what we come to a dance for?” Go dance it with May Sutherland! All right, Robin said to himself. He would--if he could. If it was to be everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost, why not be in the van? He knew what partner Ivy meant. He knew what construction every man and woman there would put on Ivy’s eating supper with Shining Mark. They would infer that Mark had cut him out, and there would be just the faintest anticipation of trouble. Robin grimly promised to fool them there. He would never jump Mark Steele over a woman’s fickle whim. If Ivy was fool enough to throw herself at Shining Mark in a fit of groundless jealousy--she could! No, if and when he clashed with Mark Steele it would be over something more serious than a girl’s favor. So Robin stood by and when Mark did claim Ivy for the supper dance he looked about for May. On second thought he expected to find her dancing with young Stevens or young Harper. But Stevens was paired with Miss Rose Barton and young Harper had appropriated the auburn-haired school-teacher. Robin had in the course of the evening been introduced to all three. He had danced with Rose, a gay and lightsome damsel from Helena, who confided to Robin that she had come there in some trepidation since she had never before seen the cowboy on his native heath. Having been told sundry tales by Adam Sutherland and young Stevens she half expected the Block S riders to take the floor in woolly chaps and jingling spurs, to make the welkin ring with shouts and perhaps occasionally fire a shot through the roof in their unrestrained exuberance. “Too bad,” Robin had sympathized mockingly. “And you find us a tame outfit wearin’ store clothes and collars and patent leather shoes and actin’ like anybody at any ordinary dance. Maybe some of the boys might put on a little wild west specially for your benefit if you mentioned it.” But Miss Barton hastened to assure him that she wanted no such displays. The Block S men were good dancers. She liked cow-punchers, she informed him archly, if several of those present were a fair sample. For the moment the rest of the Sutherland crowd had vanished. He didn’t see Adam anywhere. Looking about he got a flash of May in the lean-to helping two or three older women arrange sandwiches on platters. The smell of coffee floated out of this room.