The dance was on again full swing. The fiddlers were tuning up and couples gathering for a quadrille. Denver came to claim Miss Messiter for a partner. Apparently even the existence of the vanished Holloway was forgotten. But Helen remembered it, and pondered over the affair long after daylight had come and brought with it an end to the festivities. CHAPTER VI. A PARTY CALL The mistress of the Lazy D, just through with her morning visit to the hospital in the bunkhouse, stopped to read the gaudy poster tacked to the wall. It was embellished with the drawing of a placid rider astride the embodiment of fury incarnate, under which was the legend: “Stick to Your Saddle.” BIG FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION AT GIMLET BUTTE. ROPING AND BRONCO BUSTING CONTESTS FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD AND BIG PRIZES, Including $1,000 for the Best Rider and the Same for Best Roper. Cow Pony Races, Ladies’ Races and Ladies’ Riding Contest, Fireworks, AND FREE BARBECUE!!!! EVERYBODY COME AND TURN YOUR WOLF LOOSE. A sudden thud of pounding hoofs, a snatch of ragtime, and her foreman swept up in a cloud of white dust. His pony came from a gallop to an instant halt, and simultaneously Mac landed beside her, one hand holding the wide-brimmed hat he had snatched off in his descent, the other hitched by a casual thumb to the belt of his chaps. She laughed. “You really did it very well.” Mac blushed. He was still young enough to take pride in his picturesque regalia, to prefer the dramatic way of doing a commonplace thing. But, though he liked this girl’s trick of laughing at him with a perfectly grave face out of those dark, long-lashed eyes, he would have liked it better if sometimes they had given back the applause he thought his little tricks merited. “Sho! That’s foolishness,” he deprecated. “I suppose they got you to sit for this picture;” and she indicated the poster with a wave of her hand. “That ain’t a real picture,” he explained, and when she smiled added, “as of course y’u know. No hawss ever pitched that way—and the saddle ain’t right. Fact is, it’s all wrong.” “How did it come here? It wasn’t here last night.” “I reckon Denver brought it from Slauson’s. He was ridin’ that country yesterday, and as the boys was out of smokin’ he come home that way.” “I suppose you’ll all go?” “I reckon.” “And you’ll ride?” “I aim to sit in.” “At the roping, too?” “No, m’m. I ain’t so much with the rope. It takes a Mexican to snake a rope.” “Then I’ll be able to borrow only a thousand dollars from you to help buy that bunch of young cows we were speaking about,” she mocked. “Only a thousand,” he grinned. “And it ain’t a cinch I’ll win. There are three or four straightup riders on this range. A fellow come from the Hole-in-the-Wall and won out last year.” “And where were you?” “Oh, I took second prize,” he explained, with obvious indifference. “Well, you had better get first this year. We’ll have to show them the Lazy D hasn’t gone to sleep.”