med with the contagion of his blush. She
wished that he would not look as if he had seen the blush and was pleased
by it. She wished that his clean young strength and beauty and the ardor
of his eyes did not speak quite so eloquently.

"I bought a little black horse about so high"--he held his hand an absurd
distance from the floor and laughed--"just the size for a little girl
and--do you know who I'm going to give him to?"

Here Miss Blake got up, strode to the pianola, adjusted it, and sat down,
broad and solid and unabashed by absence of feminine draperies, upon the
stool. She played a comic song.

"I don't like your _fam_ily--"

in some such dreadful way it expressed itself--

"They do _not_ look good to me.
I don't think your _Unc_le John
Ever _had_ a collar on ..."

She played it very loud.

Hilliard stood up and came close to Sheila.

"She's mad as a March hare," he whispered, "and she doesn't like me a
little bit. Come out while I patch up Dusty, won't you, please? It's
moonlight. I'll be going." He repeated this very loud for Miss Blake's
benefit with no apparent effect upon her enjoyment of the song. She was
rocking to its rhythm.

Hilliard was overwhelmed suddenly by the appearance of her. He put his
hand to his mouth and bolted. Sheila, following, found him around the
corner of the house rocking and gasping with mirth. He looked at her
through tears.

"Puss-in-Boots," he gasped, and Sheila ran to the edge of the clearing to
be safe in a mighty self-indulgence.

There they crouched like two children till their laughter spent itself.
Hilliard was serious first.

"You're a bad, ungrateful girl," he said weakly, "to laugh at a sweet old
lady like that."

"Oh, I am!" Sheila took it almost seriously. "She's been wonderful to
me."

"I bet she works you," he said jealously.

"Oh, no. Not a bit too hard. I love it."

"Well," he admitted, "you do look pretty fine, that's a fact. Better than
you did at Hudson's. What did you quit for?"

Sheila was sober enough now. The moonlight let some of its silver,
uncaught by the twinkling aspen leaves, splash down on her face. It
seemed to flicker and quiver like the leaves. She shook her head.

He looked a trifle sullen. "Oh, you won't tell me.... Funny idea, you
being a barmaid. Hudson's notion, wasn't it?"

Sheila lifted her clear eyes. "I thought asking questions wasn't good
manners in the West."

"Damn!" he said. "Don't you make me angry! I've got