mill, dominating the rhythmic
tread of the dancers, but not subduing the fancy of the caller-out.

The caller-out for the moment was a curly-headed lad of twenty, with a
shrewd, good-humored face. He stood in a slouching attitude, one
shoulder much higher than the other, and as he gave forth, in a singsong
voice, his emphatic rhymed directions, his fingers played idly with the
red-silk lacings of his brown flannel shirt. To an imaginative
looker-on those idly toying fingers had an indefinable air of being
very much at home with the trigger of the six-shooter at the lad's belt.
So, at least, it struck Lem Keith.

"Swing him round for old Mother Flannigan!
You've swung him so nice, now swing him again, again!
On to the next, and swing that gent!
Now straight back, and swing your own man again!"

Tramp, tramp, tramp went the rhythmic feet; diddle-diddle-dee went the
fiddles. There was not much talking among either dancers or sitters-out.
Occasionally one of the babies in the adjoining bedroom waked and
wailed, but on the whole they were well-behaved babies. There they lay
on the bed, six in a row, while their mothers eagerly snatched their bit
of pleasure at the cost of a night's sleep.

Lemuel Keith, joint host with his brother on this occasion, sat on a
bench against the wall, contemplating with wonder the energy of these
overworked women. Beside him sat the husband of one of them, a tall,
gaunt ranchman, with his legs crossed, poising upon a bony knee an atom
of humanity in a short plaided woollen frock.

"How old is your baby?" asked Lem, mindful of his duties as host.

"Four months," was the laconic reply; and as though embarrassed by the
personal nature of the inquiry, the man rose and repaired to a remote
corner, where he began a solemn waltz with his offspring in his arms.

It was an April evening, and the windows were open to the south. A cool
night-breeze came in, grateful alike to dancers and lookers-on. Lem sat
watching his twin brother Joe, who was taking his turn at the dance. Lem
usually watched Joe when he had the chance; for if the brothers were
bewilderingly alike in appearance, they were animated by a spirit so
unlike, that Joe's every look and action was a source of interest to
Lem. Indeed, it was his taste for Joe's society that had made a Colorado
ranchman of him. Nature had intended Lemuel Keith for a student, and
then, by a strange oversight, had made him the twin-brother of a