at down just in
time to receive Bill Kennedy in his lap. But Bill was too happy just
then to observe whose lap he landed in, and bounced up with a
bellowing laugh to resume his gyrations.

"Don't dance any more, girl," Lance said, leaning so that he could
make himself heard without shouting in the uproar. "It's getting
pretty wild--and it will be wilder. They must have hauled it out in
barrels!"

Mary Hope looked at him, but she did not smile, did not answer.

"I'm sorry the secret is no nicer," Lance went on. "Now the floor will
have to be scrubbed before a lady girl can come out and teach school
here. I thought it would be great to have a house-warming dance,--but
they're making it too blamed warm!"

Some one slipped and fell, and immediately there was a struggling heap
where others had fallen over the first. There were shrieks of laughter
and an oath or two, an epithet and then a loud-flung threat.

Lance started up, saw that Tom and Al were heading that way, and took
Mary Hope by the arm.

"It's time little girls like you went home," he said smiling, and
somehow got her to the door without having her trampled upon. "Where
are your wraps?"

"There," said Mary Hope dazedly, and pointed to the corner behind
them, where cloaks, hoods, hats and two sleeping children were piled
indiscriminately.

Through the doorway men were crowding, two or three being pushed out
only to be pushed in again by others eager to join the melee. In the
rear of the room, near the musicians, two men were fighting. Lance,
giving one glance to the fight and another to the struggling mass in
the doorway, pushed up the window nearest them, lifted Mary Hope and
put her out on the side hill. He felt of a coat or two, chose the
heaviest, found something soft and furry like a cap, and followed her.
Behind the door no one seemed to look. A solid mass of backs was
turned toward him when he wriggled through on his stomach.

"Where's your horse?" he asked Mary Hope, while he slipped the coat on
her and buttoned it.

"It does seem to me that a Lorrigan is _always_ making me put on a
coat!" cried Mary Hope petulantly. "And now, this isn't mine at all!"

"A non-essential detail. It's a coat, and that's all that matters.
Where is your horse?"

"I haven't any horse here--oh, they're killing each other in there!
The Kennedys brought me--and he's that drunk, now--"

"Good heck! Bill Kennedy! Well, come on. You couldn't go back with
them, that's