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Presently, without quite knowing how it came about, he was telling her all about the race. Miss Satterly helped him reckon his winnings–which was not easy to do, since he had been offered all sorts of odds and had accepted them all with a recklessness that was appalling. While her dark head was bent above the piece of paper, and her pencil was setting down figures with precise little jabs, he watched her. He quite forgot the messages he had received from her through the medium of the Happy Family, and he quite forgot that women could hurt a man.

“Mr. Davidson,” she announced severely, when the figures had all been dabbed upon the paper, “You ought to have lost. It would be a lesson to you. I haven’t quite figured all your winnings, these six-to-ones and ten-to-ones and–and all that, take time to unravel. But you, yourself, stood to lose just three hundred and sixty-five dollars. Gee! but you cowboys are reckless.”

There was more that she said, but Weary did not mind. He had discovered that he liked to look at the schoolma’am. After that, nothing else was of much importance. He began to wish he might prolong his opportunity for looking.

“Say,” he said suddenly, “Come on and let’s go to the dance.”

The schoolma’am bit at her pencil and looked at him. “It’s late–“

“Oh, there’s time enough,” urged Weary.

“Maybe–but–“

“Do yuh think we aren’t well enough acquainted?”

“Well we’re not exactly old friends,” she laughed.

“We’re going to be, so it’s all the same,” Weary surprised himself by declaring with much emphasis. “You’d go, wouldn’t you, if I was–well, say your brother?”

Miss Satterly rested her chin in her palms and regarded him measuringly. “I don’t know. I never had one–except three or four that I–er–adopted, at one time or another. I suppose one could go, though–with a brother.”

Weary made a rapid, mental note for the benefit of the Happy Family–and particularly Cal Emmett. “Darling Brother” was a myth, then; he ought to have known it, all along. And if that were a myth, so probably were all those messages and things that he had hated. She didn’t care anything about him–and suddenly that struck him unpleasantly, instead of being a relief, as it consistently should have been.

“I wish you’d adopt me, just for to-night, and go;” he said, and his eyes backed the wish. “You see,” he added artfully, “it’s a sin to waste all that good music–a real, honest-to-God stringed orchestra from Great Falls, and–“

“Meekers have taken both rigs,” objected she, weakly.

“I noticed a side saddle hanging in the stable,” he wheedled, “and I’ll gamble I can rustle something to put it on. I–“

“I should think you’d gambled enough for one day,” she quelled. “But that chunky little gray in the pasture is the horse I always ride. I expect,” she sighed, “my new dancing dress would be a sight to behold when I got there–and it won’t wash. But what does a mere man care–“

“Wrap it up in something, and I’ll carry it for yuh,” Weary advised eagerly. “You can change at the hotel. It’s dead easy.” He picked up his hat from the floor, rose and stood looking anxiously down at her. “About how soon,” he insinuated, “can you be ready?”

The schoolma’am looked up at him irresolutely, drew a long breath and then laughed. “Oh, ten minutes will do,” she surrendered. “I shall put my new dress in a box, and go just as I am. Do you always get your own way, Mr. Davidson?”

“Always,” he lied convincingly over his shoulder, and jumped off the porch without bothering to use the steps.

She was waiting when he led the little gray up to the house, and she came down the steps with a large, flat, pasteboard box in her arms.