The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 100: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

282 Red looked around, his disappointment plainly to be observed on his face. When a man has nerved himself up to a considerable task and then finds the accomplishment of it ridiculously easy it is a shock. Red danced in his stolen place, and never a word was said to him by any one. Bill Bright called off the numbers with his famous voice, and the set was danced through without a break. Red left the place with a feeling that he had been cheated. He had planned it all out; he had fixed everything just the way he wanted it—and nothing hap- pened. ‘Td ought to have taken the big feller at the foot of the set,” he told himself, ‘“ He’d ’a’ pulled up a little scrap, and that ’d fetch Bright all right.” He turned and glanced toward Bright. The floor-manager was stooping over the little woman who was his wife; she was talking with a violence that made her shake from head to foot. She had the lapel of Bright’s coat in her left hand and was jerking her thumb toward Red with her right. Bright was shaking his head in negation while his wife was making very positive affirmative nods. Bright raised his finger, shook it soothingly, and nodded with a wise air. His wife gave a grim nod and returned to her vigil beside the music. ‘That little feller’s her cousin,’ Dora giggled, “ an’ she’s been layin’ the law down to Bill!” ‘Her family kind of runs to runts, don’t they?” Red grinned. ‘ Honest, I didn’t know I’d touched him yet, when he flopped over on the platform.” “The next dance will be a two-step!” shouted Floor-Manager Bright. “ Get yer partners for a two-step!”’ ‘Oh, I promised Bill I’d take the next round dance with him!” Dora suddenly remembered. Jerking clear of Red’s arm, she dashed to Bright’s side, where she began to whisper and grin in a way that made Red wince. THE ARGOSY. But there was nothing, under the rules of the woods dances, that he could do. No matter in which direction he glanced, it seemed as if he spied the grinning countenance of one or other of his home- camp crew. With a snort he turned and headed straight toward Mrs. Bright. As he approached her he bowed low. ‘“ You’ve fergotten me,” he said; “ but I was interduced to you by Pete Denning over to Ohio, and you and me danced—” “Why, yes—I remember!” Mrs. Bright nodded, smiling with a savage glance out of the corner of her eyes at her husband, on whose arm Dora was hanging. “It was a fine set!” ‘“T ain’t much good at these here round dances,” Red said, “but if you was a mind to try—” ‘““ Why—well, yes; I don’t mind. Of course I will.” She bobbed to her feet and stood beside the burly, red-whiskered, broad-shoul- dered woodsman. She walked along with him for a few yards; then step by step they caught into the music. To the amazement of the spectators who knew Red, he began to get into the time and then into the step. They ran and they teetered, they skipped and they balanced, they see- sawed and they bucked, they swirled around and around, and as the music quickened they quickened. They began to romp the length of the hall. They danced circles around Bill Bright and the lackadaisical Dora Hearn. : The observers rose higher and higher . on their tiptoes as they saw Bill Bright paying more and more attention to Red and Mrs. Bright than he paid to his own steps and the large girl lolling upon his arm. _“* Gee!”’ Bigger whispered in his excite- ment. ‘“‘ Keep yer eyes open for what’s comin’! Red’s found his way at last!” Red’s whiskers made a canopy over the head of Mrs. Bright; she swung upon his -arm with a gay abandon that had not been seen in many a day up West Creek. Go NOO;KS AUUG (C@