The dance-hall was the up-stairs floor of Bridewell’s general
merchandise store. From the center of the ceiling was suspended a
monstrous gasoline-lamp that flooded the larger part of the dancing
floor with dazzling light, but the flicker of the flame sent occasional
seas of shadow washing into the corners of the room. A thick line of
stools and chairs and empty grocery-boxes made the seats for the throng
around the wall. The floor glimmered and shone in mute testimony to the
polishing which it had received earlier in the evening when a dozen
strong men pulled about the room a heavy bale of hay with two men
sitting upon it. Waxed hardwood could not have been more brilliant.
The music was supplied by a banjo, a slide trombone, a violin, and a
snare drum; and the musicians operated their instruments with undying
vigor. Lest they should falter in their efforts from weariness, glasses
of liquor stood beside them at all times, supplied by generous
cow-punchers who appreciated the soulful music. This stimulus was not
applied in vain, for, as the evening wore on, each piece of music was
increased slightly but perceptibly in cadence beyond all which had gone
before.
This applied to the two-steps, which sent the dancers whirling over the
floor with such violence that at the end of each dance there was a
general stampede for the bar which stretched across the farther end of
the room. Here four men worked with frantic haste to quench the thirst
of the multitude, and labored in vain. The exercise made the throat of
every man as dry as that of Tantalus, and the glasses were snatched up
and tossed off as rapidly as they were spun down the length of the bar.
Jac and Carrigan paused at the door to make a survey of the scene. The
festivities were already well under way. Some of the men had removed
their bandannas and stuffed the latter into back trouser-pockets, from
which they streamed like brilliant pennons during the dance. There were
other tokens that the dance had passed the stiff formality of the
opening moments. The musicians played with the fierce resolution of
long-distance runners entering the homestretch. The violinist leaned
back with eyes closed and jaw set in do-or-die determination, while his
bow darted back and forth across the strings. The banjo man leaned far
over and thrummed away with an expression partly of pain and partly of
faraway yearning as he stared above the heads of the dancers. The
expression was caused not by sorrow of soul, but by a cramp in his right
hand. The trombone-player, however, was in far worse case than either of
his two companions. He was very fat, very short, and his red, bald head
shone furiously. Yet he would not diminish the vigor of his efforts. His
long slurs were more brazenly ringing than ever. His upward runs raised
the heart and the hair at the same time. His downward slides sent out a
chill tingle along the spine. He jerked out his arm with such violence
that it made his flabby body quiver like jelly; and the vigor of his
blowing set a white spot in the middle of his puffed cheeks.
Orpheus stirred the trees as this orchestra stirred the citizens of the
mountain-desert. It sent them whirling frantically about the dance-hall;
it moved them to sit now and then in the shadow-swept corners, closely
tête-à-tête.
A wild and ludicrous scene? Perhaps. But also there was beauty and youth
as much as ever graced a ballroom. And there was rhythm. Rhythm of the
dance, rhythm of the screeching, thrumming music; and to the young,
rhythm is poetry. It set a glamour upon the faces of the dancers; of the
shadowy corners it made moonlit gardens.
“What is my name?” queried Jac. “We forgot that!”
He was dumfounded.
“Perhaps I’m your sister?”
He grinned.
“Jac, you look as much like me as a yearling short-horn looks like a
long-horn maverick. Something fancy. Jacqueline Silvestre. How does that
hit, eh? Miss Silvestre! You’ve come from the east. You’re visiting at a
ranch twenty miles away.”
“What ranch?”
“Fake a name.”
“Every one knows everybody else for miles around.”
“It’s up to you. Can you do the Eastern lingo?”
She tilted her head to one side and gazed upon him with naive
astonishment.
“‘Lingo,’ Mr. Carrigan?”
“Good Lord!” breathed Carrigan.
Her laughter was low and filled with hints of many things. It made him
distinctly uncomfortable.
“I’ve read books,” she said. “I’ll do my part. But you?”
“I’m simply a cow-puncher you’ve pressed into service to bring you here.
Right? Now who do you want to dance with? Watch their eyes!”
They walked slowly into the room, and were met by a new sound over the
clangor of music and voices. It was that buzz which to the heart of the
debutante is the elixir of life, and to the city matron is the nectar
which promises immortal beauty. In the dance-hall at Bridewell it was
less covert. Jacqueline stood in the spot-light like a queen.
She knew that her color had heightened. She knew that the flare of the
gasoline-lamp made her hair a glorious dull-red fire, touched with
golden points of light, which fell again on the necklace at her throat,
the only heirloom she had received from her mother, and still further
down on the bronze slippers. The admiration of the men filled her heart;
the trouble in the more covert stares of the girls overflowed it. A
sense of power flooded in her like electricity. She knew that when she
turned and dropped her hand on the arm of Carrigan it sent a tingle
through him.
Her smile was casual and her eyes calm. Her whisper was surcharged with
a vital anxiety.
“Do you dance--well?”
“Regular fairy,” grinned Carrigan, and she wished his mouth was not so
broad. “How about you?”
“Not so bad.”
“Let’s start.”
Dancers are not made even by infinite pains and lessons. They are born,
and Jac was a born dancer. With the smooth floor underfoot, the light
slippers, the pulse and urge of the music, however crude, the newborn
sense of dignity and womanly power, she became an artist. She danced not
to the music, but to what the music might have been.
Through the film of pleasure she vaguely knew that people were giving
way a little before her. She knew the eyes of the girls were upon her
feet. She knew the eyes of the men were upon her face and the sway of
the graceful body, and among those eyes she found one pair more bright
and devouring than all the rest. It was Maurie Gordon.
He was dancing with a little golden-haired beauty, Dolly Maxwell. She
let her eyes rest carelessly upon him. She smiled. Handsome Maurie
started as though some one had stepped on his foot. He stumbled--he lost
his step--his little partner frowned up at him and then flashed a look
of utter hate toward Jac. A girl may guess at the heart of a man, but
she can absolutely read the soul of another woman. It is a subtle system
of wireless which tells a thousand words in a single smile; a glance is
a spark driven by ten thousand volts. The heart of Jacqueline swelled
with the Song of Songs.
“Do something!” she murmured in the ear of Carrigan.
He met her eyes with a cold understanding.
“You’ve just seen Maurie Gordon?” he asked.
“You’re dancing wonderfully,” she pleaded, “but do something new.”
“Do you know the Carrigan cut?”
“I’ll try it.”
“It’s a cross between a glide, a dip, and a roll. Take three short
steps, then take a long, draggy slide to the left--and let yourself go.”
The trombone started an upward flourish. They followed it, running
forward. She began the draggy step to the left--and then let herself go.
How it was done, she could not tell, but somehow he took her weight in
the middle of the step, and they completed a little dipping whirl as
graceful as the lilt of a seagull against a flurry of wind.
A gasp of applause broke out around them. The dancers veered further off
to allow room for these beautiful new maneuvers. And Jacqueline, dizzy
with the joy of conquest, saw the set, white face of Dolly Maxwell. It
was the golden drop of honey in the wine of victory. The music stopped,
but the rhythm still ran in her blood.
Carrigan’s rather coldly curious stare sobered her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I see a freckle comin’ out to look the landscape over. Sorry you ain’t
got that powder-puff with you.”
“I have it, all right.”
“I didn’t know you had pockets in that dress.”
“It’s my corsage.”
“Your which?”
“Look at that funny trombone-player.” He turned to stare at the shiny
bald head, and when he looked back she had just slipped something into
the bosom of her dress. All traces of the freckle were gone. She flushed
a little under his eye of inquiry. Then very anxiously: “Is it gone?”
“It’s behind a cloud, anyway,” said Carrigan. “Here’s Maurie Gordon.”
The big cow-puncher came up, earnest-eyed.
“If you’re not hooked up for this next waltz--” he began.
He stopped with a widening stare. She had glanced carelessly over him
from head to foot, and now turned her back on him to take the arm of
Carrigan. The movement was slow, deliberate, casual. It left big Maurie
Gordon crimson and breathing hard, the butt of open laughter from all.