MORGAN’S DANCE
Fred did not reach the ranch till long after dark; he found it deserted
of all but Dan, who sat on the steps.
“Hello,” he called out cheerily as he galloped up; “all alone?”
“Yes,” was Dan’s quiet reply; “the rest have gone to Morgan’s to dance
the devil out of them, or in--I don’t know which. Where have you been
all day?”
“Oh, just scouting about the hills for fun. There, Brownie, trot away
and feed yourself”; he said, jerking off his saddle. After hanging it
up, he returned.
“Aren’t you going to the dance?” asked Dan.
“Oh, it’s so late I don’t like to go. I think I’ll tumble in and take a
good rest. There’s work coming to-morrow.”
“Yes,” responded Dan, “and there’ll be few hands to do it. The boys
won’t get rid of their whisky by then.”
The two chatted on a little while, then both went to their bunks and
quieted down. Fred lay for a few moments listening to the frogs croaking
in the pond near by till he dropped off into a sleep as peaceful as the
night about him.
Across the creek at Morgan’s ranch, however, the night was far from
quiet. The big rooms of the ranch house were bright with light and
ringing with music, laughter, and chatty, half-boisterous voices. The
dance was at its height.
Old Morgan had been in the war, and he was full of patriotism, always
flinging his doors wide open on the Fourth with Western welcome to all
his neighbors, urging them to come, and taking it hard if they didn’t.
So they came in force, on horseback or clattering in buckboards, came
full of rough fun, and when they could get it, full of whisky.
It was a noisy, jolly crowd that gathered on this night, cowboys and
ranch girls, all ready to swing themselves dizzy, ripe for excitement,
whether it came in the form of a frolic or a fight. For, though the
program never called for it, a “cowboy scrap” was the one impromptu part
always expected, and welcomed by many. A dance, indeed, would have been
thought tame without it. There were those who never missed any chance
to touch it off, by some tantalizing act which was lighted matches to
powder.
The doings of the day had helped to put the boys at pistol points. Yet
for some reason the under current of ill will was kept down unusually
well. It might have been because Colonel Morgan, the soldierly,
gray-haired master of the place, who, because of the drinking, rather
anticipated trouble, had opened the dance with this cheery warning:
“Now, lads and lassies, I asked you here to have a good time; I am going
to see that you have it, even if I have to pitch any fool out that does
a trick to spoil our fun. Come, Uncle Toby, make the old fiddle do some
lively talking.”
“All right, Colonel,” called back a roly-poly, baldhead of a man,
perched on a high seat in a corner. “Take yer pardners fer a grand
waltz.”
Then, while the smiling, chatty couples began to file about the room, he
scraped on his strings to tune up with a little organ played by a
lively-eyed midget of a girl.
The music struck up, and the dancers began to swing around, taking their
bumps, for the floor was crowded, with jolly good nature. It was a whirl
of happy, glowing faces. The dancing, however, was far from rude. Many
couples, indeed, glided over the rough floor with an ease that showed
them to be no strangers to the art. Alta was especially graceful. She
was electric with life, her sweet face lighted by bright eyes and rosy
cheeks, her tripping toes keeping step to the music. Her well rounded
form was trimly, daintily dressed in white, a rose-colored ribbon at her
throat, and a spray of wild flowers airily caught in her hair. She was
playful, but her play had in it a touch of pride, and her voice spoke
culture. Her costume, too, had a dash of style that was lacking in the
dresses of the other girls, who, though comely enough, had so bedecked
themselves in showy ribbons and fluffy laces that they looked rather
ungraceful.
Yet, though superior to them in most respects, Alta, from all outward
appearances, was unconscious of it. She was just one with them.
Everybody, from the nattiest cowboy to the shaggiest rancher, felt at
home in her presence. Even the other girls, though they might have felt
a twinge of jealousy at her popularity when they saw the boys, as
always, in a cluster about her, had accepted her leadership; for
everybody liked Alta Morgan, except Bud Nixon.
Ever since she had rebuked him for his forced and unwelcome attentions,
he had carried an ugly heart toward the girl. The incident which
provoked his anger had just recently occurred, and Bud was stubborn in
his grudges.
When Alta first came as a little girl to her uncle’s ranch, Bud had been
a kind of big brother to her. He was employed by Colonel Morgan; and
with the other hands, he had taken delight in teaching her how to ride,
to throw a lasso, and to drive the cattle. Alta responded with childlike
good-fellowship, accepting his attentions with playful innocence. Bud
thought of her as of a mere child at first; but when Alta, after two
years at school, came back, no longer a romping little ranch girl but a
young lady, beautiful in her budding womanhood, he fell an easy prey to
her charms. Presuming on his former associations, he grew ardent toward
the girl. Surprised and annoyed at this turn of affairs, Alta tried at
first to avoid him; but since he worked at her uncle’s ranch, it was
hard not to meet him often; and the worse she treated him, the more
persistent he grew, forcing his love-making upon her until one day she
compelled herself to face it out. Then she told him frankly that if he
wanted to keep her friendship, he must stop his love nonsense.
“Friendship!” he blurted out; “I don’t want your friendship. If we can’t
be more’n friends, we can’t be anything.”
“Well, Bud,” she said firmly, “we can’t be anything more.”
“You won’t have me, then?” he half demanded.
“Have you?” Alta’s tone showed more than she meant to reveal of her
disgust.
Bud’s stupid pride was stung. “You damned flirt,” he snapped, “if you
was a man I’d----”
“No, you wouldn’t, Bud Nixon,” Alta checked him; “you’re too big a
coward. Now don’t you dare insult me again or you’ll rue it.”
This flash of righteous temper took his breath away. He stared stupidly
at her, then turned sharply and strode out of the room with jangling
spurs. That ended it so far as the love-making was concerned; but it was
the beginning of a stupid hate in his heart. He simply caroused about
and took delight in becoming chief of the ruffian element in the valley,
venting his spite against Alta by tormenting her in rude ways, and
making any fellow who dared to pay her attention a target for his enmity
and abuse.
Alta’s uncle knew nothing about the matter. She spared his feelings by
keeping this trouble to herself--a rather hard thing for Alta to
decide, because all of her life she had confided freely in her “dear
daddy,” as she affectionately called him. But this she knew would anger
and worry him and she feared the consequences.
The Colonel, however, did notice that something was wrong with Bud. He
began of a sudden to grow reckless and unreliable. This change of
disposition in his best hand puzzled and annoyed the ranch owner very
much. For Bud had always been a faithful worker, full of energy. As a
judge of stock he had few equals, while he could handle horses and
cattle with unusual skill. A good deal of the Colonel’s success in
ranching was due to Nixon’s help.
Nixon knew this well enough, and he was a little presumptuous around the
place because of it, bossing the other boys, and taking liberties in
various ways that no other hand would dare to take. The Colonel did not
like this, but out of regard for Bud’s good services, he overlooked the
fault.
Colonel Morgan, however, was no easy-going manager. Quite the contrary.
His military training had made him a strict disciplinarian, and when Bud
carried things too far, neglecting his duties to sport about the valley,
he received a rather sharp suggestion from his master to mend his ways.
“I’ll take keer of myself all right, Colonel, you needn’t bother about
me,” returned Bud, with a touch of insolence in his tone.
“Well, see that you do; and for your own good you had better cut out
your rough stuff,” returned the Colonel.
“Well, I’ve allus done my full stint around this ranch, ain’t I? and I’m
jist as good as any one on it.”
“Yes, you’ve been a good worker and I appreciate what you have done; now
just keep on doing your duty and we’ll have no trouble,” returned the
Colonel in kindly tone, ignoring the offensive suggestions in Bud’s
talk. He desired no break between them.
“All right, boss!” Bud turned and walked away to the corral to pick up
some task he had been directed to do.
There was something still in the tone and manner that the old soldier
did not like, but he passed it by, hoping that Bud would soon come back
to himself.
Instead of this he grew more undependable and arrogant day by day, until
the Colonel’s patience was about exhausted. He held his feelings in
check, however, until Bud brought on the crisis.
Bud was at the dance that night, of course, carrying enough of the bad
whisky dispensed at the races to be ugly and itching for a fight.
Everybody knew he was there, too. He danced about boisterously for a
time, then sat in the corner telling crude yarns, while the dance
whirled on about him. He would not deign to ask Alta to dance with him,
but he eyed her closely, and it punished him severely to see her so
popular with the boys, so happily careless and beautiful as she glided
around the gay room. Once she had caught him watching her, and had
nodded smilingly; but receiving only a sullen stare in response, she
gave no further attention to him for the rest of the evening until the
row came.
It was some time after twelve that the storm broke. The midnight supper
scraps had been cleared away and the crowd fell to singing, “We won’t go
home till mornin’,” with lusty voices.
They came very nearly breaking their tuneful resolve, however, much
sooner than they expected. It happened in this way. Dick Davis
unwittingly precipitated the trouble. According to promise, Alta gave
him the first dance, and Dick rather presumed on her partnership for the
evening.
“That was a dandy dance,” he said as he took her to her seat.
“I enjoyed it,” she responded. It was no flattery either; for Dick did
dance well. He was rather a handsome fellow, too, with dark hair and
eyes. He was of athletic build, rather slender and wiry, graceful of
movement, neat in his dress, and possessing the assurance which Fred
lacked to make him claim quickly the attention of the girls. Dick’s
chief faults were his conceit and his fickleness, a hint of which was
given by his slightly uptilted nose that detracted somewhat from his
otherwise regular countenance.
“I’d sure like another just like it,” he suggested; “will you?”
“Why, yes, if you wish it.”
So a little while later they waltzed again, while Bud Nixon, who had
planted his stockily built body in the corner among some of the bolder
girls, still kept close watch of the movements of the graceful couple.
The jealous glance that blazed in his dark eyes boded no good for Dick;
for Bud was a determined fellow, once he started on a quest. He was
reckless too; and this characteristic, backed by his strong body, made
him a dangerous enemy.
Dick kept so close to Alta during the dance that Bud gradually grew
inwardly furious. He determined to break up the flirting. How to do it
was the problem his thick brain finally worked out. When Dick for the
third time led Alta out to dance, Bud jumped up, grabbed the arm of
Molly Thompson, who sat near him, giggling over his coarse jokes, and
said, “Let’s hev a dance, little gal.”
Molly was ready enough, and soon they were swinging rapidly around the
room. Suddenly, with malice aforethought on Bud’s part, they bumped into
Dick and Alta. Bud laughed leeringly at his rudeness.
“That’s all right for once, pardner,” Dick said, threateningly, as they
caught the step again. Instinctively he felt that it was not an
accident; but he overlooked the challenging insult till Bud bumped into
them again with a suddenness that almost upset both him and Alta.
Dick whirled and slapped him in the face. They jumped back. A second
later two revolvers flashed and a shot went crashing through the window
just over the old fiddler’s head.
Both had pulled the trigger, but Dick’s hammer snapped on an empty
shell; Bud’s bullet, sent by a half drunken hand, just touched Dick’s
ear and shattered the window close to Uncle Toby, who was scraping away
sleepily on his fiddle.
“Whoopee!” shouted the old man, jumping as if he had been shot, and
tumbling off his seat. There was a sudden rush for the doorway.
Before the assailants could pull trigger again, however, some one had
knocked Bud’s pistol from his hand, Colonel Morgan had grabbed him, and
Jim had jerked Dick’s arm down just as his revolver rang out, sending a
bullet through Bud’s big toe. The bully jumped with a yell of pain and
tried to break through the crowd for the door, toward which Colonel
Morgan’s brawny hand, clutched on his collar, was hustling him. When the
way was cleared, the old Colonel gave his crestfallen captive a shove
and a kick, saying wrathfully, “Now, get, you damned hoodlum, and don’t
you ever darken my door again!”
“If I catch you,” shouted Dick angrily, “I’ll shoot you on sight.”
Bud, terrified now and suffering with pain, ran to the shed, jumped on
his horse and sped away. Where he went no one knew, and nobody seemed to
care.
The panic gradually subsided, and the dance was soon going on as merrily
as if nothing had happened. The crowd did not go home till morning; at
least the new day was just sending its heralds of light above the hills
as the party broke up with hearty thanks and hand shakes to Rancher
Morgan and his niece for the jolly time they had given their neighbors.
As a parting salute, the cowboys emptied their revolvers into the air
and dashed away with whoops that woke the hillside echoes. The girls
struck up--
“Good night, ladies,
Good night, ladies,
Good night, ladies,
We’re going to leave you now.”
as they rolled along the ranch roads in their buckboards and lumber
wagons.
Colonel Morgan and his little girl, with animated faces, stood in the
door till the revelry had died away. Then Alta turned to her warm-souled
uncle, the only father she had ever known, and giving him a sweet--not
good-night, but good-morning kiss, left for her room and lay down to
rest. But she could not go to sleep. Her thoughts kept tossing
excitedly, till to calm them she arose and went to the window where she
stood looking out upon the dawning day, and thinking, thinking.
The events of the night just past had shocked her soul to a new sense of
responsibility. She had begun to learn that it is dangerous business to
play with the fire of human hearts. She chided herself for being too
free with Dick Davis. What would come of it all? Her sensitive heart
was troubled. For Alta Morgan was not a flirt; she was full of life and
fun; she liked friends, and she won them quickly by her artless grace
and genuine goodness; but though she seemed care-free and merry, her
conscience was keen and true. It pained her to hurt any one. She felt
more pity than blame for even stupid Bud. But she soothed herself with
the feeling that after all, her fault was at worst only a bursting
desire for innocent fun; and with this comforting thought she gradually
dropped her worries to watch the morning break in peace over her
troubled world.
The sunlight was tipping the jagged rim of the eastern mountains with
flaming gold, before she threw herself, still in her dainty white but
rather crumpled dress, on her couch.
When her uncle came in an hour later, she was still lying there, a quiet
smile upon her pretty lips, a trace of tear stain on her cheek, and some
withered wild flowers tangled in her silken hair. The Colonel gazed a
moment in admiration, then he stepped softly across the room, took a
light shawl that hung above her, and after spreading it gently over his
“little squirrel” stole from the room, closing the door quietly after
him.