“Well, ain’t you the busy little bee, Ike,” said the school-teacher, in a low voice. “Are you bespoke for the rest of the evening? These young-ones certainly have turned your head.”
“Me, Sally?” responded her bashful friend. “They like tuh dance, I reckon, like all other young things—an’ the other boys seem kinder backward with ’em; ’cause they’re Bawston, I s’pose.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Miss Sally; “you ain’t such a gump as to believe all that. That little Smartie, Ruth Fielding, planned all this, I bet a cent!”
“Miss Ruth?” queried Ike, in surprise. “Why, I ain’t danced with her at all.”
“Nor you ain’t a-goin’ to!” snapped Sally. “You can dance with me for a spell now.” And for the remainder of that hilarious evening Sally scarcely allowed Bashful Ike out of her clutches.
CHAPTER XV—“THE NIGHT TRICK”
The party at the schoolhouse was declared a success by all Jane Ann Hick’s Eastern friends—saving, of course, The Fox. She had only danced with Tom and Bob and had disproved haughtily of the entire proceedings. She had pronounced Ruth’s little plot for getting Ike and Sally together, “a silly trick,” although the other girls had found considerable innocent enjoyment in it, and the big foreman of Silver Ranch rode home with them after midnight in a plain condition of ecstacy.
“Ike suah has made the hit of his life,” Jimsey declared, to the other cowboys.
“He was the ‘belle of the ball’ all right,” chimed in another.
“If I warn’t a person of puffectly tame an’ gentle nature, I’d suah be a whole lot jealous of his popularity,” proceeded he of the purple necktie. “But I see a-many of you ’ombres jest standin’ around and a-gnashin’ of your teeth at the way Ike carried off the gals.”