“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.”