Alta winced. What if her uncle had heard it? She hesitated, then replied a little confusedly, “Oh, yes, the dance was fine; they’re real social folks.”
“And how’s the new beau, honey?” persisted her uncle in a teasing tone.
Alta blushed, then said evasively, “He’s all right, I suppose.”
Colonel Morgan, seeing her embarrassment, leaped to the thought that she hesitated to talk because she was in love with Dick. She had never held back before. The thought pained him, but tenderness for her feelings checked him from pressing the point further. “Well, never mind,” he said gently; “I like Dick, too.”
“But I don’t!” the words leaped to Alta’s lips; she bit them back, however, hurried again to the kitchen to regain her poise, and a few moments later came back singing:
’Tis the West, the craggy West, that calls, that calls me;
’Tis the sage and sego-lily land I love,
With its amber skies, its crystal streams, its mountains,
Where among the canyon wilds we rove, we rove.
“Hello!” said her uncle; “where did that new song come from?”
“Oh, they sang it last night at the party. Like it?”
“Sounds pretty; sing some more.”
“I don’t know it yet; but I’ll get Mary to teach it to me and then I’ll sing it all for you. It’s a real Western song.”