As they neared the schoolhouse they heard the music of the "band," as Julie had been pleased to call it. Hearing, Washington Washington played his own musical instrument with renewed vigor.
Many others, bound toward the schoolhouse, laughed and made remarks, or greeted the Overlanders pleasantly as they passed.
The ponies and the mule were tethered to trees hard by the schoolhouse, after which the party filed into the building, with Washington trailing along after them, rolling his eyes and wagging his head in rhythm with the music of violin and banjo.
The music proved too much for Washington to endure in silence, and the Overland Riders were amazed when he clapped the harmonica to his lips and began to play with the two musicians.
Grace started for the boy, but another got to him ahead of her. A young mountaineer picked up the colored boy and tossed him out through a window. It was not so roughly done that the Overlanders could make a protest, and the young fellow who had performed the feat turned from the window laughing over the neat way he had checked Washington's musical interference.
The dance already was under full headway. The floor swayed and groaned, and the building fairly rocked under the rhythmic assault of more than twenty pairs of stamping, shuffling feet. A smoking oil lamp supplied a dull, smoky haze so that it was difficult for friends to recognize each other from opposite ends of the room. All eyes, including those of the dancers, had been turned to the newcomers as the Overlanders filed in and took seats on benches at one side of the room.
It was but a few moments later when Hippy and Nora swung out on the floor and Hippy was soon raising the dust with the best of them.
He then danced with each of the girls of his party in turn. Grace, watching the unusual scene with keen interest, observed that there was little or no change of partners. Each young mountaineer danced with the same girl most of the time, and she concluded that this was the custom up there in the mountains.
At the end of the first dance after their arrival, Grace called Emma over to her.
"I brought two boxes of candy with me, Emma," she whispered. "There is one box left at the camp and I wish to give that to the Thompson children. Do you wish to pass these two boxes around to the mountain girls?"