Feeling very dusty and a little tired from their trip across the plains, they followed Mrs. Steptoe into one of the rooms opening on the court. It was a very large apartment with little furniture in it except a long table and the inevitable oak sideboard which always gave Billie the horrors. They afterwards learned that it was the pride of Mrs. Steptoe’s heart, and had been bought in the East at a great sacrifice.
Four men were waiting at the table: Barney McGee, Brek Steptoe, who was a handsome, middle aged man with a weather-beaten face; Tony Blackstone, whom the girls discovered presently was English. It was he who had done the singing they found; also he had good manners and was not at all bashful, but very quiet. Jim made the fourth man.
As they sat down at table, a Chinaman thrust his head in the door and then disappeared. Mrs. Steptoe herself waited on them and the food was really much better than they had expected.
Nancy was seated next to Jim, who, when she was not looking, devoured her with his eyes, and when she turned to him, dropped his lids and flushed crimson as if he had been caught in a felony.
“We didn’t know there was to be a party,” she said to him innocently. “You see we aren’t traveling with much baggage. I’m afraid we can’t dress up properly.”
“Clothes don’t matter out here, Miss——” he began.
“Nancy,” she finished.
“Miss Nancy,” he repeated, and then said it over to himself as if the name pleased him mightily.
“People don’t come to see the clothes. It’s the dancing they want to see and—and——”
“And what?” she demanded.