The music was supplied by a banjo, a slide trombone, a violin, and a snare drum; and the musicians operated their instruments with undying vigor. Lest they should falter in their efforts from weariness, glasses of liquor stood beside them at all times, supplied by generous cow-punchers who appreciated the soulful music. This stimulus was not applied in vain, for, as the evening wore on, each piece of music was increased slightly but perceptibly in cadence beyond all which had gone before.
This applied to the two-steps, which sent the dancers whirling over the floor with such violence that at the end of each dance there was a general stampede for the bar which stretched across the farther end of the room. Here four men worked with frantic haste to quench the thirst of the multitude, and labored in vain. The exercise made the throat of every man as dry as that of Tantalus, and the glasses were snatched up and tossed off as rapidly as they were spun down the length of the bar.
Jac and Carrigan paused at the door to make a survey of the scene. The festivities were already well under way. Some of the men had removed their bandannas and stuffed the latter into back trouser-pockets, from which they streamed like brilliant pennons during the dance. There were other tokens that the dance had passed the stiff formality of the opening moments. The musicians played with the fierce resolution of long-distance runners entering the homestretch. The violinist leaned back with eyes closed and jaw set in do-or-die determination, while his bow darted back and forth across the strings. The banjo man leaned far over and thrummed away with an expression partly of pain and partly of faraway yearning as he stared above the heads of the dancers. The expression was caused not by sorrow of soul, but by a cramp in his right hand. The trombone-player, however, was in far worse case than either of his two companions. He was very fat, very short, and his red, bald head shone furiously. Yet he would not diminish the vigor of his efforts. His long slurs were more brazenly ringing than ever. His upward runs raised the heart and the hair at the same time. His downward slides sent out a chill tingle along the spine. He jerked out his arm with such violence that it made his flabby body quiver like jelly; and the vigor of his blowing set a white spot in the middle of his puffed cheeks.
Orpheus stirred the trees as this orchestra stirred the citizens of the mountain-desert. It sent them whirling frantically about the dance-hall; it moved them to sit now and then in the shadow-swept corners, closely tête-à-tête.
A wild and ludicrous scene? Perhaps. But also there was beauty and youth as much as ever graced a ballroom. And there was rhythm. Rhythm of the dance, rhythm of the screeching, thrumming music; and to the young, rhythm is poetry. It set a glamour upon the faces of the dancers; of the shadowy corners it made moonlit gardens.
“What is my name?” queried Jac. “We forgot that!”
He was dumfounded.
“Perhaps I’m your sister?”
He grinned.
“Jac, you look as much like me as a yearling short-horn looks like a long-horn maverick. Something fancy. Jacqueline Silvestre. How does that hit, eh? Miss Silvestre! You’ve come from the east. You’re visiting at a ranch twenty miles away.”