The two pressed together, hand in hand, on the top of the dry-goods box. They laughed at each other and everything. Something beautiful was very near to them, for this was the Pioneer's Picnic, and both remembered that the Pioneer's Picnic marked the limit of many things.
"What's next? What's next?" she called excitedly to a tall young cattleman.
The cowboy looked up at her, and his face relaxed into a pleased smile.
"Why, it's a drillin' match over in the next street, miss," he answered politely. "You'd better run right along over and get a good place." He glanced at de Laney, smiled again, and turned away, apparently to follow his own advice.
"Come on, we'll follow him," cried Mary, jumping down.
"And abandon our box?" objected Bennington. But she was already in full pursuit of the tall cowboy.
The ring around the large boulder—dragged by mule team from the hills—had just begun to form when they arrived, so they were enabled to secure good places near the front rank, where they kneeled on their handkerchiefs, and the crowd hemmed them in at the back. The drilling match was to determine which pair of contestants could in a given time, with sledge and drill, cut the deepest hole in a granite boulder. To one who stood apart, the sight must have been picturesque in the extreme. The white dust, stirred by restless feet, rose lazily across the heated air. The sun shone down clear and hot with a certain wide-eyed glare that is seen only in the rarefied atmosphere of the West. Around the outer edge of the ring hovered a few anxious small boys, agonized that they were missing part of the show. Stolidly indifferent Indians, wrapped close in their blankets, smoked silently, awaiting the next pony race, the riders of which were skylarking about trying to pull each other from their horses' backs.
When the last pair had finished, the judges measured the depths of the holes drilled, and announced the victors.
The crowd shouted and broke for the saloons. The latter had been plying a brisk business, so that men were about ready to embrace in brotherhood or in battle with equal alacrity.
Suddenly it was the dinner hour. The crowd broke. Bennington and Mary realized they had been wandering about hand in hand. They directed their steps toward the McPhersons with the greatest propriety. It was a glorious picnic.