“Sure—come, Joe, come, Bob,” Lucy cried, and grabbing poor Joe by the hand—for Joe was scared stiff at a dance, being a poor performer, and besides, he had on his worn scout suit and heavy boots—she led him off, while Alice grabbed her equally reluctant brother.
The hall was a little annex to the hotel, and when they got there the piano was going, and a lot of people, cowboy guides, waitresses, guests, everybody, was dancing. Almost nobody was dressed up for a party as we dress in the East—any kind of rough clothes and stout boots went here, alongside of silk dresses and satin slippers, worn by some of the hotel guests.
“Gee, I can’t dance any more ’n a cow,” Joe stammered to Lucy.
“Nonsense,” she said, “I’ll bet you can dance very nicely. Anyhow, you’ve got to try just one with me.”
So they danced a one-step, and Joe managed to get through it without treading on anybody’s toe.
“There—what did I tell you!” Lucy laughed. “Of course you can dance. I don’t know why it is boys always say they can’t.”
“I got around with you all right,” Joe answered. “But with most girls I feel ’s if I had about twenty pair o’ feet.”
“All you need is practice,” said she.
“Hi,” called Bob, who had been dancing with his sister, “come over here and pipe the pantalettes!”
Joe and Lucy went into the alcove where he and Alice were, and there they saw a stuffed and mounted mountain goat—the first Joe had ever seen except in pictures. It stood about three feet high, with long, pure white hair, hanging down in a beard under its chin, and hanging down its legs to a point, as Bob said, “just above the tops of its boots, if it wore boots.” This hair on its legs did look exactly like the pantalettes you see in pictures of little girls back in the days before the Civil War.