"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll believe it."
"And I thought you were going to like me," he lamented.
"I like a lot of people who aren't ruffians, but of course I can't admire you so much as if you were a really truly bad man."
"But if I promise to be one?"
"Oh, anybody can promise," she flung back, eyes bubbling with laughter.
"Wait till I get on my feet again."
A youth galloped up to the house in a cloud of alkali dust.
"There's Cuffs," announced Phyllis, smiling at Bess.
That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance.
"He wants Bess to go with him to the Frying Pan dance. He sent a note over from the round-up to ask her. She hasn't had a chance yet to tell him that she would," explained her friend.