"You can want all you like," said Red Kane, "but not in this barn. C'mon back to-morrow morning, and you can hunt the barn to pieces, but you can't do any more skirmishing round in here to-night. I'll lock the barn door so's nobody else will go fussbudgettin' round in here. C'mon, Luke, get a move on you."
So Luke was driven out much against his will, and Racey and Swing roamed around to the dance hall. Here at a table in the ell where the bar stretched its length they could sit and talk—unheard under cover of the music.
"But how come you had yore boots off?" Swing desired to know when a table, a bottle and two glasses were between them. "Don't try to tell me you stuck 'em behind that wagon-seat on purpose to trip him. You never knowed he was comin'."
"Well, no, I didn't exactly," admitted Racey, with a sly smile. "Those boots were laid out all special for you."
"For me?"
"For you."
"But why for me?" Perplexedly.
"Because, Swing, old settler, I didn't like you this afternoon. The more I saw you over there on that porch the less I liked you. So I took off my boots and hid 'em careful like behind the wagon-seat so they'd stick out some, and you'd see 'em and think I was there asleep, and naturally you'd go for to wake me up and wouldn't think of looking behind the crate where I was laying for you all ready to hop on yore neck the second you stooped over the wagon-seat and give you the Dutch rub for glommin' all the fun this afternoon."
"And what didja think I'd be doin' alla time?" grinned Swing Tunstall.
"You wouldn't 'a' tried to knife me, anyway."