You may imagine, I am sure, what a sensation our dainty young girls and Miss Campbell, in a beautiful gray silk, made on the rough company now assembled. There were subdued murmurs of surprise and admiration. The few plain weather-beaten looking women who had driven miles across the plains for a glimpse of the Motor Maids, looked down hastily at their own pitiful attempts at finery, and ranchmen and cowboys craned their necks for a glimpse of the fair vision which had been vouchsafed them.
On a table at the far end of the room sat the two musicians, Mexicans. Each with a guitar and a fiddle. The kerosene lamps, hung against reflectors on the wall, cast a yellow glow on the scene so new to the travelers. Five chairs had been arranged in a row at the other end of the room as places of honor for the Eastern guests, who might have been five new prima donnas at the opera for the intense interest they excited.
The music now set up a whining jig tune. There was an embarrassed shuffling of feet for a moment, and clearing of throats. Presently two cowboys started to dancing the old fashioned polka together, and in a jiffy the whole company was whirling about the room madly. The five Easterners looked on for a while quite gravely. In the joy of the dance they had been quite forgotten.
Not quite forgotten, for Jim now appeared, handsome as a picture, with a new red silk handkerchief knotted around his neck, his black hair as smooth and slick as brush and water could make it.
"Are you willing to try it?" he asked, bowing before Nancy, who little knew what struggles between bashfulness and courage now rent his soul.
"I was wondering where you were," she said smiling sweetly as she floated away with him like a soap bubble on a summer breeze.
Tony Blackstone then asked Elinor to dance, and she had condescended, comforting herself with the secret knowledge that he was the son of an English lord. Barney McGee had led forth Mary. And Mrs. Steptoe, having introduced her brother, whose name Billie had failed to catch, that young woman had permitted herself to be circled around once. But her partner did not please her for some reason and she preferred to sit with Miss Helen and watch the dancers.