"To think," meditated Pen presently as she deftly cut out a waist, "that the thief should be making evening clothes, when it was only but yesterday she was booked for bars instead of b.a.l.l.s."

CHAPTER V

The two fiddlers were tuning their instruments when the party from the house entered the rosy-lighted mess-hall. Jo started forward with an air of a.s.surance to claim Pen. When he beheld her, he stopped abruptly, lost in admiration of the daintily clad young person whose Castle-cut locks had been lured to a coiffure from which little tendrils escaped in babyish rings.

Jakey Fourr, second violin, glimpsed her at the same time and noticed Jo's hesitating halt.

"Ladies' Choice!" he shouted with a grin.

Jo looked at her expectantly but vainly; for she gladdened the pride of Francis by choosing him as her partner. Betty and Billy mutually chose each other. Mrs. Kingdon selected a newcomer. Agatha and the "other girl"

asked their particular friends, and the cook spitefully "sat it out." Pen had to follow the prim little steps learned by Francis at a city dancing school the winter before, and Sleepy Sandy thoughtfully timed his tune thereto and shortened the number. Then Jo started for the belle of the ball, but a youth in combination attire of hunter, cowboy and soldier was ahead of him.

"Would you honor me, ma'am?" he asked.

She would and did, but she never learned the name of the wonderful dance with which she "honored" him. It had been a case of "whither thou goest, I will go."

Again Sleepy Sandy was considerate and cut this number short also.

Then Betty came running breathlessly up to Pen.

"Jo says if you don't dance with him this next time like you promised, he'll drown the kittens. Please, Aunt Pen!"

Jo was promptly on hand this time.

"This is mine," he a.s.serted, "unless you're danced out by that gink."

"My dancing blood isn't up yet," she said, slipping into his arms. She didn't care to know the name of the dance. All she knew was the ecstasy of the moment in the flowing, melting rhythm. Jo had the easy a.s.surance of the dancer born, and she went where he willed, as if she were floating on silver wires. Finally, Sleepy Sandy, watching them in envious admiration, was aware that he had played as long as the law of limit allowed.

"Isn't this better than Reilly's?" she asked demurely.

"There will never in the world be to me a night like the one at Reilly's,"

he replied.

"Jo, why don't you go into vaudeville? Your dancing would bring you twice what your work here must."

"Mine is a man's job," he retorted. "I'd rather dance horseback than on any stage. I have to go over to Farley with a lot of cattle to-morrow. It will take me three days. You will arrange to see me again when I come back?"

"I surely will, Jo," she promised.

"Don't let Jo monopolize you," said Kingdon, coming up to them at the close of the dance. "We try to give the boys plenty of recreation, and they don't get many girls to dance with. None like you."

Pen dutifully promised to do penance with the rank and file.

"I'll go and ask the cook," said Jo mournfully, "else I won't get half rations. Then I'll come back for you."

Reluctantly he gave way to Gene and approached the cook.

"Say!" he asked with a quirk to his mouth, "want to hook on to the wishbone?"

"Those darned brats fetch and carry everything they hear," she exclaimed.

"Forget it. A wishbone's the best bone to pick anyway."

Thereafter he waited patiently for Pen to do her duty dances and slip one in with him.

Pen went to sleep that night with blissful recollections of her wonderful dances with Jo and a vague curiosity as to whether Kurt Walters could dance.

For the greater part of three days she sewed a.s.siduously, surrounded the while by three admiring children who listened entranced to a new kind of Scheherazade tales. Between times she gathered flowers for the many jugs and jars, learned to make salads and to perform little household duties. .h.i.therto unknown. Then suddenly there came a swift change of mood. The sense of uneasiness, the need of freedom, the desire that pervades the wistful note of the imprisoned bird was in her blood.

"My life is too full of work-days," she declared. "Three days of domesticity! I can no more. I will see if Jo hasn't returned."

Seeking new fields that night, she slipped surrept.i.tiously down to the mess hall.

"Halloa!" greeted Jo rapturously. "I've been watching for you, Li'l Penny Ante. Just got back. What you been doing since the dance?"

"Behaving. And I must get even some way or go stark mad. What have you been doing?"

"Me? Jakey here and I've been entertaining ourselves with a game of c.r.a.ps."

"Play it with me instead. It's the only game I've never learned."

"Sure, I'll show you. Sit down here on the floor."

Later Kingdon, in search of the missing guest, strolled down to the mess hall, guided thither by a rippling laugh chorused with responsive guffaws.

Curious, he looked in. Seated on the floor were Jo and Pen excitedly playing an evenly matched game, while an adoring circle of men applauded, encouraged and scoffed in turn.

There were two patches of crimson in Pen's cream-white cheeks, a bright sparkle of excitement in her eyes, which changed to the apprehensive look of a child expecting reproof as she looked up and saw Kingdon.

"I'm having such a good time!" she told him deprecatingly.

He smiled.

"You look it. The children and the rest of us are lamenting your absence.

We want a good time, too."

"I'll come again," she promised, with a backward look at the men, as she docilely walked on with Kingdon.

Jo hurried after them.

"To-morrow's field day," he reminded her. "You'll be there?"

"I'm living on the thought of it. You're the manager, aren't you?"