"Well, I guess we'll have a couple dozen. You see it's pretty
hard to get a crowd together here any more. Most of 'em have gone
over to the Free Gospellers, and they'd rather put their feet in
the fire than shake 'em to a fiddle."

Margaret made a gesture of impatience. "Those Free Gospellers
have just cast an evil spell over this country, haven't they?"

"Well," said Lockhart, cautiously, "I don't just like to pass
judgment on any Christian sect, but if you're to know the chosen by
their works, the Gospellers can't make a very proud showin', an'
that's a fact. They're responsible for a few suicides, and they've
sent a good-sized delegation to the state insane asylum, an' I
don't see as they've made the rest of us much better than we were
before. I had a little herdboy last spring, as square a little
Dane as I want to work for me, but after the Gospellers got hold of
him and sanctified him, the little beggar used to get down on his
knees out on the prairie and pray by the hour and let the cattle
get into the corn, an' I had to fire him. That's about the way it
goes. Now there's Eric; that chap used to be a hustler and the
spryest dancer in all this section-called all the dances. Now he's
got no ambition and he's glum as a preacher. I don't suppose we
can even get him to come in tomorrow night."

"Eric? Why, he must dance, we can't let him off," said
Margaret, quickly. "Why, I intend to dance with him myself."

"I'm afraid he won't dance. I asked him this morning if he'd
help us out and he said, 'I don't dance now, any more,' " said