every inch a man, rather picturesque; why is it? "No," she
added aloud, "I shouldn't like that."

"Then I not go," said Eric, decidedly.

Margaret turned her face to hide a smile. She was a trifle
amused and a trifle annoyed. Suddenly she spoke again.

"But I'll tell you what I do want you to do, Eric. I want you
to dance with us tomorrow night and teach me some of the Norwegian
dances; they say you know them all. Won't you?"

Eric straightened himself in his saddle and his eyes flashed
as they had done in the Lone Star schoolhouse when he broke his
violin across his knee.

"Yes, I will," he said, quietly, and he believed that he
delivered his soul to hell as he said it.

They had reached the rougher country now, where the road wound
through a narrow cut in one of the bluffs along the creek, when a
beat of hoofs ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the
ponies start and Eric rose in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in
front of them and over the steep clay banks thundered a herd of
wild ponies, nimble as monkeys and wild as rabbits, such as horse-
traders drive east from the plains of Montana to sell in the
farming country. Margaret's pony made a shrill sound, a neigh that
was almost a scream, and started up the clay bank to meet them, all
the wild blood of the range breaking out in an instant. Margaret
called to Eric just as he threw himself out of the saddle and