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116 you was at your own funeral!" snapped the schoolmistress.

This sharp speech would have completely quenched Ike's desire to dance had Ruth not laid her plans so carefully. The moment the music ceased and Ike made for the door, Heavy stopped him. She was between the bashful cow puncher and all escape—unless he went through the window!

"Oh, Mr. Stedman! I do so want to dance," cried the stout girl, with her very broadest and friendliest smile. "Nobody asked me to this time, and I just know they're all afraid of me. Do I look as though I bite?"

"Bless you, no, Miss!" responded the polite foreman of Silver Ranch. "You look just as harmless as though you'd never cut a tooth, as fur as that goes!"

"Then you're not afraid to dance the next number with me?" There! Helen's tuning up."

"If you re'lly want me to, Miss," exclaimed the much-flurried foreman. "But I won't mislead ye. I ain't a good dancer."

"Then there will be a pair of us," was Heavy's cheerful reply. "If the other folk run off the floor, we'll be company for each other."

Carefully rehearsed by Ruth Fielding, Jennie Stone likewise picked the group of dancers of which Sally Dickson and a new partner were