Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/39

Rh "Like it?"

"No."

"What was the matter?"

"Well, I'll tell you," drawled Paige, with an air of great privacy. "Back East when you don't do nothing, you feel guilty: but out here when you don't do nothing, you don't give a damn. But look a here: you've got to know some of the little she-devils we raise around here, a young fellow like you."

He seized Kenneth firmly above the elbow, and, before that young man knew what was up, propelled him to a group of young people giggling consumedly after the fashion of the very young.

"Hey, you, Dora. Look here; I want you to meet up with Mr. Boyd of the effete East. He's been here a week and don't know anybody and seemingly hasn't got spunk enough to get acquainted."

He surveyed the group a tolerant moment, then sauntered away, his lank figure moving loosely in his clothes, the sharpened match in the corner of his mouth, his eyes wandering lazily and humorously from group to group. Kenneth, rooted to the spot, blushing to the ears, found himself facing a laughing mischievous group of young people. He stuttered something about intrusion, his mind murderously pursuing the departing Jim Paige. There could be no doubt that these were of the town's best—and to be thrust in this way by a harness maker The laughing mischievous girl addressed as Dora broke in on his agony.

"You must not mind old Jim Paige Mr. Boyd," she was saying. "He brought us all up, fairly, and taught us to ride and even to walk, I do believe. My name is Dora Stanley. We are truly glad to meet you. Look about you, if you don't believe it. Count us. Eight girls and two men" and then, having by this chatter given him time to recover his self-possession, Miss Stanley presented him more formally to the members of the group.

In the meantime the Colonel continued to greet an unending procession of his guests. They filed before him singly, in groups, in droves. There were many prominent in the life of the place