The Valley of the Moon | Page 9

face and laugh with her in joy
at the exploit. At the end, as the band slowed in the last bars, they, too,
slowed, their dance fading with the music in a lengthening glide that
ceased with the last lingering tone.
"We're sure cut out for each other when it comes to dancin'," he said, as
they made their way to rejoin the other couple.
"It was a dream," she replied.
So low was her voice that he bent to hear, and saw the flush in her
cheeks that seemed communicated to her eyes, which were softly warm
and sensuous. He took the program from her and gravely and
gigantically wrote his name across all the length of it.
"An' now it's no good," he dared. "Ain't no need for it."
He tore it across and tossed it aside.
"Me for you, Saxon, for the next," was Bert's greeting, as they came up.
"You take Mary for the next whirl, Bill."
"Nothin' doin', Bo," was the retort. "Me an' Saxon's framed up to last
the day."
"Watch out for him, Saxon," Mary warned facetiously. "He's liable to
get a crush on you."
"I guess I know a good thing when I see it," Billy responded gallantly.
"And so do I," Saxon aided and abetted.
"I'd 'a' known you if I'd seen you in the dark," Billy added.
Mary regarded them with mock alarm, and Bert said good-naturedly:
"All I got to say is you ain't wastin' any time gettin' together. Just the
same, if' you can spare a few minutes from each other after a couple

more whirls, Mary an' me'd be complimented to have your presence at
dinner."
"Just like that," chimed Mary.
"Quit your kiddin'," Billy laughed back, turning his head to look into
Saxon's eyes. "Don't listen to 'em. They're grouched because they got to
dance together. Bert's a rotten dancer, and Mary ain't so much. Come
on, there she goes. See you after two more dances."
CHAPTER III
They had dinner in the open-air, tree-walled dining-room, and Saxon
noted that it was Billy who paid the reckoning for the four. They knew
many of the young men and women at the other tables, and greetings
and fun flew back and forth. Bert was very possessive with Mary,
almost roughly so, resting his hand on hers, catching and holding it,
and, once, forcibly slipping off her two rings and refusing to return
them for a long while. At times, when he put his arm around her waist,
Mary promptly disengaged it; and at other times, with elaborate
obliviousness that deceived no one, she allowed it to remain.
And Saxon, talking little but studying Billy Roberts very intently, was
satisfied that there would be an utter difference in the way he would do
such things . . . if ever he would do them. Anyway, he'd never paw a
girl as Bert and lots of the other fellows did. She measured the breadth
of Billy's heavy shoulders.
"Why do they call you 'Big' Bill?" she asked. "You're not so very tall."
"Nope," he agreed. "I'm only five feet eight an' three-quarters. I guess it
must be my weight."
"He fights at a hundred an' eighty," Bert interjected.
"Oh, out it," Billy said quickly, a cloud-rift of displeasure showing in
his eyes. "I ain't a fighter. I ain't fought in six months. I've quit it. It
don't pay."

"Yon got two hundred the night you put the Frisco Slasher to the bad,"
Bert urged proudly.
"Cut it. Cut it now.--Say, Saxon, you ain't so big yourself, are you? But
you're built just right if anybody should ask you. You're round an'
slender at the same time. I bet I can guess your weight."
"Everybody guesses over it," she warned, while inwardly she was
puzzled that she should at the same time be glad and regretful that he
did not fight any more.
"Not me," he was saying. "I'm a wooz at weight-guessin'. Just you
watch me." He regarded her critically, and it was patent that warm
approval played its little rivalry with the judgment of his gaze. "Wait a
minute."
He reached over to her and felt her arm at the biceps. The pressure of
the encircling fingers was firm and honest, and Saxon thrilled to it.
There was magic in this man-boy. She would have known only
irritation had Bert or any other man felt her arm. But this man! IS HE
THE MAN? she was questioning, when he voiced his conclusion.
"Your clothes don't weigh more'n seven pounds. And seven
from--hum--say one hundred an' twenty-three--one hundred an' sixteen
is your stripped weight."
But at the penultimate word, Mary cried out with sharp reproof:
"Why, Billy Roberts, people don't talk about such things."
He looked at her with slow-growing, uncomprehending