This is cowboy etiquette and must be duly regarded.
At public or semi-private dances there is always a master of ceremonies, who is also prompter and calls out all the movements.

He will announce a "quardreele," or maybe a "shorteesche," and keeps the company going with his "Get your partners!" "Balance all!" "Swing your partners!" "Hands across!" "How do you do ?" and "How are you ?" "Swing somewhere," and "Don't forget the bronco-buster," etc.etc., as someone has described it.

The Mexicans are always most graceful dancers; cowboys, with their enormously high heels, and probably spurs, are a bit clumsy.

At purely Mexican dances (Bailies) the two sexes do not speak, each retiring at the end of a dance to its own side of the room.
Most cowboys have the peculiar faculty of "humming," produced by shaping the mouth and tongue in a certain way.

The "hum" can be made to exactly represent the bagpipes; no one else did I ever hear do it but cowpunchers.