In the parade Skinny rode with Carolyn June. Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys were in a group directly behind them. The Vermejo crowd, with Dorsey himself mounted on Thunderbolt, had a place just ahead of Skinny and Carolyn June. The beautiful black Y-Bar stallion was really a wonderful horse. Speed, strength and endurance radiated with every movement of the glossy, subtle body. Without doubt he was the most handsome animal on the grounds. Dorsey was a splendid rider and a man—he was in the early forties—of striking appearance. He was fully conscious of the magnificent showing he made on Thunderbolt. The racer danced proudly, prancing forward in short, graceful leaps as the column swept past the grandstand and the consolidated Eagle Butte and Vegas bands crashed out the strains of a stirring march. A ripple of applause ran over the crowd in the grandstand as Dorsey, at the head of the Vermejo cowboys, rode by the judges' box. He lifted his sombrero and waved it in pleased acknowledgment.

The Ramblin' Kid was in line a little distance behind Carolyn June, Skinny and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys. He rode alone just back of a quartette of Indians from down on the Chickasaw.

His plain rigging, the slick, smoothly worn, leather chaps, the undecorated saddle, bridle and spurs, his entire work-a-day outfit contrasted vividly with the gaudy get-up of most of the other riders. Captain Jack moved along easily and freely, but quietly, and with an air of utter boredom with all the show and confusion about him. The Ramblin' Kid's attitude, whole appearance, matched perfectly the mood of his horse. He sat loosely in the saddle and carelessly smoked a cigarette. The truth was his mind was far from the pageant of which he and the little stallion were a part. He scarcely heard the music nor did he seem to see the thousands of human beings, packed tier above tier, under the mammoth roof of the grandstand. His thoughts were at the upper crossing of the treacherous Cimarron, out at the Quarter Circle KT; he was seeing again, Carolyn June, as she looked up into his eyes when he dragged her out of the quicksand—he was hearing, once more, her cry of agony as the bullet from his gun buried itself in the brain of Old Blue.

Louder hand-clapping, stamping of feet, and calling voices, than any that had sounded before, rolled out from the grandstand as the lone rider, on the quiet, unexcited little roan, came down the stretch in front of the great crowd.

Carolyn June looked back, saw the waving hats and handkerchiefs, heard hundreds of voices shouting:

"Th' Ramblin' Kid! Th' good old Ramblin' Kid!"

The crowd had recognized him as the slender rider who, a year ago, after the untamable Cyclone horse had killed Dick Stanley before their eyes and in front of where they sat, had ridden, straight-up and scotching him at every jump, that vicious, murderous-hearted outlaw.

Carolyn June's eyes moistened and she felt a thrill of pride.

The Ramblin' Kid barely glanced at the sea of faces, a faint smile hung for an instant on his lips, as he jerked his hand, the one in which he held the cigarette, to the brim of his hat when he came opposite the judges' stand.

When the parade swung down the wide, one-sided, main street of Eagle Butte, Mike Sabota, from the door of the Elite Amusement Parlor, watched it pass. He was standing there, by the side of the lanky marshal and surrounded by a group of pool-room loafers and "carnival sharks" when Carolyn June and Skinny came by. She looked around in time to see him staring, with a vulgar leer, straight into her eyes.

"There is that big, dirty, animal-looking fellow we saw the other day!" she said, with a frown of disgust, to Skinny. "He's horrible—"

Skinny glanced at Sabota.

"Yes, he is ornery," he said. "He runs that joint and boot-legs on the side. He's got a reputation as a slugger and keeps the crowd around him buffaloed. They say he killed a feller—beat him to death—in a fight over at Sapulpa before he came to Eagle Butte. I don't like the filthy cuss. He's mean!"

"He looks it!" Carolyn June exclaimed, with the uncomfortable feeling that the big Greek's look had touched her with something vile and unclean.

After the parade disbanded Carolyn June and Skinny rode back to the car where Old Heck and Ophelia had remained.

"You made a darned good-looking cowgirl!" Old Heck said proudly to her as she stopped Red John by the side of the Clagstone "Six."

"She and Skinny both presented a very fine appearance!" the widow added, while Carolyn June playfully blew a kiss at each in acknowledgment of the compliment. Skinny sat on Old Pie Face and felt a warm glow of satisfaction at the words of Old Heck and Ophelia. He had known all the time that Carolyn June and he had shown up well, but he was glad to find that others besides himself had noticed it.

Dorsey, on a black stallion, cantered past.

A moment later the Ramblin' Kid came jogging off the race course on Captain Jack. He threw up his hand in greeting and passed on out of the grounds.

Parked next to the Clagstone "Six" was a handsome touring car, occupied by a party consisting of a girl about Carolyn June's own age, a woman a few years older and a couple of immaculately dressed young men who wore flaring brimmed black felt hats that contrasted absurdly with their expensively tailored suits. Evidently all were "big town" people from a distance—very "superior" and patronizing in their attitude toward the "natives." They had been free and voluble in their comments on the various riders. Dorsey, on the magnificent Thunderbolt, drew a murmur of admiration from the lips of the girl. As the Ramblin' Kid, the next moment, rode by on Captain Jack one of the young fellows said loudly and with a laugh of ridicule:

"Look at that one, Bess," addressing the girl; "there's the 'wild and woolly' West for you! I'll bet if that horse sneezed he'd fall down and the lonesome-looking little runt that's riding him would tumble off and root his nose in the dust!"

A cackle of derisive laughter greeted the cheap witticism.

Before any of the others could speak Carolyn June's eyes blazed with sudden wrath. She turned her body in the saddle and faced the speaker, her hands tightly clenched, her cheeks white with passion and her lip curling wickedly.

"Which shows," she said slowly, every word stinging like the bite of a whip-lash, "that you are running, true to form and there is one fool, at least, still unslaughtered! That"—she continued with a proud toss of her head—"'lonesome-looking little runt' is the Ramblin' Kid! Not another man in Texas can ride the horse he is on—and there is not a horse in Texas that he can't ride!"

She turned again toward the Quarter Circle KT group and a shamed silence settled over the swell "out-of-town" car.

Old Heck chuckled with delight at Carolyn June's show of temper.

A whirlwind program of racing, roping, bull-dogging—this event is that in which a rider springs from a running horse, grasps by the horns a wild steer running at his side, twists the animal's head up and backward and so throws it down and then holds the creature on the ground—rough-riding and other Rodeo sports followed immediately after the parade.

Pedro and Charley Saunders were the only Quarter Circle KT cowboys participating in the events of the first day of the Rodeo. The Mexican did a fancy roping stunt in front of the grandstand and finished his exhibition directly before the Clagstone "Six" in which Carolyn June, Ophelia, Old Heck and Skinny were sitting. At the conclusion of his performance Pedro bowed to the little audience in the car and swept his sombrero before him with all the courtly grace of a great matador. Carolyn June generously applauded the dark-skinned rider from the Cimarron and waved a daintily gloved hand in acknowledgment of his skill with the rope. Skinny gritted his teeth while a pang of jealousy shot through his heart.

Charley took part in the bull-dogging event. He drew a black steer, rangey built, heavy and wicked. When he lunged from his horse on to the horns of the brute it dragged him for a hundred feet before he could check its mad flight. At last he slowly forced its nose in the air and with a quick wrench of the head to one side threw its feet from under it. Man and beast went down in a heap—the neck of the steer across the cowboy's body. A groan went up from the crowd in the grandstand and Carolyn June's cheeks paled with horror—it looked as if one horn of the creature had pierced Charley's breast. But it had missed by the fraction of an inch. Straightening himself up to a sitting posture the cowboy bent forward and sunk his teeth in the upper lip of the prostrate animal and threw up both hands as a signal to the judges that the brute was "bulldogged." But the fight had been too hard for him to win first place. Buck Wade, a lanky cow-puncher from Montana, in three seconds less time, had thrown a brindle Anchor-O steer and taken first money.

* * * * *

Before the sun dipped into the Costejo peaks the Ramblin' Kid left the Rodeo and returned alone to the Quarter Circle KT. He told Parker and the cowboys, all of whom intended to remain in Eagle Butte every night during the Rodeo, that he would be back in town the next afternoon and bring with him the Gold Dust maverick. Word had been passed among the Quarter Circle KT crowd to keep Dorsey and his bunch in the dark as long as possible regarding the fact that the filly, Ophelia, was the famous outlaw mare of the lower Cimarron.

After supper Parker, Chuck, Bert and Charley drifted into the Elite Amusement Parlor. The place was crowded. Mike Sabota immediately singled out the Quarter Circle KT group and began jollying them about the coming two-mile sweepstakes. Dorsey and Flip Williams had been in the pool-room earlier in the evening and told him of the Ramblin' Kid's entry of the filly against the Thunderbolt horse.

Within ten minutes Bert and Charley had placed two hundred and fifty dollars each against five hundred of Sabota's money that the Vermejo stallion would not finish in first place in the big race.

Old Judge Ivory, who happened to be present, was agreed upon as stake-holder.

"That Thunderbolt horse, he is the devil," Sabota laughed evilly as the money was handed over to the gray-haired judge. "And Satan, he takes care of his own!"

"Well!" Parker drawled, "if you feel inclined to send any more money to hell I might help you—" pulling a wad of bills from his pocket and throwing the certificates on the soft-drink bar at which they were standing.

Sabota's eyes gleamed greedily.

"I think there's two thousand in this roll," Parker continued, "and I'm willing to bet it all that the Ramblin' Kid's filly not only goes under the wire first in the two-mile run, but that she'll be kicking dirt in old Thunderbolt's face—if he ain't too damned far behind—when she does it!"

The Greek covered the wager eagerly.

As Judge Ivory pocketed the money Dorsey and Flip Williams stepped into the pool-room. Sabota glanced up.

"These Quarter Circle KT hombres are getting bad," he laughed sneeringly to Dorsey; "they think th' Ramblin' Kid's got a colt that can beat Thunderbolt!"

"The Ramblin' Kid must have a hell of a fast horse!" Dorsey snarled contemptuously, "a hell of a fast horse!" he repeated, "when the Ramblin' Kid himself declines to risk a dollar of his own money on the running qualities of the critter!" referring to the conversation a few hours before in the entry judges' office.

As he finished speaking he turned and looked squarely into the cold gray eyes of Old Heck who, with Skinny, had entered the Amusement Parlor while Dorsey was talking and heard the Vermejo cattleman's sneering insinuation.



CHAPTER XV

MOCHA AND JAVA

Old Heck and Skinny had left Ophelia and Carolyn June at the Occidental Hotel, where a room was reserved by Old Heck for the use of the two women during the Rodeo. They had then gone direct to Mike Sabota's place for the express purpose of running into Dorsey and his crowd. Old Heck knew that if any large bets were to be laid on the two-mile sweepstakes the only chance would be to place them before the Ramblin' Kid brought the Gold Dust maverick to Eagle Butte and the Vermejo bunch discovered the identity of the horse Thunderbolt was up against.

The Quarter Circle KT cow-men stepped into the pool-room at exactly the instant most favorable for their purpose.

Dorsey had made his boast in the presence of a crowd.

He would hardly dare back up without covering, at least to some worth-while extent, his words with his money.

For a full minute Old Heck drilled Dorsey with a look such, as a hound dog might have in his eyes after he has cornered a coyote and pauses before he springs.

Instinctively the crowd stepped back from the two cattlemen while a death-like hush fell over the place.

"Th' Ramblin' Kid don't need to back the filly with his money, Dorsey," Old Heck said slowly and in a voice audible in every part of the room; "I'm here to back her with mine! You've done a lot of talking—now, damn you, cover your chatter with coin or shut up!" the end of the sentence coming like the crack of a whip.

With a nervous laugh the Vermejo cattleman jerked a wallet from his pocket.

"Here's a thousand that says Thunderbolt does the same thing to the Ramblin' Kid's filly that he done to Quicksilver!" Dorsey snapped.

Old Heck threw back his head and laughed scornfully.

"A thousand? I thought you were a sport, Dorsey!" he sneered. "Match this," he continued, reaching for his check-book and fountain pen and quickly filling out a check payable to "Cash" for ten thousand dollars, which he laid on the hardwood bar. "Match that, or admit you're a cheap, loud-howlin' bluffer!"

Dorsey paused just an instant as he noted the amount of the check.

"I'll match it!" he exclaimed, flushing angrily, drawing his own check-book from his pocket, and then, carried away by his passion added, throwing down the bars completely as Old Heck had hoped he would, "and go with you to the end of the trail!"

"Good!" Old Heck laughed, "now you are talking like a sport! Let's see," he added calculatingly, "how many Y-Bar cattle do you figure you've got running on the Vermejo range—five thousand?"

"There's that many," Dorsey started to say.

"Call it fifty-five hundred!" Old Heck flung at him. "Steer for steer, cow for cow, hoof for hoof—I'll put Quarter Circle KT critters against every brute you own that th' Ramblin' Kid lands his horse tinder the wire ahead of Thunderbolt!"

Dorsey paled, then a purple-red of fury spread over his neck and face, and with an oath he cried:

"I'll call you!"

Bills of sale were drawn and turned over to Judge Ivory, to be delivered, after the race, to the winner.

"Now," Old Heck said with a hard laugh, "maybe you'd like to own the Quarter Circle KT ranch, Dorsey? It's worth twice as much as your Vermejo holdings but I'll just give you that percentage of odds and call it an even bet that your black stallion don't outrun the little animal th' Ramblin' Kid has entered in the sweepstakes!"

But Dorsey did not answer except with a muttered: "Hell, a man's crazy that—" He had gone his limit. He had suddenly come to his senses and grown suspicious.

Before Skinny and Old Heck left the pool-room the former managed to get a bet of five hundred dollars with Sabota.

The next afternoon the Ramblin' Kid rode into Eagle Butte on Captain Jack. By his side he led the Gold Dust maverick. The noise and confusion in the streets filled the mare with nervousness and she crowded closely against the little roan stallion. Before he got the outlaw filly to the stables a half dozen cowboys had recognized the Cimarron maverick. Within an hour Dorsey and Sabota knew the identity of the Ramblin' Kid's entry in the big race that was to be run Friday afternoon and which was the big and closing event of the Rodeo.

The Greek was furious.

Wednesday night he called "Gyp" Streetor, a carnival tout, who had one time been a jockey but was ruled off the track for crooked work and was now picking up "easies" at the Eagle Butte Rodeo, into a side room of the Amusement Parlor.

For half an hour the two talked earnestly and furtively.

"Nothin' doin'—absolutely nothin'!" the tout finally said in reply to some suggestion of Sabota's. "That Captain Jack horse would murder any man but th' Ramblin' Kid that tried to get in the stall—"

"Well, by hell!" the Greek exclaimed, clenching his hairy fists, while his mouth twitched with passion, "that filly's got to be kept out of the sweepstakes someway or other—"

"You can't get to her, I tell you," Gyp said sullenly, then with a look of cunning suddenly coming into his eyes: "They say she's a one-man brute like the stallion—nobody can ride her but th' Ramblin' Kid," significantly looking at Sabota. "If you could—but he don't drink!"

The Greek laughed.

"There are other ways!" he said. "He eats, don't he? Listen: To-morrow and Friday you take that 'sandwich and coffee' run at the stables—" referring to the concession to peddle lunch stuff among the horsemen who seldom left their charges, a concession which Sabota, with other privileges, had purchased the right to operate. "Th' Ramblin' Kid eats off the trays—it will be your business to see that he ain't feeling well when the sweepstakes is called! I'll get the 'pills' for you to-night—"

"No killin', Sabota!" Gyp warned.

"Just enough to put him out for an hour or two!" the Greek answered.

Wednesday night the Ramblin' Kid slept in the stall with the Gold Dust maverick and Captain Jack. Thursday he remained close to the horses. Thursday night he again slept on a pile of hay in one corner of the box-compartment. Under no circumstances would he leave the animals. Occasionally Parker or some of the Quarter Circle KT cowboys came down to the stables.

Each night Old Heck and Skinny, with Carolyn June and Ophelia, after the evening program was concluded, drove out to the ranch in the Clagstone "Six," returning early the following day.

Friday forenoon Old Heck drove the car down to the stall in which Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick were confined. The two horses were standing, side by side, with their heads out of the door, the upper half of which was swung back. The Ramblin' Kid leaned against the door at the side of the horses.

To Carolyn June he looked tired and worn.

"How's the filly?" Old Heck asked, as the outlaw mare sprang back away from the door when the car stopped.

"She's all right."

"Hadn't you ought to exercise her?" Skinny asked.

"She don't need it," the Ramblin' Kid replied with a note of weariness in his voice. "She'll get enough exercise this afternoon!"

"You're all right, yourself, are you?" Old Heck asked a bit anxiously.

"Of course I'm all right," was the rather impatient reply. "Don't be uneasy," he added with a laugh; "—th' filly'll be in th' race an' beat old Thunderbolt!"

"Good luck!" Carolyn June cried, as Old Heck turned the car about and started back toward the grandstand.

"Good luck!" the Ramblin' Kid muttered to himself, watching the car as it whirled away. "Ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" he repeated bitterly, then with a queer smile in which was a world of tenderness he pulled the pink satin elastic garter he had picked up at the circular corral, from his pocket and looked at it long and wistfully. "Good luck?" he exclaimed again questioningly. "Well, maybe that little jigger'll bring it!" and he slipped the band back in his pocket.

"Th' Ramblin' Kid acts like he's got the blues this morning," Skinny said as the Clagstone "Six" rolled away from the stables. "He looks to me like a feller that's in just the right humor to get on a whale of a drunk—"

"That's one thing about him you can depend on," Old Heck broke in, "—he never poisons himself with liquor. That's why when he says he'll do anything you can bet all you've got he'll do it!"

"Well, if he ever does break loose," Skinny retorted, "it'll be sudden and wild!"

"Probably," Old Heck replied as though there wasn't the slightest danger of such an eventuality.

That morning Gyp purposely avoided going as far, with his stock of provisions, as the stall in which were Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick. Nor did he come with his lunch tray and tin pot of coffee until nearly one o'clock.

The Ramblin' Kid had no breakfast. To secure it he would have been required to leave the horses. That he would not do. Of course he might have told Old Heck or Skinny to bring or send him something, but he did not feel inclined to mention, in the presence of Carolyn June and Ophelia, that he was hungry. Anyhow, well, they were having a good time and what was the use of bothering them?

When Gyp finally came with the lunch the Ramblin' Kid was outside the stall and had walked a little way up the stable street. Captain Jack and the filly were in a compartment at the end of the string of stalls. The one next to it, back toward the grandstand, was unoccupied, and adjoining that was a hay room. Gyp stopped opposite the open door of the compartment in which the bales of hay and straw were piled. He paused a moment and turned as if to go back.

"Hold on there!" the Ramblin' Kid called to him. "What you tryin' to do? Starve me to death?"

"D' last thing I'd want to do, Bo!" Gyp laughed good-naturedly. "Did I miss you this mornin'? Here, come inside where I can set this bloomin' junk down on a bale of hay for a minute an' I'll fix you up!"

The Ramblin' Kid followed Gyp into the stall.

The tout stooped over, with his back to the other, and slipped a capsule containing a white powder into a coffee cup which he filled quickly with the black liquid from the tin pot he carried. He handed the cup to the Ramblin' Kid. The latter took it and sat down on a bale of hay lying opposite. The coffee was just hot enough to melt, instantly, the capsule and not too warm to drink at once. The Ramblin' Kid was thirsty as well as hungry. Lifting the cup to his lips, while Gyp, fumbling for a sandwich, watched him furtively, he drained it without stopping.

"That's—what was in that?'" he asked, eying the tout keenly. "It tastes like—!"

"Just good old Mocha an' Java!" Gyp interrupted lightly. "Maybe it's a little strong. Here, take another one!" reaching for the cup.

The Ramblin' Kid started to hand the cup to Gyp to be refilled—a queer numbness swept over him—the cup fell from his hand—he swayed—tensed his body in an effort to get up—mumbled thickly:

"What th'—what th'—?"

The tout backed away toward the door, crouching like a cat ready to spring, his beady eyes half-frightened, watching the poison deaden the faculties of the other. He leaped through the door, glanced up and down the stable street—deserted at that hour except for a few drowsy attendants lounging in front of their stalls—jerked the door shut, hooked the open padlock through the iron fastenings, snapped its jaws together and muttered, as he hurried away:

"I guess that guy won't ride the Gold Dust maverick in any two-mile sweepstakes to-day!"

As the door slammed shut the Ramblin' Kid pitched forward, unconscious, on the bale of hay.



CHAPTER XVI

THE SWEEPSTAKES

The Clagstone "Six" was parked, Friday afternoon, in its usual place near the east end of the grandstand and close to the entrance to the track. Old Heck and Ophelia were alone in the car. Carolyn June and Skinny, on Pie Face and Red John, watched the afternoon program from the "inside field" across the race track. Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys were also mounted on their horses and in the field opposite the grandstand.

Never had there been such a jam at a Rodeo held in Eagle Butte.

The two-mile sweepstakes, itself the "cow-man's classic" and the great derby event of western Texas, always drew record crowds the day on which it was run.

This Friday the grandstand creaked under its load of humanity.

The racing feud between the Quarter Circle KT and the Y-Bar and the thousands of dollars Old Heck and Dorsey were known to have bet on their respective favorites acted as tinder on the flame of public interest in the big event.

Thunderbolt had a great reputation. Last year, and the year before, he had mastered the field of runners put against him.

The Gold Dust maverick—named in the race "Ophelia"—was a wonder horse in the minds of the people of western Texas who had heard of the beautiful, almost super-creature, that had tormented, with her speed and endurance, the riders of the Cimarron and now at last was caught, and to be ridden in the sweepstakes, by the Ramblin' Kid.

At two-forty a special exhibition of "Cossack Riding"—participated in by Lute Larsen, of Idaho; Jack Haines, from Texas, and Curly Piper, a Colorado cowboy, finished in front of the grandstand.

The announcer trained his megaphone on the vast crowd:

"The next event," he bellowed, "two-mile sweepstakes! Purse one thousand dollars! Five entries! Naming them in their order from the pole: Thunderbolt, black Y-Bar stallion, Flip Williams, rider; Say-So, roan gelding, from the Pecos River, Box-V outfit, Jess Curtis, rider; Ophelia, Gold Dust filly, the Cimarron outlaw from the Quarter Circle KT, th' Ramblin' Kid, rider; Prince John, sorrel gelding, from Dallas, Texas, 'Snow' Johnson, rider; Dash-Away, bay mare, from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Slim Tucker, rider. Race called at three o'clock sharp! Horse failing to score on the dot will be ruled out! Range saddles to be used. Entries for the two-mile sweepstakes will show at once on the track!"

Dead silence ensued during the announcer's drawling oration.

It was followed by the hum of five thousand voices as they chattered in eager expectancy.

The band crashed out Dixie and a medley of southern melodies.

Chuck and Bert reined their bronchos up to Parker.

"We're going over and see how th' Ramblin' Kid is making it," Chuck said. "He might need that filly herded a little to get her through this jam." And they galloped their horses across the track toward the stables.

Carolyn June and Skinny decided to watch the sweepstakes from the car, with Old Heck and Ophelia. They rode Pie Face and Red John over to the Clagstone "Six." Carolyn June dismounted and stepped up on the running-board of the car, holding Red John loosely by the bridle rein.

"Gee," she laughed, "but I'm nervous!"

Old Heck reached over and patted her hand.

"Wait till they start to run before you get hysterical," he chuckled. "There'll be time enough then for excitement!" One could never have told, by his actions, that within the next few moments he would lose or win fifty thousand dollars.

Chuck pulled Silver Tip to a stop in front of the stall where Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick were standing.

"They're getting ready for the sweepstakes!" he called, thinking the Ramblin' Kid was in the compartment with the horses. "You'd better be putting your rigging on the filly," as he slid from his broncho and stepped to the door of the stall.

There was no answer. He peered into the half-gloom of the place.

It was empty save for the two horses.

"That's funny as thunder," he said, puzzled, to Bert. "Where'd you reckon th' Ramblin' Kid is?"

"Darned if I know—ain't he there?" Bert answered, riding up so he could look into the door.

"Look around a little," Chuck said anxiously. "Maybe he's just stepped away for a minute—Hey!" he called to an attendant of a stall a short distance down the stable street, "have you seen anything of th' Ramblin' Kid—the feller that has these horses?"

"Naw," was the careless answer, "I ain't seen him for two hours."

"Something must be wrong!" Chuck exclaimed. "You stay here and watch! I'll go see Old Heck—maybe he knows where he is."

"Hell, yes!" Bert said as the other started Silver Tip in a run toward where the Clagstone "Six" was parked. "He's got to be found! Nobody else but him can ride the maverick!"

At the car, before his horse was fairly stopped, Chuck leaned over and asked, tensely:

"Have any of you people seen th' Ramblin' Kid?"

Old Heck straightened up.

"Ain't he at the stables?" he inquired uneasily. "He was there this morning—"

"No," Chuck replied hurriedly, "he's been gone two hours!"

"Good lord," Old Heck exclaimed, "he's got to be found! The race starts in ten minutes."

"And nobody but him can ride the filly!" Skinny interrupted. "I wonder if he's—" he started to say "drunk," but stopped as Carolyn June looked quickly at him. The word was in both their minds.

"It ain't natural!" Old Heck cried; "there must be something dirty! You boys go look for him; I'll, keep my eyes open here!"

As Old Heck said "dirty" the picture of Mike Sabota flashed into Carolyn June's mind. Some intuition seemed to couple, in her inner consciousness, the big Greek with the Ramblin' Kid's disappearance.

The horses for the two-mile sweepstakes were already beginning to come on to the track. Flip Williams was walking Thunderbolt up and down in front of the grandstand, trying to keep the high-spirited stallion quiet until time came to mount; the rider of Say-So was doing the same thing with his entry; Slim Tucker was already sitting on Dash-Away, the trim Wyoming mare standing unruffled near the starting line, while Snow Johnson, like Tucker, already on his mount, was circling Prince John in wide loops behind the others.

Carolyn June was stunned for a moment by the thought that had come into her mind when the picture of the burly Greek flashed before her. She clenched her hands and her cheeks whitened.

"Come on, Skinny!" she said suddenly, stepping off the running-board of the car and swinging on to Red John, "we'll go help look for the Ramblin' Kid!"

She whirled the big bay around the end of the grandstand and rode in a fast gallop straight for the box stall, Skinny and Chuck following close behind her. A quick resolution formed in her mind: "Nobody but the Ramblin' Kid could ride the filly?"

She could ride the mare!

Even if the Ramblin' Kid was not found Sabota and his crowd should not be allowed to win by dirty work—if dirty work had been done!

At the stall Carolyn June sprang from Red John.

Bert was nervously walking about, calling occasionally the name of the missing Quarter Circle KT cowboy.

"Have you found him?" Carolyn June asked as Skinny and Chuck came up behind her.

"No," Bert answered glumly, "he ain't showed up yet! There ain't no signs of him around here."

"What'll we do?" Skinny asked excitedly. "The race is almost ready to start and—do you reckon you could ride the filly, Bert?" he finished with a gleam of hope.

"I doubt it, but, well, I'll try her—if Captain Jack'll let me get her out."

"You boys keep back!" Carolyn June interrupted, stepping to the door of the stall and opening it, "Captain Jack knows me and—I—I—think the filly does, too—I can handle her—" as she stepped boldly inside the compartment with the horses.

"Don't go in there!" Skinny cried, "Car—Carolyn June, they'll kill you!"

"You boys keep away!" she laughed. "And don't get the horses nervous! They won't hurt me!" she answered, going ahead toward the animals.

Captain Jack looked at her suspiciously an instant

"Jack-Boy—Jack-Boy!" she called with a caress in her voice. "Careful! We're friends!" The attitude of the stallion changed instantly and the menace was gone from his eyes.

The Gold Dust maverick heard the voice and with a friendly little nicker rubbed her head against the outstretched hand.

In a corner was the Ramblin' Kid's saddle, bridle, blanket and worn leather chaps.

With a light pat of the outlaw filly's cheek Carolyn June turned and began quickly and deftly putting the riding gear on the beautiful mare.

* * * * *

For an hour and a half the Ramblin' Kid lay as he had fallen when he started to hand the coffee cup back to Gyp. Breathing heavily, his face flushed, he was as one in the deep stupor of complete intoxication. At last he stirred uneasily. An unconscious groan came from his lips. His eyes opened. In them was a dazed, puzzled look. Where was he? He tried vainly to remember—the clean life, the iron constitution and youth—aided perhaps by an indomitable subconscious will protesting against this something that had happened to him—were throwing off the effects of the drug hours before an ordinary man would have regained even a hint of sensibility.

He stood up—reeling unsteadily. He was deathly sick. Lightning flashes of pain throbbed through his head. Waves of blackness rolled before his eyes. Surges of numbness swept over his legs and arms. He tried hard to remember. There was something—what was it? Th'—th'—what th' hell?—th' race! That was it—th'—th'—th' sweepstakes! In an instant the thought was gone. It kept beating back: Th' sweepstakes—th' race—What time was it? Had it been run? He staggered to the door. It was locked! His head was bursting. If he could only get over the nausea. He felt his knees start to give way. No! No! My God, he wouldn't give up! He—oh, yes. Th' race! Captain Jack—no—th'—th'—maverick—he had to ride—He must get out! There was a—a—window—sometimes they had them—in the back of the stalls. Maybe the hay was over it. He climbed on the bales. Behind them he could see the opening. God, he was weak! With the sweat of terrible nausea bursting from every pore of his body he pulled the bales back. He fell over the bale on which he had been lying. One hand brushed his hat which had fallen from his head. Mechanically, with stiff fingers, he picked it up and jammed it on again. Then he climbed—crawled—over the hay and pitched forward through the opening, in a limp heap, on the ground outside.

For a moment he lost consciousness completely again: Th'—th' race—th' maverick! he mustn't forget—

He fought his way to his feet and groped along back of the building—the stall—which way was it? Down there? No—the other way—

As Carolyn June tightened the rear cinch on the Gold Dust maverick and turned toward the door of the stall with: "Look out, boys—I'm coming out!" the Ramblin' Kid, clutching at the side of the building, reeled around the corner of the stall. The cowboys saw him. He himself saw only black shapes where their horses were.

"Good God!" Skinny cried, "he's drunk!"

Carolyn June heard Skinny's exclamation at the instant the Ramblin' Kid, catching at the half-open door, almost fell into the stall. His eyes stared with a dull, puzzled, unrecognizing vacancy first at Carolyn June and then the Gold Dust maverick. "Who th' hell—" he mumbled stiffly. "What—th'—oh, yes—there's th' filly—th'—th'—race. It must—be—time. Th' mare's saddled! That's—that's—funny! I can't remember. Th' race—th' sweepstakes—that's it—"

Reaching over he jerked the reins from the hand of Carolyn June.

"Who—who—get the—" came like the thick growl of a beast from his throat. "You—you—can't ride—she'll—she'll—kill—"

Carolyn June shrank back as if she had been struck. She pressed her hands against her cheeks and stepped away with a look of horror and disgust as the Ramblin' Kid backed out of the stall with the Gold Dust maverick. Outside he fumbled grotesquely at the silky mane and climbed weakly into the saddle.

Chuck and Bert started toward him.

"Get—the—hell—" he snarled as he saw their horses—mere shadow shapes they were to him—approach.

"Let him alone!" Skinny said. "He's drunk! You'll just scare the filly and make her hurt him!"

The boys let him go.

With blanched cheeks Carolyn June mounted Red John and with Skinny, Bert and Chuck, rode back to the Clagstone "Six." Her heart was utterly sick. So this was it? It had come out—the brute—the beast that was in him!

They reached the car as the Ramblin' Kid, at the horse entrance, at the other end of the grandstand, came on the track with the Gold Dust maverick.

Old Heck looked up when the group approached. He saw the agony in Carolyn June's eyes and started to speak.

"Th' Ramblin' Kid's drunk," Skinny said dully. "He showed up—yonder he is—" as the beautiful copper-tinted, chestnut filly appeared behind the other horses entered for the two-mile sweepstakes.

"Drunk?" Old Heck cried incredulously. "Are you sure?"

"Watch him!" Chuck said miserably.

The starter was standing with arm outstretched and flag ready to fall. The filly came down the track jumping nervously from side to side in short springing leaps. The starter paused, watch in hand. A shout of admiration and wonder went up from the crowd as the splendid creature dancing down the track was recognized. The next instant it was succeeded by a cry of horror that rolled in a great wave from a thousand throats.

"Th' Ramblin' Kid is drunk! He's drunk—the mare will kill him!" as they saw the slim rider weaving limply in the saddle, his head dropped forward as if he were utterly helpless.

"Rule that horse off the track!" Dorsey, who was standing with Mike Sabota, in a box-seat just below the judges' stand, shouted as he saw the Ramblin' Kid, even in his half-conscious condition, reining the Gold Dust maverick with consummate skill into position, "her rider's drunk!"

The Ramblin' Kid heard the voice and—by some miracle of the mind—recognized it, although his eyes, set and glassy, could not see the speaker.

He turned his head in the direction from which the cry came and answered, slowly measuring each word:

"Go—go—t' hell—you—you—coyote!"

The next instant the starter dropped the flag. As it went down the filly crouched and reared straight into the air.

That one second gave the other horses the start.

Then the outlaw mare leaped forward directly behind Thunderbolt, running against the inside rail. Say-So, the Pecos horse, jammed close to the side of the black stallion; Snow Johnson, rider of Prince John, pushed the big sorrel ahead with his nose at the roan's tail; Dash-Away hugged against the heels of Prince John. The Gold Dust maverick was "pocketed!"

A breathless hush fell over the crowd in the grandstand after the first mighty roar:

"They're off!"

Black devils of torture clutched the throat, the mind, the body of the Ramblin' Kid. Streams of fire seemed to be flowing through his veins. He couldn't see—he was blind. "What th'—what th'—hell!" he muttered over and over. He was vaguely conscious of the thunder of hoofs around him—under him. Dimly, black shadows were rushing along at his side. He fought with all his will to master his faculties. Where was he? What was it? Was it a—a—stampede? What? Oh, yes, th' race—th'—th'— sweepstakes—that—that was it—Over and over the fleeting flashes of consciousness kept throwing this one supreme idea on the mirror of his mind!

Not a word was spoken by any of the party at the Clagstone "Six" as the five fastest horses ever on the Eagle Butte track swept past the car toward the first quarter-turn of the course.

Carolyn June's face was as white as marble. Her breast heaved and fell as if it would burst. Dry-eyed, every nerve tense, she stared at the straining racers. Unconsciously she gripped into hard knots of flesh and bone, both hands, while she bit at her underlip until a red drop of blood started from the gash made in the tender skin by her teeth.

"Drunk!" she thought, "drunk! Beastly drunk—and throwing away the greatest race ever run on a Texas track!"

Old Heck sat impassive as though carved from stone and said nothing.

Ophelia nervously chewed at the finger of her glove while her eyes moistened with sympathy and pity.

Skinny, Chuck and Bert sat gloomily, moodily, on their bronchos and watched Thunderbolt lead the quintette of running horses.

For the life of him Skinny could not keep from thinking of the five hundred dollars he had bet with Sabota, on the race, and the number of white shirts and purple ties he might have bought with the money!

Over in the track-field Parker, Charley and Pedro saw the start of the race and each swore softly and silently to himself.

Sing Pete, alone of the Quarter Circle KT crowd, in the jam of the grandstand, stretched his neck and followed with inscrutable eyes the close-bunched racers. The start had puzzled him, yet he murmured hopefully:

"Maybe all samee Lamblin' Kid he beatee hell out of 'em yet!"

The loyal Chinese cook had wagered the savings of a dozen years on the speed of the Gold Dust maverick's nimble legs and his faith in the "Lamblin' Kid."

A blanket might have covered the five horses as they swung around the first mile.

The speed-mad animals roared down the homestretch, finishing the first half of the race in the almost identical position each had taken in the getaway.

The Ramblin' Kid rode the mile more as an automaton than as a living, conscious human being. He had no memory of time, place, events—save for the instants of rationality he forced his will to bring.

Gradually, though, his mind was clearing.

But which was it—the first half?—the last half? How long had they been running? How many times had they gone around the track? He could not remember!

Down the straight stretch the racers came in a mighty whirlwind of speed.

"Thunderbolt is taking it!"

"The Y-Bar horse leads!"

"Th' black's got 'em!" roared from the throats of the crowd in the grandstand and the mass of humanity crushing the railing along the track.

Dorsey and Sabota leaped to the edge of the box as the horses thundered past the judges' stand. The voice of the owner of Thunderbolt shrieked out in a hoarse bellow:

"Hold him to it, Flip! Keep your lead—you've got the filly!"

The Ramblin' Kid heard again—or thought he heard again—the voice of the Vermejo cattleman. He caught, as an echo, a note of triumph in it. It was like a tonic to his drug-numbed faculties.

Suddenly he saw clearly. He had just a glimpse of Sabota standing by the side of Dorsey. He understood. In a flash it all came to him. The first half of the great sweepstakes race was behind them! Once more they were to circle the track. The glistening black rump of Thunderbolt rose and fell just ahead of the Gold Dust maverick's nose—at her side, crowding her against the rail, was another horse. Which one? It didn't matter! Back of it was another. He was "pocketed!" Hell, no wonder Thunderbolt was ahead of the outlaw mare!

Half-way around the quarter-turn he pulled the filly down.

She slackened ever so little. Thunderbolt—the horse at her side—all of them—shot ahead.

He was behind the bunch—clear of the field!

The crowd saw the filly dart to the right. It looked as though she would go over the outside rail before the Ramblin' Kid swung her, in a great arch, to the left clear of, but far behind, the other horses.

He was crazy! The Gold Dust maverick was getting the better of the Ramblin' Kid. He had lost control of the wonderful mare!

So thought the thousands watching the drama on the track before them.

Away over, next to the outside fence, on the far side of the track, open now before him for the long outfield stretch, the Rambling Kid straightened the Gold Dust maverick out. The other racers were still bunched against the inner rail—lengths ahead of the filly.

Leaning low on the neck of the maverick, the Ramblin' Kid began talking, for the first time, to the horse he rode.

"_Baby—Baby! Girl_!" he whispered incoherently almost. "_Go—go_—damn 'em! _'Ophelia'_"—he laughed thickly, reeling in the saddle. "_Hell_—_no—'Little—Little—Pink Garter!—that's—that's—_what y' are! Little—Pink—Garter_—" he repeated irrationally. "_That's it—show 'em—damn 'em—show 'em what—what runnin'—what real runnin' is!_" fumbling caressingly at the mare's neck with hands numb and stiff and chuckling pitifully, insanely, while his face was drawn with agony nearly unendurable.

Then the Gold Dust maverick ran!

Never had ground flowed with such swiftness under the belly of a horse on a Texas track.

"Good God!" Skinny yelled, "looky yonder! He's passin' them! Th' Ramblin' Kid is passin' 'em!"

No one answered him.

His voice was drowned in the mighty roar that surged from five thousand throats and rolled in waves of echoing and re-echoing sound across the field.

"He's ridin' round 'em!"

"Th' Ramblin' Kid is goin' around them!"

"Great heavens! Look at that horse go!"

"She's a-flyin'! She's a-flyin'!"

The Gold Dust maverick closed the gap—she caught Dash-Away—she evened up with Prince John—she left the big sorrel behind—she passed Say-So—nose to nose for a few rods she ran opposite the black wonder—the Thunderbolt horse from the Vermejo.

Flip Williams, spurs raking the flanks of Dorsey's stallion, looked around.

The Ramblin' Kid leaned toward him:

"Hell—why—don't you—make that—thing run!" he sneered at the Y-Bar rider.

The next instant the Gold Dust maverick's neck and shoulders showed in the lead of the Y-Bar stallion.

At the turn for the home stretch the outlaw filly shot ahead of the wonderful black horse from the Vermejo, swung close to the inside rail, and like a flash of gold-brown darted down the track toward the wire.

The grandstand was turned into a madhouse of seething humanity. The immense crowd came to its feet roaring and shrieking with frenzy. Men smashed their neighbors with clenched fists—not knowing or caring how hard or whom they struck—or that they themselves were being hit. Women screamed frantically, hysterically, tears streaming from thousands of eyes because of sheer joy at the wonderful thing the Gold Dust maverick was doing. Even the stolid Sing Pete was jumping up and down, shouting:

"Come on—come on—Lamblin' Kid! Beat 'em—beatee hell out of 'em!"

Full three lengths in the lead of the "unbeatable" Thunderbolt the Gold Dust maverick flashed under the wire in front of the judges!

Dorsey, shaken in every nerve, lips blue as though he were stricken with a chill, reeled out of the box from which he had watched his whole fortune swept away by the speed of the Cimarron mare. At his side, profaning horrible, obscene oaths staggered Mike Sabota.

Old Heck, white-faced, but his lips drawn in a smile of satisfaction, stood up in the Clagstone "Six" and watched the Ramblin' Kid—his eyes set and staring, his body twitching convulsively, check the filly, swing her around, ride back to the judges' stand, weakly fling up a hand in salute and then, barely able to sit in the saddle, rein the Gold Dust maverick off the track and ride toward the box stall.

Skinny drew a hand across his eyes and looked at Carolyn June.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks.



CHAPTER XVII

OLD HECK GOES TO TOWN

It was Monday morning, clear and cloudless, with a whiff of a breeze kissing the poplars along the front-yard fence at the Quarter Circle KT. On the sand-hills north of the Cimarron, Pedro was pushing the saddle cavallard toward Rock Creek, where the last half of the beef round-up was to begin. Parker and the cowboys were just splashing their bronchos into the water at the lower ford. Sing Pete, on the high seat of the grub-wagon, was once more clucking and cawing at Old Tom and Baldy as they drew the outfit along the lane and followed the others to the open range.

Old Heck, Skinny, Ophelia and Carolyn June again were alone at the Quarter Circle KT.

The Eagle Butte Rodeo had closed, with one last riotous carnival of wildness at midnight Saturday night.

Once more the straggling town, its pulse gradually beating back to normal, lay half-asleep at the foot of the sun-baked butte that stood silent and drowsy beyond the Sante Fe tracks.

Tom Poole, the lank marshal, loafed as usual about the Elite Amusement Parlor, over which hung a sullen quiet reflecting the morbid emotions of Mike Sabota, its brutish-built proprietor, resulting from his heavy losses on Thunderbolt in the two-mile sweepstakes when the Gold Dust maverick, ridden by the drug-crazed Ramblin' Kid, darted under the wire lengths ahead of the black Vermejo stallion.

Friday evening Old Heck had met Dorsey in the pool-room.

Judge Ivory handed over to the owner of the Quarter Circle KT the Y-Bar cattleman's check for ten thousand dollars and the bill of sale he had recklessly given and which transferred to Old Heck all the cattle the Vermejo rancher owned.

Dorsey was game.

"You put it on me," he said to Old Heck "but the Ramblin' Kid won square and I'm not squealing!"

Old Heck turned the check slowly over in his hand and looked at it with a quizzical frown on his face:

"I reckon this is good?"

"It's my exact balance," Dorsey replied; "I saw to that this morning."

For a long minute Old Heck studied the bill of sale that made him owner of every cow-brute burnt with the Y-Bar brand.

"My men will gather the cattle within fifteen days," Dorsey said dully, noting the half-questioning look on Old Heck's face, "or you can send your own crew, just as you please. I suppose you'll meet me half-way and receive the stock in Eagle Butte?"

"Can Thunderbolt run?" Old Heck asked irrelevantly.

"Not as fast as that imp of hell of the Ramblin' Kid's!" Dorsey answered instantly and with a short laugh.

Old Heck chuckled.

"You say you'll turn the Y-Bar cattle over to me within fifteen days?" he asked again, reverting to a study of the paper he held in his hand.

"Yes," Dorsey replied; "is that satisfactory?"

"You're a pretty good sport, after all, Dorsey," Old Heck said quietly. "I'll cash this check"—glancing at the yellow slip of paper—"and this thing, here—we'll just tear it up!" as he reduced the bill of sale to fragments. "Keep your cattle, Dorsey," he added, "ten thousand dollars is enough for you to pay for your lesson!"

Dorsey flushed a dull red.

"I ain't asking—"

"I know you're not," Old Heck interrupted, "and that's the reason I tore up that bill of sale!"

"Old Heck," Dorsey said, his voice trembling, "you're white! I'd like to shake—"

The rival cattlemen gripped hands and the racing feud between the Quarter Circle KT and the Y-Bar was ended.

A week later Dorsey sent Flip Williams to the Quarter Circle KT. The Vermejo cowboy led the beautiful black stallion that had mastered Quicksilver and had in turn been whipped by the Gold Dust maverick.

"Dorsey said, Tell Old Heck Thunderbolt's a pretty good saddle horse,'" Flip explained, "'and he'd do to change off with Quicksilver once in a while! So he sent him over as a sort of keepsake!'"

The Ramblin' Kid did not return to the Quarter Circle KT until late Sunday night. After the two-mile sweepstakes he was horribly ill. All Friday night he laid, in a semi-conscious condition, in the stall with Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick.

Parker and some of the cowboys visited the stall after the race, but they thought the Ramblin' Kid was drunk and the best thing was to allow him to sleep it off.

"I can't figure it out," Chuck said as they turned away, "he never did get drunk before that I knew of—"

"You can't tell what he's liable to do," Charley interrupted, "he sure took an awful chance getting on a tear at the time he did!"

"Well, he won the race," Parker said admiringly, "drunk or sober, you've got to give him credit for that!"

Saturday the Ramblin' Kid got Pedro to stay with the horses while he went over to the Elite Amusement Parlor. He had nothing to say to Sabota or any of the loafers in the place.

He was looking for Gyp Streetor.

Until Sunday afternoon he searched Eagle Butte, trying to find the tout. All he wanted was to locate the man who had sold him that cup of coffee—he could remember drinking the coffee; after that until the following morning all was hazy.

But Gyp was gone.

When the Gold Dust maverick, with the Ramblin' Kid swaying uncertainly on her back, had appeared on the track for the two-mile run, the tout, his eyes like those of a harried rat, sneaked out of the crowd in front of the book-makers' booths and hurried toward the Santa Fe railroad yards. An hour later he slipped into an empty freight car—part of a train headed for the West—and Eagle Butte saw him no more.

It was midnight Sunday when the Ramblin' Kid reached the Quarter Circle KT, turned Captain Jack and the outlaw filly into the circular corral, and without disturbing Old Heck, Parker, or the cowboys, already asleep in the bunk-house, sought his bed.

Monday morning he was at breakfast with the others.

Throughout the meal the Ramblin' Kid was silent. Carolyn June, still shocked by what she thought was his intoxication the day of the race, and believing he had remained in Eagle Butte over Saturday night and Sunday to continue the debauch, ignored him.

None of the others cared to question him and the Ramblin' Kid himself volunteered no information.

Once only, Old Heck mentioned the race.

"That was a pretty good ride you made in the two-mile event," he said, addressing the Ramblin' Kid; "it looked at first like the filly—"

"You won your money, didn't you?" the Ramblin' Kid interrupted in a tone that plainly meant there was nothing further to be said.

That was the only reference to the incidents of Friday afternoon.

After breakfast the Ramblin' Kid saddled the Gold Dust maverick, turned Captain Jack with the cavallard, and with Parker and the other Quarter Circle KT cowboys rode away to help gather the beef cattle from the west half of the Cimarron range.

The week that followed passed quickly.

During the entire period the Kiowa lay under a mantle of sunshine by day and starlit skies by night.

Carolyn June once more provided the evening dessert of coffee-jelly and Skinny finished teaching her the art of dipping bread in milk and egg batter, frying it in hot butter, and calling the result "French toast"

Skinny again put on the white shirt and the shamrock tinted tie. He had not dared to wear what Chuck called his "love-making rigging" during the week of the Rodeo. It would have made him entirely too conspicuous among the hundreds of other cowboys gathered at Eagle Butte for the big celebration. Situations filled with embarrassment would have been almost certain to develop.

"It's getting so it needs a washing a little," Skinny remarked to Carolyn June the first time he reappeared in the once snowy garment.

He was quite right.

Carolyn June herself had noticed that the shirt had lost some of its immaculateness.

"It doesn't look hardly as white as it did at first!"

"No, it don't," Skinny answered seriously. "I guess I'll wash it to-morrow. I never did wash one but I reckon it ain't so awful hard to do—"

"I'll help you," Carolyn June volunteered. "I've never washed one either, but it will be fun to learn how!"

The next day they washed the shirt.

The ceremony was performed in the kitchen after they had finished doing the breakfast dishes. Ophelia, after water for a vase of roses, came into the room while Skinny was rinsing the shirt in the large tin dishpan.

The garment was a sickly yellow.

"Darned if I know what's wrong with it," Skinny said, a trifle discouraged, while Carolyn June, her sleeves rolled above dimpled elbows, stood by and watched the slushy operation. "Carolyn June and me both have blamed near rubbed our fingers off trying to get it to look right again but somehow or other it don't seem to work."

"Did you put bluing in your rinse water?" Ophelia asked with a laugh.

"Bluing?" Carolyn June and Skinny questioned together. "What does that do to it?"

"Bleaches it—makes it white," the widow replied with another laugh as she returned to the front room.

"By golly, maybe that's what it needs!" Skinny exclaimed hopefully.

"Of course," Carolyn June cried gaily. "How silly we were not to think of it! Any one ought to know you put bluing in the water when you wash things. Wonder if Sing Pete has any around anywhere?"

They searched the kitchen shelves and found a pint bottle, nearly full, of the liquid indigo compound.

"How much do you suppose we ought to put in?" Carolyn June asked, pulling the cork from the bottle and holding it poised over the pan of water in which the shirt, a slimy, dingy mass, floated drunkenly.

"Darned if I know," Skinny said, scratching his head. "She said it would make it white—I reckon the more you put in the whiter the blamed thing'll be. Try about half of it at first and see how 'it works!"

"Gee, isn't it pretty?" Carolyn June gurgled as she tipped the bottle and the waves of indigo spread through the water, covering the shirt with a deep crystalline blue.

"You bet!" Skinny exclaimed. "That ought to fix it!"

It did.

The shirt, when finally dried, was a wonderful thing—done in a sort of mottled, streaky, marbled sky and cloud effect.

But Skinny wore it, declaring he liked it better—that it more nearly matched the shamrock tie—than when it was "too darned white and everything!"

To Parker and the boys on the beef hunt everything was business.

The days were filled with hard riding as they gathered the cattle, bunched the fat animals, cut out and turned back those unfit for the market, stood guard at night over the herd, steadily and rapidly cleaned the west half of the Kiowa range of the stuff that was ready to sell.

It was supper-time on one of the last days of the round-up.

The outfit was camped at Dry Buck. Bed rolls, wrapped in dingy gray tarpaulins or black rubber ponchos, were scattered about marking the places where each cowboy that night would sleep. The herd was bunched a quarter of a mile away in a little cove backed by the rim of sand-hills. Captain Jack and Silver Tip, riderless but with their saddles still on, were nipping the grass near the camp—the Ramblin' Kid and Chuck were to take the first watch, until midnight, at "guard mount." Parker and the cowboys were squatted, legs doubled under them, their knees forming a table on which to hold the white porcelain plate of "mulligan," in a circle at the back of the grub-wagon. Sing Pete trotted around the group and poured black, blistering-hot coffee into the unbreakable cups on the ground at the side of the hungry, dusty riders.

The sun had just dipped into the ragged peaks of the Costejo range and a reddish-purple crown lay on the crest of Sentinel Mountain forty miles to the southeast.

"It looks to me like Parker's sort of losing out," Chuck suddenly remarked, as he wiped his lips on the back of his hand after washing down a mouthful of the savory stew with gulps of steaming coffee. "Ophelia stuck closer than thunder to Old Heck all through the Rodeo."

Parker reddened and growled: "Aw, hell—don't start that up again!"

"By criminy, she didn't stick any closer to Old Heck than Skinny stuck to Carolyn June," Bert complained. "Nobody else had a look-in!"

"Skinny's sure earning his money," Charley muttered half enviously.

"Bet he's got on that white shirt and having a high old time right now! They're probably in the front room and she's playing La Paloma on the piano while Old Skinny's setting back rolling his eyes up like a bloated yearling!" Chuck laughed.

"And Old Heck and Ophelia are out on the porch holding hands and looking affectionate while the mosquitos are chewing their necks and ankles!" Bert added with a snicker.

"Her and Old Heck'll probably be married before we get back," Chuck said solemnly, with a wink at the Ramblin' Kid and a sly glance in the direction of Parker.

"Do you reckon there's any danger of it?" Parker asked in a voice that showed anxiety, but not of the sort the cowboys thought.

"They're darned near sure to," Chuck replied seriously, heaving what he tried to make resemble a sigh of sympathy.

"What makes you think so?" Parker questioned, seeking confirmation from the lips of other, of a hope that had been rising in his heart since the first moment he had begun to regret his rash proposal of marriage to the widow.

"Well, for one thing"—Chuck began soberly—"the way they'd look at each other—"

"I saw her squeeze Old Heck's arm once!" Bert interrupted.

"Aw, she's done that lots of times," Chuck said airily; "that ain't nothing special! But the worst indication was them flowers she wore on her bosom every day—Old Heck bought 'em!" he finished dramatically, leaning over and speaking tensely as though it pained him immeasurably to break the news to Parker while he fixed on Old Heck's rival a look he imagined was one of supreme pity.

"Yeah, he had them sent up from Las Vegas," Bert added, picking up the cue and lying glibly. "I saw the express agent deliver a box of them to him one day. There was four dollars and eighty cents charges on 'em!"

A gleam, which the cowboys misunderstood, came into Parker's eyes.

"Why don't you and Old Heck fight a duel about Ophelia?" Bert suggested tragically and in a voice that was aimed to convey sympathy to the Quarter Circle KT foreman. "You could probably kill him!"

"Sure, that's the way they do in books," Chuck urged.

"Yes," the Ramblin' Kid broke in with a slow drawl, "fight one with sour-dough biscuits at a hundred yards! That'd be sensible—then both of you'd be genuine heroes!"

"Gosh, th' Ramblin' Kid's awake!" Bert laughed. "How does it happen you ain't fell in love with Carolyn June?" he asked, turning toward the slender, dark-eyed, young cowboy. "So far you're the only one that's escaped. The rest of us are breaking our hearts—"

For an instant the Ramblin' Kid flashed on Bert a look of hot anger while a dull red glow spread over his sun-tanned cheeks.

"There's enough damned fools loose on th' Kiowa range without me bein' one, too!" he retorted slowly, getting up and going toward Captain Jack.

"Blamed if he'll stand a bit of joshing on that subject!" Bert muttered, his own face flushing from the look the Ramblin' Kid had given him.

"Not a darned bit," Chuck added, "but it is funny; the way he shys off from Carolyn June!"

"Th' Ramblin' Kid ain't interested in women," Charley said, as they pitched their plates to one side and the meal was finished. "He ain't the kind that bothers with females!"

When Chuck had idly suggested that Old Heck and Ophelia might be married before Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys returned to the ranch from the beef hunt, he did not know it, but the words he spoke in jest voiced the very thought at the same instant in the mind of Old Heck—miles away though he was. Perhaps it was mental telepathy, thought vibration, subconscious soul communication—or a mere coincident, that caused Chuck, far out on the open range, to speak the thing Old Heck, sitting at supper with Carolyn June, Ophelia and Skinny, at the Quarter Circle KT was thinking.

Ever since Parker had voluntarily surrendered during the Rodeo, his right to alternate, day and day about, with Old Heck in the widow's society, the owner of the Quarter Circle KT had been watching Ophelia, covertly and carefully, for any sign of "Movements" or an outbreak as a dreaded suffragette.

While he watched her the widow was becoming more and more a necessity in the life of Old Heck.

The night of the conversation between Parker and the cowboys, away over at Rock Creek, Old Heck sat at the supper table in the kitchen at the ranch and debated in his mind the future relationships of Parker, Ophelia and himself. In a few days Parker would return. Almost certainly the foreman would again wish to share, fifty-fifty, in the courtship of the widow. Old Heck felt that if such were so those odd days, when Parker was with Ophelia, would be little less than hell. Yet, he dreaded that suffragette business. If she would only break loose and let him see how bad she was liable to be he could easily make up his mind. He was almost ready to take a chance, to ask Ophelia to marry him and settle it all at once.

Throughout the meal he was moody. After supper he had little to say and the next few days he brooded constantly over the matter.

Tuesday Parker and the cowboys were expected to return with the beef cattle. Monday morning, at breakfast, the widow asked Old Heck if he would take her to Eagle Butte that day.

"I must see the minister's wife," she said, as Old Heck steered the Clagstone "Six" up the grade that led out to the bench and to Eagle Butte, "—it is very important"

Old Heck murmured assent and drove silently on. Probably she was going to start a "Movement" or something to-day! To-morrow, Parker would be back. It sure did put a man in a dickens of a fix!

Before they reached the long bridge across the Cimarron a mile from Eagle Butte Old Heck's mind was made up.

"You want to stop at the preacher's house?" he asked.

"If you please," Ophelia replied, "for some little time. There are things to discuss—"

"Would you mind if I drove around to the court-house first?" Old Heck questioned again.

"Not at all," she answered sweetly.

A few moments later Old Heck stopped the Clagstone "Six" in front of the yellow sandstone county building. Leaving Ophelia in the car with the remark, "I'll be out in a minute!" he went inside and hurried along the dark corridor that led to the clerk's office.



CHAPTER XVIII

A SHAME TO WASTE IT

In Old Heck's eyes was a set, determined look when he came out of the court-house and stepped up to the Clagstone "Six" in which he had left Ophelia a few moments before. The end of a long yellow envelope protruded from the side pocket of his coat. His face was flushed and his hand trembled slightly as he opened the door of the car and climbed into the front seat beside the widow. He pressed his foot on the "starter," threw the clutch into gear and turning the car about drove slowly toward the home of Reverend Hector R. Patterson, Eagle Butte's only resident clergyman.

He did not speak until the car stopped at the gate of the little unpainted parsonage beside the white, weather-boarded church.

"Wait a minute," he said as Ophelia started to get out of the Clagstone "Six," "maybe I'll go in with you!"

"Splendid," the widow replied, settling again against the cushions. "I'd be delighted to have you come along and I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Patterson would be glad to see you!"

"Well, it—it"—Old Heck stammered, not knowing how to begin what he wanted to say—"it—it all depends on you! Here"—he said abruptly as a bright thought came to him—"read that and—and—tell me what you think about it!" at the same time pulling the yellow envelope from his pocket and handing it to Ophelia.

With a questioning lift of her eyebrows the widow drew the folded, official-looking document from the envelope.

"Why, it's a—it's a—" she started to say and stopped confused, her cheeks blazing crimson.

"It's a marriage license—" Old Heck said, coming to her rescue, "—made out for you and me. I—I—didn't know what to tell the clerk when he asked me how old you was—so I just guessed at it!"

The widow looked shyly down at the names written on the document.

The license granted "Ophelia Cobb, age twenty-three, of Hartville, Connecticut, and Josiah Alonzo Heck, age forty-eight, of Kiowa County, Texas," the right to marry.

Ophelia's actual years were thirty-nine!

From under drooping lashes she glanced up suspiciously into the earnest gray eyes beside her. She saw that Old Heck had been sincere in his "guess."

"But—but—"

"I know it's kind of unexpected," Old Heck interrupted nervously, "—perhaps I had ought to have said something about it first, but, well, I figured I'd go on and get the license and show that my intentions was good and—and—sort of risk the whole thing on one throw! It always seemed like there was something missing at the Quarter Circle KT," he went on, his voice grown softer and trembling a bit, "and—and when you came I—I—found out what it was—"

Ophelia sat silently with downcast eyes, her pulse racing, the license unfolded on her lap, while she bit uncertainly at the tip of the finger of her glove.

"I—I—know I ain't very good-looking or—or—anything," Old Heck continued, "but I thought maybe you—you—liked me a little—enough anyhow to get married—that is if you—. Oh-h—thunder, Ophelia!" he exclaimed in despair, feeling that he was hopelessly floundering, "I—I—love you! Please let's use that license! Let's use it right away —to-day—and get it over with!" he urged as the widow still hesitated.

"But—I—I'm not suitably dressed—" she stammered.

"I think that dress you've got on is the prettiest goods I ever saw in my life," he interrupted, looking adoringly at the clinging summer fabric caressing Ophelia's shapely form, "I always did think it would be awful appropriate for us to—to—get married in!" he finished pleadingly.

"But—Carolyn June and—and—Parker—" Ophelia murmured.

At the mention of Parker, Old Heck started while a look of anguish came into his eyes. So she loved Parker! That was why she was so backward, he thought. Well, the Quarter Circle KT foreman was a little better-looking, maybe, and some younger! He couldn't blame her.

His head dropped. For a moment Old Heck was silent, a dull, sickening hurt gripping his heart. A deep sigh escaped from his lips. He reached over and picked up the license.

"I—I—guess I made a mistake," he said numbly. "We'll just—just—tear this thing up and forget about it!"

Ophelia looked demurely up at him, her mouth twitching. One small gloved hand slipped over and rested on the strong brown fingers that held the license. Roses flamed over the full round throat and spread their blush to her cheeks. Her eyes were like pools of liquid blue:

"Don't tear it—it—up!" she whispered with a little laugh—a laugh that sent the blood leaping, like fire, through Old Heck's veins, "it—it would be a shame to waste it!"

For an instant Old Heck was dazed. He looked at her as if he could not believe he had heard aright. Suddenly a wave of undiluted happiness swept over him.

"Ophelia!" he cried huskily. "Oh, Ophelia!" and the minister's three small sons, pausing in their play in the grassless yard at the side of the house, while they watched the beautiful car standing in front of the parsonage gate, saw the owner of the Quarter Circle KT, in broad daylight, on the principal residence street of Eagle Butte, before the eyes of the whole world—if the whole world cared to look—throw his arms around the plump lady sitting beside him and press one long, rapturous kiss on her moist, unresisting lips!

A moment later Ophelia and Old Heck, both much embarrassed but tremulously happy, stepped inside the door of the parsonage.

They were driving away from the minister's house—going to the Occidental Hotel for a little all-by-their-ownselves "wedding luncheon"—before either thought of the matter concerning which Ophelia had desired to see the clergyman's wife.

"Gee whiz!" Old Heck exclaimed, "you forgot that consultation or whatever it was with Mrs. Patterson to start your woman's suffrage 'movement'—"

"To start my what?"

"Your 'woman's rights,' 'female voter's organization'—or whatever it is!" Old Heck explained, a new-born tolerance in his voice. "I didn't mean to interfere with your political activities—"

Ophelia threw back! her head, while a ripple of laughter trilled out above the purr of the Clagstone "Six."

"Why, my dear—dear—Old Boy!" she cried, "I am not engaged in 'political activities,' or 'suffragette movements!' Of course," she continued archly, "I believe women ought to be allowed to vote—if they haven't intelligence enough for that they haven't brains enough to be good 'pardners' with their husbands—"

"By gosh, you're right!" Old Heck agreed, "I never thought of it that way before!"

"And," she continued, "naturally I shall vote whenever the opportunity comes, but I'm not an 'Organizer' for anything of that kind. Mrs. Patterson and I are going to organize the wives, sisters and sweethearts, in Eagle Butte, into a club for the study of 'Scientific and Efficient Management of the Home!' We think we should be as proficient in those arts—and which we believe are peculiarly womanly functions—as the men are in the direction of the more strenuous business affairs in which they themselves are engaged."

"So that's what you're an 'Organizer' for?" Old Heck queried while a radiant contentment spread over his face.

"That is it," Ophelia said simply, adding with a most becoming heightening of color, "it is so we will be—will be—better wives!"

"My Gawd!" Old Heck breathed fervently. "My Gawd! The Lord has been good to me to-day!"

While Old Heck and Ophelia were in Eagle Butte getting married, Skinny and Carolyn June had been riding line on the upland pasture fence. They had just returned to the Quarter Circle KT, unsaddled their horses, turned them into the pasture, gone to the house and stopped a moment on the front porch to watch the glow in the west—the sun was dipping into a thundercap over the Costejo Mountains—when the Clagstone "Six" rolled down the grade and up to the string of poplars before the house.

"Gee, we thought you two had eloped!" Carolyn June laughed as the couple climbed out of the car and came, rather bashfully, in at the gate. Old Heck and Ophelia looked at each other guiltily.

"We did come darn near it!" Old Heck chuckled, plunging at once into the task of breaking the news. "We got married—I reckon you'd call that the next thing to eloping!"

"Got married?" Skinny and Carolyn June cried together.

"Who—who—got married?" Skinny repeated incredulously.

"Ophelia and me," Old Heck answered with a sheepish grin but proudly. "Who else did you think we meant? We just thought," he continued by way of explanation, "we'd go ahead and do it kind of private and save a lot of excitement and everything!"

Carolyn June threw her arms around Ophelia and kissed her.

"Good-by, chaperon," she laughed With a half-sob in her throat, "h—hello, 'Aunt.'" Then she strangled Old Heck with a hug that made him gasp.

"What the devil—are you trying to do—choke me?"

"Well, by thunder, Old Heck!" Skinny finally managed to ejaculate, "it was the sensiblest thing you ever done! I—I've—been"—with a sidelong look at Carolyn June—"kind of figuring on doing it myself!"

Carolyn June saw the expression in Skinny's eyes. A pained look came into her own. She had known, for a long while, that sooner or later there would have to come an understanding between this big, overgrown, juvenile-hearted cowboy and herself. She resolved then that it should come quickly. Further delay would be cruel to him. Besides, she was sick of flirtations. Her disappointment in the character of the Ramblin' Kid, her realization of his weakness, when he had gotten, as she believed, beastly drunk at the moment so much depended on him the day of the two-mile sweepstakes, had hurt deeply. Somehow, even his magnificent ride and the fact that, in spite of his condition, he won the race, had not taken the sting away. She had thought the Ramblin' Kid was real—rough and crude, perhaps, but all man, rugged-hearted and honest. Sometimes she wondered if the queer unexplainable antagonism between herself and the sensitive young cowboy had not, in a measure, been responsible for his sudden moral breaking down. The thought caused her to lose some of that frivolity that inspired the dance and the wild flirtations she carried on that night with all the cowboys of the Quarter Circle KT. After all, these plain, simple-acting men of the range were just boys grown big in God's great out-of-doors where things are taken for what they seem to be. No wonder an artless look from sophisticated brown eyes swept them off their feet!

She made up her mind to disillusion Skinny at once.

After supper the quartette gathered in the front room.

"Come on, Skinny," Carolyn June said with forced gaiety, "let us take a walk. That pair of cooing doves"—with a playfully tender glance at Ophelia and Old Heck—"wish nothing so much as to be permitted to 'goo-goo' at each other all by their little lonelies!"

Bareheaded she and Skinny strolled out the front gate and along the road that led up to the bench. At the top of the grade they sat down, side by side, on a large boulder that hung on the brink of the bench. The Quarter Circle KT lay before them—restful and calm in the shadows of early evening. The poplars along the front-yard fence stood limp in the silent air. Across the valley the sand-hills were mellowing with the coming softness of twilight. Up the river, to the west, beyond Eagle Butte, a summer thunder-cloud was climbing higher and higher into the sky. In the direction of Dry Buck, far toward the northwest, a fog of dust was creeping along the horizon, gradually approaching the upland pasture. Skinny saw it.

"By golly," he cried, "that's either Parker and the boys coming in with the cattle—or else it's a band of sheep! It surely can't be 'woollys'—they never get over in there! If it's our outfit, though, they've got through quicker than they figured!"

A few moments later the dim bulk of the "grub-wagon" appeared, miles away, slowly crawling toward the Quarter Circle KT.

For a time Skinny and Carolyn June were silent.

Skinny's hand crept slyly across the rock and found the pink fingers of Carolyn June. She did not draw away.

"Carolyn June," he whispered haltingly, "Carolyn June—I—Old Heck and Ophelia have got married—let's you and—and—"

"Please, Skinny, don't say it!" she interrupted, her voice trembling. "I—I know what you mean! It hurts me. Listen, Skinny"—she hurried on, determined to end it quickly—"maybe you will despise me, but—I like you, truly I do—but not that way! I don't want to grieve you—I wish us to be just good friends—that's why I'm telling you! Let's be friends, Skinny—just friends—we can't be any more than that—"

Skinny understood. A dull, throbbing pain tightened about his throat. His fingers gripped Carolyn June's hand an instant and then relaxed. The whole world seemed suddenly blank.

"Can't you—won't you—ever—ca—care?" he asked in a voice filled with despair.

"I do care, boy," she replied softly, "I do care—but not that way! Oh, Skinny," she exclaimed, wishing to make it as easy as possible for the sentimental cowboy at her side, "maybe I have done wrong to let you go ahead, but, well, I found out—I guessed the 'arrangements'—how you had been chosen to make 'love' to me and how Parker and Uncle Josiah were to divide Ophelia between them. Perhaps that is why I have flirted so—just to punish you all! Truly, Skinny, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me like—like—the Ramblin' Kid does!" she finished with a shaky little laugh.

"He—don't hate you," Skinny answered dully, "at least I don't think th' Ramblin' Kid hates you—or anybody. And you knowed all the time that I was getting paid to make love to you? Well, I was," he added chokingly, "but I'd have done it for nothing if I'd had the chance!"

"Yes, Skinny," she replied, "I knew—I know—and I don't blame you!"

"I don't blame you, either," he said humbly, "it was a—a—excuse me, Carolyn June—a damned mean trick to frame up on you and Ophelia that way—but we didn't know what to do with you! I reckon," he continued in the same despairing tone, "I was a blamed fool!"

For a long moment they sat silent.

"Carolyn June," Skinny finally said, a sigh of resignation breaking from his lips, "I'll be what you said—just a good friend—I always will be that to you! But before we start in, do you mind if I—if I—go up to Eagle Butte and get—drunk!"

In spite of herself she laughed. But in it was a tenderness almost mother-like.

"Poor disappointed, big boy," she answered and her eyes filled, "if it will make you happy, go ahead and get—get—drunk, 'soused,' all over—just this once!"

With only a passing pang Carolyn June was willing for Skinny to get drunk—to do the thing she had been scarcely able to forgive in the Ramblin' Kid!

For an instant she wondered why.

A half-hour later Skinny and Carolyn June went silently down the grade to the ranch house. They had gone up the hill—lovers; they returned—"good friends"—and such they would always be.

* * * * *

It was nearly ten o'clock when Sing Pete stopped the grub-wagon at the bunk-house; Pedro wrangled the saddle cavallard into the pasture below the barn; Parker and the cowboys jogged their bronchos to the stable door and the Ramblin' Kid, riding the Gold Dust maverick—Captain Jack at her heels—rode to the circular corral, jerked the saddle from the filly's back and turned the little roan stallion and the outlaw mare inside the corral.

Old Heck and Skinny heard the commotion and went out to where Parker and the cowboys were unsaddling their horses.

"Well, you got through, did you?" Old Hack questioned casually.

"Yes," Parker replied, "we've got the beef critters in I guess—they're in the upland pasture. There are seven hundred and ninety, I think it is, that'll do for the market."

"That's pretty good," Old Heck answered with satisfaction. "We'll push them right on into Eagle Butte to-morrow or next day and ship them. The cars will be in to-night, the agent said. I'm sending them to Chicago this time. I'd like to see you, private, a minute, Parker!" he finished abruptly.

"What do you want?" Parker asked suspiciously, as he followed Old Heck around the corner of the barn.

"It's about Ophelia—" Old Heck began.

Parker's heart leaped and then dropped with a sickening foreboding of something disagreeable. The widow, he thought instantly, had told Old Heck about that darned fool proposal of marriage and was going to insist on him coming across and making good! There was no way out.

"I—I—reckon I'll have to do it if she's determined," Parker stuttered; "but—aw, hell—I must have been crazy—"

"Who's determined on what?" Old Heck asked, puzzled by the queer jumble coming from the lips of the Quarter Circle KT foreman, "and how crazy?"

"Ophelia determined on marrying me!" Parker blurted out.

"Ophelia marry you?" Old Heck exclaimed. "Marry you! She can't! Her and me have already done it. We got married to-day—that was what I wanted to tell you!"

Momentarily a pang of regret shot through Parker's heart. It was quickly followed by a sense of relief.

"You—you—and Ophelia married?" he stammered.

"We sure are," Old Heck answered positively. "We done it to-day!"

Suddenly Parker determined to "cover up."

"My, lord!" he half-groaned, pretending terrible grief, "this is awful! It—it—come so sudden—but there ain't no hard feelings, Old Heck! I—I—wish you both joy and happiness!"

"Darned if that ain't white of you, Parker!" Old Heck exclaimed, immensely relieved. "I won't forget it! When you and the boys take them steers to Chicago, stay over a week or so and have a good time and count it in on expenses!"

Parker turned his head and in the darkness winked solemnly at a yellow star above the peak of Sentinel Mountain.

He and Old Heck started toward the house.

"Hey, you fellows!" Old Heck called, pausing and turning toward the barn where the cowboys were putting away their saddles, "when you get through all of you come on up to the house! Ophelia and me's married and the bride is waiting to be congratulated!"

"Good lord," Charley gasped, "hear that, fellers? Old Heck said him and the widow's married!"

"Gosh!" Chuck laughed, "it must have been a jolt to Parker! I bet his heart's plumb bu'sted!"

As soon as their saddles were put away the cowboys hurried toward the house. They met the Ramblin' Kid, crossing from the circular corral to the bunk-house.

"Come on," Bert called to him, "Old Heck and Ophelia's gone and got married! We're going up to the house to sympathize with the widow!"

"I ain't needed," the Ramblin' Kid answered with a careless laugh. "You fellers can take my 'love' to th' afflicted couple!"

After the cowboys had gone to the house Skinny went and got Old Pie Face. Stopping at the stable, he saddled the pinto and strolled over to the bunk-house. The Ramblin' Kid was lying stretched on his bed. Skinny rolled the white shirt carefully into a bundle and wrapped a newspaper around it.

"What you goin' to do?" the Ramblin' Kid asked.

"I'm goin' to town!" Skinny answered shortly. "I'm going up to Eagle Butte and get on a hell of a drunk—if I can get hold of any boot-leg whisky—Carolyn June and me have bu'sted up on our love-making!"

"Going to get drunk, are you?" the Ramblin' Kid queried with a note of scorn in his voice, "an' forget your sorrows?"

"Yes," Skinny retorted, "I'm going to get drunk as you was the day of the race!"

"Drunk as I was th' day of th' race?" the Ramblin' Kid repeated quizzically. "Oh, hell, yes—now I understand—" pausing, while a smile curled his lips.

"Yes," Skinny retorted again. "Where'd you get yours that day?"

"Never mind," was the answer. "I guess I'll go to Eagle Butte with you! You'll need somebody to ride herd on you while you're snortin' around. Anyhow, I feel like goin' on a tear myself—not a drunk—a man's a darned fool that'll let any woman make a whisky barrel out of him! But I got an itchin' for a little poker game or somethin'. Wait till I get Captain Jack!"

"Where's Skinny and th' Ramblin' Kid?" Old Heck asked after he and Parker and the cowboys were at the house and the first flush of embarrassment had passed.

Carolyn June thought she knew where Skinny was, but did not answer.

"I don't know what's become of Skinny," Parker said. "Th' Ramblin' Kid's probably out mopin' somewhere. I think he's getting ready to 'ramble' again—he's been acting plumb despondent ever since the Rodeo in Eagle Butte!"

Carolyn June stepped to the door. Dimly through the darkness she saw two riders pass up the grade that led to the bench and turn their horses to the west, toward Eagle Butte, and ride straight into the outflung shadow of the thunder-storm—from which now and then leaped jagged flashes of lightning—and which was rolling from the Costejo Mountains across the Kiowa range in the direction of the Quarter Circle KT.

Silent and with a heavy heart she turned away from the door.



CHAPTER XIX

THE GREEK GETS HIS

It was long after midnight when the Ramblin' Kid and Skinny rode into Eagle Butte and the heels of Captain Jack and Old Pie Face echoed noisily on the board floor of the livery stable as the bronchos turned into the wide, open doorway of the barn. A drowsy voice from the cubby-hole of an office called:

"In just a minute—I'll be out!"

"Aw, thunder," Skinny answered, "go on back to sleep, we'll find stalls and put 'em up!"

Captain Jack and Old Pie Face cared for, Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid stepped out into the deserted street.

Eagle Butte was sleeping.

Here and there a blaze of light from a store window invited belated passers to covet the bargains offered within; a half-dozen incandescent bulbs, swung on cross-wires at intervals along the street, glowed feebly as if weary with the effort to beat back the darkness clutching at the throat of the town; over the sidewalk in front of the Elite Amusement Parlor an illuminated red and green sign told that Mike Sabota's place was still open; across the porch of the Occidental Hotel and spilling itself on the ground out in the street a stream of light guided weary travelers to the portals of that ancient, though hospitable, institution; from the sides of the Butte beyond the railroad tracks a coyote yelped shrilly a jerky, wailing challenge—a dozen dogs, suddenly aroused in different parts of the town, answered.

"Pretty dead-lookin'," the Ramblin' Kid remarked. "Let's go down to Sabota's."

"All right," Skinny replied, and they moved down the street.

The pool-room offered nothing of interest. A couple of traveling men, waiting for the early morning train, were playing a listless game of billiards at one of the tables; a pair of Jap sugar-beet workers and a negro section hand sat half-asleep and leaned against the wall; "Red" Jackson, Sabota's chief lieutenant, with an air of utter boredom, lounged behind the soft-drink bar. Sabota was not there.

"What's happened to everybody?" Skinny asked; "where's Mike?"

"Everybody's got religion, I guess," Red yawned, "and gone to bed. What do you want with Sabota?" looking suspiciously at the Ramblin' Kid; "he's over at Vegas; won't be back till to-morrow—or to-day it is now, I reckon—evening sometime!"

"Th' Ramblin' Kid and me have been out in the rain," Skinny said suggestively, "and thought we might take cold—"

"Nothing doing!" Red laughed, "ain't a drop around! When Mike gets back he'll fix you up, maybe—that's what he's gone after!"

"We'd just as well go to bed!" Skinny grumbled disgustedly to the Ramblin' Kid.

"I reckon," was the laconic answer.

They returned to the hotel, roused the clerk from his doze, secured a room and retired.

It was eight o'clock when they got up.

Both went directly to the livery stable and saw that Captain Jack and Old Pie Face were properly attended to. While at the barn Skinny took the bundle he had wrapped in the bunk-house at the ranch from the saddle where he had tied it.

"What's that?" the Ramblin' Kid queried.

"It's that darned shirt!" Skinny retorted. "I'm going to make Old Leon eat it—it wasn't the size Parker asked for!"

The Ramblin' Kid laughed, but said nothing.

They returned to the hotel and had breakfast. Manilla Endora waited on them. Before Carolyn June and Ophelia came to the Quarter Circle KT Manilla's yellow hair and blue eyes were the flames that fanned the affections of Skinny. He felt guilty as, sweetly as ever and without a hint of reproach, Manilla took their orders and served them with their ham and eggs and coffee.

After breakfast Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid explored the town.

Eagle Butte had come to life. The stores were open. Business was brisk. The "dray" was delivering the express accumulated the night before at the depot. Here and there a morning shopper was passing along the street. At the post-office there was quite a crowd.

Skinny carried the shirt, wrapped in the soggy, rain-soaked newspaper. As he and the Ramblin' Kid came near the dingy, general merchandise establishment kept by the squint-eyed Jew from whom Parker had bought the unfortunate garment a sudden look of cunning gleamed in the eyes of Skinny. He laughed aloud. A box of eggs, ten or twelve dozen it contained, was set, with other farm produce, in a display on the sidewalk at the side of the door of the store.

"Hold on a minute," Skinny said to the Ramblin' Kid, stopping in front of the Jew's place of business, "I got an idea—By golly," he continued argumentatively and with apparent irrelevancy, in a loud voice, "I tell you I'm the lightest man on my feet in Texas!" and he winked knowingly at the Ramblin' Kid. "I can walk on eggs and never bu'st a one! I've done it and"—as Leon came to the door—"I'll bet four-bits I can jump in that box of eggs right there and never crack a shell!" The Ramblin' Kid understood.

"Aw, you're crazy," he laughed. "I don't want to win your money!"

"What's the matter?" Leon asked curiously, having heard only part of Skinny's boast.

"This locoed darn' fool thinks he can walk on them eggs an' not mash 'em!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed again. "He wants to bet me four-bits he can—"

"Walk on them eggs and not preak them?" Leon exclaimed disdainfully. "You ought to lock him up! He iss crazy!"

"By gosh," Skinny argued, "you don't realize how light-footed I am—I can jump on them, I tell you, and I got money to back it up!" And he pulled a half-dollar from his pocket.

"Put away your money, you blamed idiot—" the Ramblin' Kid began.

"I'll bet him four-bits he can't!" Leon cried, jerking a coin from his own pocket.

Skinny and Leon each handed the Ramblin' Kid fifty cents.

"By thunder, I can," Skinny said, pausing, "that is, I'm willing to bet my money on it—"

"Vhy don't you go ahead and do it, then?" Leon exclaimed. "Vat you standing there for? Vhy don't you do it if you're so light on your feet?"

"Well, I can!" Skinny argued, still hesitating.

"Den go ahead and chump—chump I told you—into the box!" Leon shouted excitedly.

Skinny jumped. The eggs crushed under the heels of his riding boots. In an instant the box was filled with a squashy mass of whites, yolks and broken shells. Skinny pawed around until there wasn't a whole egg left in the box.

At the first crunch Leon laughed hilariously.

"I knowed you'd lose!" he cackled. "Giff me the money!"

"You win, Leon!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed, handing over the wager. "Skinny wasn't as delicate on his feet as he thought he was!"

"Thunderation, that's funny!" Skinny said soberly as he stepped out of the box; "it wouldn't work that time! Something must have slipped!"

With a grin he calmly unwrapped the one-time white shirt and with it began to wipe the slimy mess from his boots.

"The next time you won't be so smart!" Leon cried, then paused in consternation, his eyes riveted on the scrambled mixture in the box. "But mine eggs!" he exclaimed, suddenly suspicious. "Who pays for the eggs? There vas twelve dozen—they are worth seventy cents a dozen—that is more as eight dollars. Pay me for the eggs!"

"Pay, hell!" Skinny said. "I didn't agree to furnish no eggs! You won my fifty cents and th' Ramblin' Kid gave it to you—"

"That's right, Leon," the Ramblin' Kid chuckled, "you got th' four-bits—that's all you won!"

"But pay me—" Leon whined.

"I'll pay you, you dirty crook!" Skinny snapped as he slapped the soppy, egg-splattered shirt in Leon's face. "I'll pay you with that! The next time," he added as he and the Ramblin' Kid started down the street—"anybody asks for a size fifteen shirt don't give them a sixteen and a half!"

The day was spent idling about town waiting for Sabota to return so Skinny could get some whisky and drown his disappointment in love in intoxicated forgetfulness.

After supper Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid went to the picture show—Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were "movie nights" in Eagle Butte—and saw a thrilling "wild-west" drama in which a band of Holstein milk cows raced madly through an alfalfa field in a frenzied, hair-raising stampede! When the show was over the Ramblin' Kid started toward the livery barn.

"What you going to do?" Skinny queried.

"I was just goin' to get Captain Jack," the Ramblin' Kid replied.

"What for?" Skinny asked as they moved toward the barn. "There ain't no hurry about getting back to the ranch. We won't be going out till to-morrow or next day—there ain't no use getting the horses out to-night."

"I don't know," the Ramblin' Kid answered, without stopping, "I just got a hunch to get him in case I need him. Anyhow, it won't hurt him to stand out a while—they've been eatin' all day."

"Then I'll get Old Pie Face, too," Skinny replied.

They saddled the bronchos and rode out of the barn.

"Where'll we go?" Skinny asked.

"Reckon we'd better go back down to Sabota's," the Ramblin' Kid said as they turned their horses in the direction of the pool-room, "if you still insist on makin' a blamed fool of yourself an' gettin' drunk. Maybe Mike's back by now. Anyhow, there might be a little poker game goin' on—I saw a couple of the fellers from over on th' Purgatory come in a while ago!"

They left Captain Jack and Pie Face standing, with bridle reins dropped, across the street and in the broad shaft of light streaming from the open door of the pool-room, and went into the resort.

The place was well filled. Sabota had returned, evidently with an ample supply of the fiery stuff he called "whisky." Like vultures that unerringly seek and find the spot where a carcass has fallen the thirsty of Eagle Butte had gathered at the Elite Amusement Parlor.

Inside the door of the pool-room and at the left, as one entered, was a hardwood bar eighteen or twenty feet long and over which at one time, in the days before Eagle Butte "reformed," had been dispensed real "tarantula juice." The back bar, with its big mirrors and other fixtures, was as it had been when the place was a regular saloon. At the right of the room, opposite the bar, were several round, green-topped card tables. In the rear was the billiard and pool equipment, which entitled the place to the name "pool-room." Just across from the farther end of the bar and near the last card table a half-dozen hard-looking, small-town "toughs"—creatures who loafed about Sabota's and aided him, as occasion required, in his boot-legging operations or other questionable enterprises—were lounging, some standing, some sitting, watching a slow poker game going on at the last table. Cards, under the laws of Texas, are taboo, but for some reason Sabota managed to get by and games were allowed in his place.

The two cowboys the Ramblin' Kid had mentioned, a rancher from the irrigated section near Eagle Butte and "Jeff" Henderson, one of Sabota's henchmen, who was playing for the house, were sitting in at the game.

Half-way down the room at one side against the wall a mechanical player piano was grinding out garish, hurdy-gurdy music.

"Red" Jackson was dispensing soft drinks from behind the bar.

Sabota himself, with one heel caught on the brass foot-rail, was leaning indolently but with a lordly air against the front of the polished, imitation mahogany counter.

He had been drinking and was in his shirt-sleeves.

As Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid stepped into the pool-room Sabota glanced around. For an instant he eyed the Ramblin' Kid keenly while a nasty sneer curled his lips. As they approached he turned the grin into a hypocritical smile of welcome. The Ramblin' Kid barely noticed the Greek and passed on to where the card game was in progress. Skinny paused and said something in a low tone to Sabota. The two walked to the rear end of the bar where the proprietor of the place in turn spoke to Red and the latter furtively handed a pint bottle to the cowboy and which he dropped into the bosom of his flannel shirt.

The Ramblin' Kid was recognized by the cowboys from the Purgatory.

"Come on and get into the game!" one of them invited, moving over.

"Yes," Henderson added, hitching his own chair to one side to make room for another, "the cards are running like"—he paused—"like the Gold Dust maverick for everybody but the house!" There was a laugh at the subtle reference to the outlaw filly that had cost Sabota so much in losses on the sweepstakes at the Rodeo.

The Greek scowled.

"In that case," the Ramblin' Kid drawled, "I reckon I'll ride 'em a few rounds!" dropping into the chair he had dragged forward and which placed him with his back toward the bar.

"What they costin' a stack?" he questioned, reaching to the left breast pocket of his shirt for a roll of bills.

In the same pocket was the pink satin garter Carolyn June had lost the morning of his first meeting with her at the circular corral.

"Five bones!" Jeff answered languidly.

"Well, give me a couple of piles," the Ramblin' Kid replied, glancing around at the cowboy sitting at his right, who had invited him into the game. "How's the Purgatory?"