During all her struggles Carolyn June remained silent. She had not thought to cry out. Somehow she could not realize that she was to die. The sun was bright, the sky cloudless, the trees along the river-bank barely swayed in a little breeze! How beautiful the world! How queer that such a little distance away was the green grass of the meadow and the firm black earth in which it was rooted and she—she was held fast and helpless in the embrace of the deadly sand! Strange thoughts rushed through her mind. She wondered what they would think at the ranch when night came and she did not return. Would they know? Would they guess the thing that had happened? Would the sand draw her down—down—until it covered her so none would ever know where or how she died? She looked at Old Blue. "Poor old fellow!" she whispered, "I am sorry—I didn't know—it looked so white and firm and safe!" The sand was half-way up the sides of the horse and he swayed his body in pathetic, futile efforts to free himself.
A strange calm came over Carolyn June. So this was the end? She was to die alone, horribly, in the treacherous sands of the Cimarron? Surely it could not be—God would not let her die! She was so young! She had just begun to live—She thought of Hartville, her father, the old friends. How far away they seemed! How queer it was—she could not image in her mind any of the familiar scenes, the face of her father or any of the friends she had known so well! She tried to think of her Uncle Josiah, Ophelia, Skinny Rawlins—poor fellow, how susceptible was his big, innocent, boyish heart! She called each one up in a mental effort to remember how they had looked, the sound of their voices—they were only names—dim shadowy names! There was nothing in the whole world but Old Blue—herself—and the sand—the sand—an eternity of sand pulling, dragging, sucking her down! She closed her eyes tightly, thinking to shut out the impression of utter loneliness. The face of the Ramblin' Kid flashed into her mind! She could see him! She saw him lying under the shed, as he had looked that morning, his head resting on the saddle, his eyes gazing steadily into her own; she saw him again as he had looked when she stung him with her harsh words at the gate. She seemed to see the agonized humility in his expression and hear the low tenseness of his voice as he repeated aloud the words she had used—"An ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" She laughed almost hysterically. "Why can I see him—just him—and not the others? Has he come to—to—haunt me?" she finished with a gasp.
The sand had reached her breast. How long before it clutched at her throat? Her mouth? Her eyes? Ah, would she hold up her arm as she went down—down—and reach out her hand as if to wave the world a last, long farewell? "I will—I will!" she cried, the pressure around her body almost stopping her breath, "I—I—will—and—wiggle my fingers to the end!" she added with a choking half-hysterical laugh, so tightly did she cling to life. Her mood changed. "I—guess—I ought to pray!" she said, "but—I—God—God knows anyhow!" her voice trailing away to a whisper as if she had grown suddenly, utterly, tired. She stretched out her hands once more with the hat, trying to use it to buoy her up. Under the weight of her arms it sank in the sand. She tossed it to one side. "It will—stay—on top by itself," she choked. "I—I—will leave it—maybe they will find it—and know—" She felt her senses were leaving her. Even yet she had not called for help. It had not occurred to her that rescue was possible. As if it were an echo to her thoughts there came the throbbing tattoo of hoofs pounding the earth. She listened intently. Some one was riding down the lane toward the river from the ranch! The horse was evidently running—running madly, desperately. Would he cross at the upper or lower ford? Her heart pulsed with heavy dull throbs. The sand was crushing her chest. A wave of weakness swept over her. She almost fainted. At that instant Captain Jack, carrying the Ramblin' Kid, leaped through an opening in the willows and stopped—his front feet plowing the firm ground at the edge of the quivering beach of sand.
"Pure luck!" the Ramblin' Kid breathed fervently, his eye quickly measuring the distance to the nearly exhausted girl; "she's close enough I can reach her with th' rope! God, if it'll only hold!" Already the coils were in his hand. With a single backward fling of the noose and forward toss he dropped the loop over the head of Carolyn June.
"Pull it up—close—under your arms!" he commanded shortly, "an' hang on with your hands to take th' strain off your body!"
The girt obeyed without a word.
He double half-hitched the rope to the horn of the saddle, swung Captain Jack around. "Look out!" he called to the girl as he started away from the brink of the sand. "Steady, Boy, be careful—" to the broncho. The slack gradually tightened. The strain drew on Carolyn June's arms till it seemed they would be pulled from the sockets. The rope cut cruelly into her body under her shoulders. She wanted to cry—to scream—to laugh. She did neither. She threw back her head and clung with all her strength to the rough lariat, stretched taut as a cable of steel.
The Ramblin' Kid leaned forward in the saddle, his body half turned, eyes looking back along the straight line of the severely tested rope. He swore softly, steadily, under his breath. "God—if it will only hold—if it only don't break!"
Slowly, surely, the little stallion leaned his weight against the tensely drawn riata and Carolyn June felt herself lifted, inch by inch, out of the sand that engulfed her. At last she fell forward—her body free. Without stopping the horse the Ramblin' Kid continued away from the river-bank and dragged the girl across the yielding surface to the solid earth and safety. The instant she was where he could reach her he whirled Captain Jack and rode quickly back. Carolyn June was trying to get to her feet when he sprang from the broncho and helped her to the firm ground on which he stood. She was panting and exhausted.
"Get—get—Old Blue out!" she gasped and dropped limply down on the grass, fingering at the rope to remove it from around her body.
"Danged if she ain't got more heart than I thought she had!" the
Ramblin' Kid said to himself as he lifted the loop from over her head.
"I'm goin' to," he said aloud, "if I can—but—I'm afraid he's gone.
I'll try anyhow—you lay there an' rest—" at the same time remounting
his horse.
The sand covered the rump of Old Blue. The saddle, Parker's it was, was nearly submerged, only the horn and cantle showing above the slimy mass. His head, neck and the top of his withers were yet exposed. He still struggled, wallowing feebly, vainly resisting the downward pull of the sand. Crouching, as if fascinated by the terrible scene, Carolyn June watched as the Ramblin' Kid, waiting his opportunity, at the instant the horse in the sand lifted his head deftly flung the rope over his neck. With a short jerk of the wrist he tightened the noose till it closed snugly about the throat of the broncho. Again turning Captain Jack away from the bank he urged him slowly forward. The rope stiffened. The little stallion bunched himself and desperately strained against the dead weight of Old Blue, multiplied many times by the suction of the sand. The Ramblin' Kid leaned far over the neck of Captain Jack to give the horse the advantage of his own weight and looked back, watching the supreme efforts of the mired broncho as he fought to climb out of the sand. A moment it looked as if the little roan would drag him out. Slowly he seemed to be raising and moving forward. There was a sharp snap. Half-way down its length the lariat parted. At the weak spot the strain was too great. Captain Jack plunged forward to his knees, his nose rooting the earth, and the Ramblin' Kid barely saved himself from pitching over the horse's head.
"That's what I was dreadin'—" he said as he turned and rode back to the edge of the sand.
Carolyn June gazed, wide-eyed, speechless with horror, at the horse in the sand. When the rope broke, Old Blue, with a groan almost human, sank back and quickly settled down until only his head and part of his neck were exposed to view. The Ramblin' Kid looked at the broken rope—the end fastened around the throat of Old Blue had whipped back and was lying far beyond the cowboy's reach. The piece half-hitched to the saddle horn was too short for another throw. Old Blue was doomed. Carolyn June saw him sinking gradually, su
rely, into the sand. It seemed ages. His eyes appealed with dumb pathos to the group on the bank. They could hear his breath coming in harsh, terrible gasps. The sand seemed to be deliberately torturing him as though it were some hellish thing, alive and of fiendish cunning, that grasped its victim and then paused in his destruction to gloat over his hopeless agony.
The Ramblin' Kid sat Captain Jack and watched.
"Why did God ever want to make that stuff anyhow!" sprang hoarsely from his lips. He was torn between blind unreasoning anger at the quicksand and pity for the struggling horse. Suddenly he jerked the forty-four, always on his saddle, from its holster. As the gun swung back and then forward there was a crashing report and Old Blue's head dropped, with a convulsive shudder, limp on the sand.
Carolyn June screamed and buried her face in her hands.
At the sound of the shot Captain Jack stiffened and stood rigid. The Ramblin' Kid, his face white and drawn, sat and looked dry-eyed at the red stream oozing from the round hole just below the brow-band of the bridle on the head of the horse he had killed.
"I—I—would have wanted somebody to do it to me!" he said softly and rode to the side of the girl huddled on the ground. He dismounted and stood, without speaking, looking down at her shaking form. After a time she looked up, through eyes drenched with tears, into his face. Then as if drawn by an irresistible impulse—one she could not deny—she turned her head and looked at the spot where Old Blue had fought his last battle with the quicksands of the Cimarron. A crimson stain, already darkening, on the white surface; a few square feet of disturbed and broken sand, even now settling into the smooth, innocent-looking tranquillity that hid the death lurking in its depths; a short length of rope, one end drawn beneath the sand, the other lying in a sprawling coil; her hat resting a little distance to one side, were all that remained to tell the story of the grim tragedy of the morning. She shuddered and looked once more into the pain-filled eyes of the Ramblin' Kid.
"We'd better be goin'," he said quietly, "you're wet an' them clothes must be uncomfortable. You can ride Captain Jack!"
She stood up weak and trembling.
"I—I—thought Captain Jack was an outlaw," she said with a faint smile. "He won't let me ride him, will he?"
"He'll let you," the Ramblin' Kid answered dully, "no woman ever has rode him—or any other man only me—but he'll let you!"
As she approached the stallion he raised his head and looked at her with a queer mixture of curiosity and antagonism, curving his neck in a challenging way.
"Jack!" the Ramblin' Kid spoke sharply but kindly to the horse, "be careful! It's all right, Boy—you're goin' to carry double this one time!"
The broncho stood passive while the Ramblin' Kid helped Carolyn June to his back.
"You set behind," he said, "it'll be easier to hold on an' I can handle th' horse better!"
She slipped back of the saddle and he swung up on to the little roan. With one hand Carolyn June grasped the cantle of the saddle, the other she reached up and laid on the arm of the Ramblin' Kid—the touch sent a thrill through her body and the cowboy felt a response that made his heart quiver as they turned and rode toward the Quarter Circle KT.
For a mile neither spoke.
"I—I—am sorry for what—I said this morning," Carolyn June whispered at last haltingly, feeling intuitively that the cruel words—"an ignorant, savage, stupid brute"—were repeating themselves in her companion's mind.
"It's all right," he answered without looking around and in a voice without emotion, "it was th' truth—" with a hopeless laugh. "I'm a damn' fool besides!"
CHAPTER VIII
QUICK WITH A VENGEANCE
Old Heck rode in advance of Charley and Bert as the trio returned from repairing the fences wrecked by the flood that had swept over the east bottom-lands of the Quarter Circle KT. All morning he had been silent and morose. Only when necessary had he spoken while he directed the cowboys at their labor, helped them reset posts, or untangle twisted wires and build up again that which the rush of water had torn down. The damage had not been great and by noon the fence was as good as new. As soon as the breaks were mended the moody owner of the Quarter Circle KT mounted his horse and started for the house.
"Them women coming or something has got Old Heck's goat," Bert remarked to Charley as they climbed on their horses and followed a moment later.
"Something's got it," Charley answered, "he ain't acted natural all day—do you reckon he's sore because Parker took the widow to town?"
"Darned if I know," Bert said doubtfully, "that might be it."
"Well, he's feverish and disagreeable for some reason or other and that's the way people generally get when they're jealous," Charley observed sagely.
"He hadn't ought to be," Bert argued, "it's Parker's day to keep company with Ophelia, and Old Heck and him agreed to split."
"If he's in love he won't split," Charley retorted with conviction, "I never saw two men take turn about loving the same woman yet. It can't be done!"
"The woman wouldn't object, would she?" Bert queried.
"Probably not," Charley replied, "at least not as long as double doses of affection was coming her way. From what I've heard most of 'em sort of enjoy having as many men make love to 'em as possible, but—" he paused.
"But what?"
"They kick if a man loves several women at once!" was the sophisticated reply. "But as far as that's concerned," he continued, speaking as a man wise in the ways of the world, "men and women ain't much different in that respect. When it comes to loving, both sides are plumb willing to divide up 'a-going' but want it to be clean exclusive when it comes to 'coming!'"
"It's funny, ain't it?" Bert commented.
"No, it ain't funny," Charley declared. "It's just natural—"
"Maybe Parker and Old Heck will have a fight about Ophelia," Bert suggested hopefully. "Which do you suppose would lick?"
"It's hard telling," Charley said thoughtfully. "Old Heck's the heaviest, but Parker's pretty active."
"Well, it sure does seem like wherever women are trouble is, don't it?"
Bert observed meditatively.
"Blamed if it don't," Charley agreed; "there's something about them that's plum agitating!"
Old Heck, riding a short distance ahead of the cowboys, was troubled with similar thoughts. He was trying to analyze his own feelings. Years without association with womankind had made him come to regard them with a measure of indifference and suspicion. He had developed the idea that women existed chiefly for the purpose of disorganizing the morale of the masculine members of the race. He was very sincere in this belief. Yet he was forced, now, to confess that he found something interesting in having a couple of attractive females at the Quarter Circle KT. The situation was not so disagreeable as he had expected. Already he was proud of his kinship to Carolyn June. She was a niece worth while. Ophelia also had proved herself a pleasant surprise. He had pictured her as a strong-minded, assertive, modernized creature who would probably discourse continuously and raspingly about the evils of smoking, profanity, poker, drinking and other natural masculine impulses. Instead, she had proved herself, so far, a perfect lady. Without doubt she was the most sensible widow he had ever met. The thought of Parker's long, intimate ride with her to Eagle Butte made him uncomfortable. It was a darned fool arrangement—that agreement that he and his foreman were to divide time in the entertainment of Ophelia. He could have done it alone just as well as not. Anyway the dual plan was liable to cause confusion. Oh, well, Parker would be out on the beef hunt next week. By rights it ought not start for ten days yet, but—well, it wouldn't hurt to move it up a little. He would do that. Then he remembered the frank admiration the cowboys had shown toward Carolyn June. This suggested complications in that direction.
"Thunderation!" he said aloud, "it's a good thing we fixed it up for just Skinny to make love to her—if we hadn't there'd have been a regular epidemic of bu'sted hearts on this blamed ranch! There wouldn't hav
e been a buckaroo on the place that could have kept from mooning around sentimental—unless it was th' Ramblin' Kid," he added; "that blamed cuss is too independent and indifferent to fall in love with any female!"
At the barn Charley and Bert overtook Old Heck. The three unsaddled and fed their horses and started toward the house for dinner. Sing Pete had seen them coming and immediately pounded the triangle.
"Th' Ramblin' Kid's gone somewhere again," Bert observed as he noticed the Gold Dust maverick alone in the circular corral. "Captain Jack's not with the filly—"
"Yonder th' Ramblin' Kid comes now," Charley said, looking toward the north; "he's been over to the river—what the devil kind of a combination is that?" he exclaimed as he got a better view of the horse coming up the lane. "Him and that girl both are riding Captain Jack."
"Blamed if they ain't," Bert said curiously; "it's a wonder Captain Jack'll let them. But how does that come, anyhow? Where's Skinny? I thought it was his job to ride herd on Carolyn June—"
"It is his job," Old Heck interrupted, "I don't understand—something must have gone wrong," he added excitedly as the stallion with his double burden drew near. "Carolyn June's all wet and she's lost her hat."
Turning his horse toward the house, when he reached the end of the lane and with but a glance at the trio standing at the barn, the Ramblin' Kid rode straight to the back-yard gate. Old Heck and the cowboys hurried across the open space and reached the gate just as Carolyn June rather stiffly dismounted from the little roan. Her hair was disarranged, her riding suit soiled and wet from the sand and water, but her eyes were bright, cheeks flushed, and she showed only a trace of nervousness.
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