"It's all right," was the laughing rejoinder, "I—I—wanted to say it myself!"
Carolyn June's eyes glowed. Her heart felt as if a weight had been lifted from it So, the Ramblin' Kid had kept the odd souvenir, and he cared—he cared!
"Go ahead," she whispered to Skinny; "what then?"
"I reckon that's about all," Skinny answered. "Th' Ramblin' Kid smashed Sabota and as he staggered back, picked up the ribbon—then he didn't quit till he thought the Greek was dead. Tom Poole arrested him, but th' Ramblin' Kid got the drop on him and got away. He was justified in beating Sabota up anyhow," he added, "on account of the dirty cuss hiring a feller to 'dope' him so he couldn't ride the maverick the day of the big race—"
"'Dope' him?" Old Heck interrupted, puzzled.
"Yes," Skinny explained, "the Greek had a feller named Gyp Streetor put some stuff in th' Ramblin? Kid's coffee. He wasn't drunk at all—he was just poisoned with 'knock-out!'"
"Good lord!" Old Heck exclaimed. "And he rode that race when he was drugged! While we all thought he'd gone to pieces and was drunk!"
Carolyn June's cheeks suddenly turned pale. He cared, but he was gone! Perhaps never to come back! It seemed as if an iron hand was clutching at her throat!
She and Ophelia went into the hotel and Old Heck and Skinny drove the car over to the stock-yards where the cattle were being loaded.
After Parker and the cowboys were on their way east with the steers and before he returned to the ranch Old Heck went into the room in which Sabota lay. The Greek's head was a mass of white bandages. His eyes battered and swollen shut, he could not see the face of his visitor.
For a moment Old Heck looked at him, his lips parted in a smile of contempt lightened with satisfaction.
"Well, Sabota," he said at last, "th' Ramblin' Kid didn't quite do his duty, did he? If he had gone as far as he ought to you wouldn't be laying there—they'd just about now be hiding your dirty carcass under six feet of 'dobe!'"
Sabota mumbled some guttural, unintelligible reply.
"Listen, you infernal skunk," Old Heck went on coldly, "as quick as you're able to travel you'll find Eagle Butte's a right good place to get away from! You understand what I mean. If I catch you around, well, I won't use no fists!" And without waiting for an answer he turned and left the room.
The owner of the Quarter Circle KT then hunted lip the marshal of Eagle
Butte.
"Tom," he said, "I reckon you'll be looking some for th' Ramblin' Kid, after what happened last night, won't you?"
The marshal had heard of Sabota's effort to have the young cowboy drugged the day of the race and also the immediate cause for the fight.
"Oh, I don't know as I will," he said, "unless the Greek makes some charge or other. I don't imagine he'll do that"
"I know blamed well he won't!" Old Heck interrupted. "But how about th' Ramblin' Kid putting his gun in your ribs—resisting an officer and so on?"
"Putting his gun in my ribs? Resisting an officer?" the lanky Missourian answered with a sly grin; "who said he put a gun on me—or resisted an officer or anything? I ain't heard nothing about it!"
Two days later Sabota, with the help of "Red" Jackson, managed to get to the Santa Fe station. He was able to travel and he did travel. Jackson said he went to the "Border." Eagle Butte did not know or care—the Cimarron town was through with him.
When Old Heck, Carolyn June and Ophelia returned to the Quarter Circle KT the evening of the day following the fight, the Gold Dust maverick whinnied lonesomely from the circular corral as the Clagstone "Six" stopped in front of the house.
"What are we going to do with that filly?" Old Heck asked, looking at the beautiful creature with her head above the bars of the corral gate.
"I am going to ride her!" Carolyn June said softly. "Until the Ramblin' Kid comes back and claims her she is mine! She loves me and I can handle her!"
"I'm afraid—" Old Heck started to protest.
"You need not be," Carolyn June interrupted, "the Gold Dust maverick and I know each other—she understands me and I understand her—she will be perfectly gentle with me!"
The next day Carolyn June rode the wonderful outlaw mare. It was as she said. The filly was perfectly gentle with her. After that, every day, the girl saddled the Gold Dust maverick and, unafraid, took long rides alone.
* * * * *
The night the cattle were shipped Skinny had supper in Eagle Butte. He sat alone at a small table at one side of the dining-room in the Occidental Hotel. The cowboy was the picture of utter misery. Parker, Charley, Chuck, Bert were gone to Chicago with steers; the Ramblin' Kid was gone—nobody knew where; Skinny's dream about Carolyn June was gone—she didn't love him, she just liked him; even his whisky was gone, he had given it to the hostler at the barn; he didn't have any friends or anything.
"What's the matter, Skinny?" Manilla Endora, the yellow-haired waitress, asked softly, as she stepped up to the table and looked down a moment at the dejected cowboy. There was something in her voice that made Skinny pity himself more than ever. It made him want to cry. "What's wrong?' Manilla repeated almost tenderly.
"Everything!" Skinny blurted out, dropping his head on his arms. "The whole blamed works is shot to pieces!"
A little smile stole over Manilla's rosy lips.
"I know what it is," she said gently, unreproachfully; "it's that girl, Carolyn June. Yes, it is," as Skinny started to interrupt. "Oh, I don't blame you for falling for her!" she went on. "She is nice—but, well, Skinny-boy," her voice was a caress, "Old Heck's niece is not the sort for you. You and her wouldn't fit at all—the way you wanted—and anyhow, there—there—are others," coloring warmly.
Skinny looked up into the honest blue eyes.
"You ain't sore at me or anything are you, Manilla?" he asked.
"Sore?" she answered. "Of course not!"
Hope sprung again into his heart. "I—I—thought maybe you would be," he stammered.
"Forget it!" she laughed. "The old world still wobbles!"
"Manilla, you—you're a peach!" he cried.
She chuckled. "Did you hear about that dance next Saturday night after the picture show?" she asked archly.
"No. Is there one?" with new interest in life.
"Yes," she replied, her lashes drooping demurely; "they say the music is going to be swell."
"If I come in will you—will we—go, Manilla?" he asked eagerly.
They would.
"Poor Skinny," Manilla murmured to herself as she went to the kitchen to get his order, "poor cuss—he can't keep from breaking his heart over every skirt that brushes against him, but"—and she laughed softly—"darn his ugly picture, I like him anyhow!"
After supper Skinny hurried to the Golden Rule store. It was still open.
"Give me a white shirt—number fifteen," he said to the clerk; "and be blamed sure it's the right size—they ain't worth a cuss if they're too big!"
CHAPTER XXI
A GIRL LIKE YOU
A lone rider guided his horse in the early night, among the black lavas, on the desolate desert near Capaline, the dead volcano. He rode to the south, in the direction of the Cimarron. Silently, steadily, like a dark shadow, the broncho picked his way among the fields of fire-blistered rock and held his course, unerringly, through the starlit gloom hanging over the earth before the late moon should flash its silver disk above the sand-hills miles to the east.
The rider was the Ramblin' Kid; the little horse—Captain Jack.
For a week, following the fight in Eagle Butte, the Ramblin' Kid had found shelter in the hut of "Indian Jake"—a hermit Navajo who, long ago, turned his face toward the flood of white civilization rolling over the last pitiful remnants of his tribe and drifted far toward the land of the rising sun. Among the scenes of desolation around the grimly cold volcano, alone, the old Indian made his last stand, and in a rude cabin, beside a tiny spring that seeped from under the black rock on the mountain-side, lived in splendid isolation—s
ilent, brooding, desiring only to be left in peace with his few ponies, his small herd of cattle and the memories and traditions of his people.
The Ramblin' Kid and the lonely Navajo were friends since the Ramblin'
Kid could remember.
The aged Indian's face was pitted with horrible scars—marks of the same disease that had cost the wandering cowboy his father and left him, years ago, an orphan, almost worshiped, because of the sacrifice his parent had made fighting the epidemic among the tribes of the Southwest.
Often the "Young Whirlwind"—the name by which the Indians knew the Ramblin' Kid and which old Jake himself always called the cowboy—spent a night, sometimes days, with his stoical friend among the lavas.
To him the cabin door was always open.
As Captain Jack, followed by the bullets from the marshal's revolver, dashed madly down the street of Eagle Butte, instinctively the Ramblin' Kid had turned the stallion toward the hut of the old Navajo.
The fugitive cowboy believed Sabota was dead.
Naturally the law would demand vengeance, even though the brutal Greek had deserved to die. Posses, undoubtedly, would scour the country, searching for his slayer. The Quarter Circle KT would be watched.
There was no regret in the heart of the Ramblin' Kid. Instead he felt a strange elation. With his fists and heels he had beaten the giant Greek into a lifeless mass!
"'Ign'rant—savage—stupid—brute!" he muttered as Captain Jack sped from the scene of fight; "I reckon she was pretty near right!"
At gray dawn he swung down from the back of the little stallion at the door of the Indian's hut.
Old Jake asked no questions.
The Ramblin' Kid himself volunteered:
"Killed a man—Sabota—got to lay low, Jake—some three, four, five days! Then I go—south—Mexico!"
"The Young Whirlwind had cause?" the Navajo grunted sententiously.
"Sure—plenty!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed, slipping his hand to his breast pocket and caressing the pink satin garter.
"It is good," the Indian said. "The Navajo will watch!"
For seven days the Ramblin' Kid rested, securely, in the lonely hut among the lavas and "pot-holes" of the desert. Then he saddled Captain Jack and when the full shadow of night had settled over the desolation about him mounted the little broncho and turned him to the south, in the direction of the Cimarron, toward the Quarter Circle KT, where the Gold Dust maverick waited, alone, in the corral.
Carolyn June could not sleep. The night was more than half gone and still she sat on the front porch and watched the gradual spread of a misty, silvery sheen over the brow of the bench and the distant peaks of the shadowy Costejo range as the pale moon, in its last half, lifted itself above the sand-hills at the gap through which the Cimarron tumbled out of the valley.
Old Heck and Ophelia had retired hours ago.
The Quarter Circle KT was sleeping. From the meadows the heavy odor of wilted alfalfa hung on the night air as the dew sprinkled the windrows of new-cut hay.
A strange restlessness filled the heart of the girl.
Something seemed to be holding her in a tense, relentless grip. She had no desire to seek her room. Indeed, she felt that the air of the house would stifle her. She arose and strolled idly through the gate, past the bunk-house where Skinny, Pedro and the hay hands snored peacefully, as she wandered aimlessly through the slanting moonlight down to the circular corral.
The Gold Dust maverick seemed to reflect the girl's own uneasy mood.
The filly moved with quick nervous strides about the corral. As Carolyn June leaned against the bars and stretched out her hand the mare whinnied softly, tossed her head, nosed an instant the white fingers and trotted in a circle around the enclosure.
"What's the matter, Heart o' Gold?" Carolyn June laughed sympathetically, "can't you either?"
In the shed at the side of the corral, on the spot where, that first morning, the Ramblin' Kid's saddle had rested and the cowboy slept, Carolyn June's own riding gear was lying. She glanced at the outfit For a second she fancied she saw again the slender form stretched in the shadow upon the ground while a pair of black inscrutable eyes looked with unfathomable melancholy up into her own.
"Seein' things!" she laughed jerkily, with a little catch in her throat.
"I'll ride it off!"
Quickly she stepped over, picked up the saddle, bridle and blanket, returned to the corral gate, swung it open and entered.
The Gold Dust maverick came to her, as if eager, herself, to get out into the night.
A moment later Carolyn June was in the saddle and the mare, dancing lightly, pranced out of the gate. She turned swiftly toward the grade that led out to the bench and to Eagle Butte. They had almost reached the foot of the grade, when some impulse caused Carolyn June to whirl the filly about and gallop back past the barn and down the lane toward the Cimarron.
As the feet of the outlaw mare splashed into the water at the lower ford the Ramblin' Kid rode past the corner of the upland pasture fence and stopped Captain Jack on the brink of the ridge looking down at the crossing. Below him the river whirled in dark eddies under the overhanging curtains of cottonwoods and willows; the Quarter Circle KT lay in the hollow of the valley, like a faint etching of silent restfulness; through the tops of the trees a white splash of moonlight struck on the smooth level surface of the treacherous quicksand bar that had drawn Old Blue down to an agonizing death and from which, scarcely a month ago, the Ramblin' Kid had dragged Carolyn June.
This, the Ramblin' Kid believed, was his last long look at the Quarter
Circle KT.
He would ride down to the circular corral, turn out the Gold Dust maverick—give her again to the range and freedom—and while the unconscious sleepers at the ranch dreamed he would pass on, silently, toward the south and Mexico should throw about him her black arms of mystery!
For a while he sat and gazed down on the shadowy scene while his mind throbbed with memory of the incidents of the last few weeks. He drew the pink satin garter from his pocket, looked at it a long moment—suddenly crushed it tightly in his hand while his eyes closed as if renouncing a vision that had come before them—then carefully, that the dainty thing might not be lost, replaced it in the pocket that was over his heart.
At last he swung to the ground and tightened the front cinch of his saddle.
As he pulled the leather into place the sound of nervous hoofs kicking the gravel on the grade that led to the ridge on which he stood shattered the silence around him. The Ramblin' Kid whirled and faced the direction in which the approaching horse, would appear. His hand dropped to his gun and without raising the weapon from his hip he leveled it to cover the turn in the road a few feet away.
The waxy mane of the outlaw filly rocked into view as she sprang up and around the turn on to the ridge.
On the maverick's back, bareheaded, her brown hair tumbled about her neck, was Carolyn June.
Captain Jack pricked forward his ears at the sound of hoofs and as the beautiful mare leaped around the turn and appeared above the bank of the grade the little roan squealed a nicker of recognition. The filly sprang forward, swerved to the side of the stallion, and with an answering whinny stopped.
"Oh!" Carolyn June gasped, as the horses met and she saw the Ramblin'
Kid, his gun still in his hand, standing beside Captain Jack.
There was a brief, questioning silence.
"What th' hell!" he breathed.
"What the—'hell—yourself!" she laughed nervously. "Is—this—is this a hold-up?"
"What are you doin' here—this time of night—an' on that filly?" he asked without heeding her question.
"I'm riding that—this—filly!" Carolyn June shot back independently. "And what are you doing here—at this time of—Oh," she added, before he could answer, "I—I—believe my saddle's slipping!" and she swung lightly from the back of the outlaw mare.
"That filly'll kill you," he began.
&n
bsp; "She will not!" Carolyn June interrupted with a pout. "I—I—guess you're not the only one, Mister 'Nighthawk,' that knows the way to the heart of a horse! If you were just as wise about—" but she stopped, her blush hidden as she turned her back to the rising moon.
"They was made for each other!" the Ramblin' Kid muttered to himself. Then he spoke aloud: "I reckon you know," he said slowly, "why I'm ridin' at night—about me killin' Sabota—I'm leavin'—"
"But Sabota isn't dead," she interrupted again. "You don't need to go away!"
"Sabota ain't dead!" the Ramblin' Kid exclaimed. "Then I'll go back to
Eagle Butte instead of—Mexico!"
"Why?" Carolyn June asked.
"To finish th' job!" and his voice was dangerously soft.
"You can't finish it," she laughed. "He isn't in Eagle Butte! The Greek has gone away and—well, it—it—was a good 'job'—good enough the way you did it! I—I—don't want you 'teetotally' to kill him—clear, all the way dead," she stammered. "The way it is you—you—won't have to—leave!"
"What's th' difference?" he said dully. "It's time I was ramblin' anyhow!"
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"Listen, Ramblin' Kid," she broke in, "I—I—know all about everything—about what started the fight—"
"You do?" looking quickly and keenly at her. "Who told you?"
"Skinny," she answered; "he saw it. Said it was a pale pink ribbon or something with a little silver 'do-funny' on it!" she finished with a laugh.
"I—I—reckon you want it back, then?" the Ramblin' Kid said, reaching to his left breast. "You wouldn't want—"
"Did I say I wanted it?" Carolyn June questioned naively.
"And I know," she hurried on, "about you being drugged the day of the race! Why didn't you say you were sick? We—we—thought you were drunk!"
"Nobody asked me," he answered without interest.
"Does everybody have to—to—ask you everything?" she questioned suggestively. "Don't you ever—ever—'ask' anybody anything yourself?"
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