An hour after breakfast, on Monday morning, Old Heck, Ophelia, Skinny and Carolyn June Were alone at the Quarter Circle KT. Parker and the cowboys were climbing out on the sand-hills north of the Cimarron, traveling in the direction of Battle Ridge, where the beef hunt was to begin.
The circular corral was empty.
The Ramblin' Kid was riding the Gold Dust maverick. Captain Jack was with the saddle horses which Pedro, the Mexican, had wrangled on ahead of the other riders an hour before.
The filly made no effort to throw the Ramblin' Kid on this her second riding. She seemed perfectly willing to carry the burden on her back. Carolyn June watched the beautiful mare as she stepped lightly and daintily along beside the other horses, and when the group disappeared among the rolling ridges across the river the ranch someway seemed deserted and she felt strangely alone, although Ophelia, Old Heck and Skinny were standing at her side.
Sing Pete followed the riders, jolting along in the grub-wagon, awkwardly driving, with much clucking and pidgin-English, Old Tom and Baldy hitched to the heavy, canvas-covered vehicle with its "box-kitchen" and mess-board protruding gawkily out from the rear.
Old Heck heaved a sigh of relief. There was a feeling of serene peace in his heart, now that Parker and the cowboys were safely away on the round-up. In Skinny's heart the feeling was echoed.
For a week or more they would be able to love Ophelia and Carolyn June without the constant fear of interruption.
Only one thing troubled Old Heck. The widow had not yet exposed her hand in that suffragette movement or whatever it was. He dreaded the form in which it might, sooner or later, break out. But at that he would be glad to have it over. At present he felt as though he were sitting on the edge of a volcano, or above an unexplored blast of dynamite at the bottom of a well. Meanwhile he would have to wait and watch—and hope for the best.
The week that followed was heaven and hell, mixed together, for Old Heck and Skinny.
The women were lovely and lovable to the last degree, but cautious and tormentingly self-restrained when it came to loving. At the first intimation of dangerous sentimentality on the part of Old Heck the widow would suddenly and without an instant's warning change the subject. When Skinny had been pensive and silent for half an hour or so and would then start, in a halting and quivering voice, to say something, Carolyn June invariably interrupted with a remark about the weather, the Gold Dust maverick, the Ramblin' Kid, Old Heck, Sing Pete, the yellow cat, the coming Rodeo, Ophelia or something else.
They paired on the work of preparing the meals, Carolyn June and Skinny and Ophelia and Old Heck taking shift and shift about in the kitchen. In this way the work was made a joke, with friendly rivalry between the couples in the preparation of tasty dishes.
Old Heck and Skinny surprised the women with their knowledge of cooking. Nor was there the least embarrassment on the part of either when, with one of Sing Pete's aprons tied about his waist, he worked at the range or kitchen table. As a matter of course every cow-man must know something of how to cook a meal and, also, naturally and as a matter of course, Old Heck and Skinny, without the slightest thought that it was "womanish" or beneath the "dignity" of men, peeled potatoes, fried meat, washed dishes or did whatever there was to do.
Indeed each was proud of his skill.
Ophelia herself was clever, particularly at making biscuits and dainty salads.
Carolyn June's sole accomplishment in the art of preparing food was the making of coffee-jelly. This she had learned at college—taught, perhaps, by the other girls during stolen midnight frolics. Probably this, also, was the reason she usually made it the last thing at night before Skinny and Old Heck left to go to the bunk-house. Coffee-jelly was the regular, inevitable, evening meal dessert for the entire week.
"It ain't so very filling," Skinny remarked the first time he tasted the delicate dish, "but it's tender and has a dandy flavor!"
Carolyn June blushed at the compliment.
"It is pretty good," Old Heck agreed, "but these biscuits Ophelia made are just what was needed to set it off!"
The widow smilingly showed her pleasure.
Twice during the week Skinny rode "line" on the big pasture to look after the Diamond Bar steers. Carolyn June accompanied him. Each time she rode Browny, the old cow-horse. On these days Old Heck and Ophelia, in the Clagstone "Six," drove to Eagle Butte. The second trip to town Ophelia asked to be left at the minister's house. Old Heck was to call in an hour and get her. During the hour he slipped into the dentist's and had his teeth cleaned. When the tobacco-blackened tartar was scraped away they were surprisingly white and even. He stopped at the drug store and bought a tooth-brush and a tube of paste.
Ophelia noticed the wonderful improvement in his appearance, guessed the reason, and the thought sent a warm thrill through her body.
"Like a big boy," she laughed to herself, "when he begins to wash his neck and ears!"
"It ain't healthy to have your teeth so dirty," Old Heck explained, coloring and in an apologizing manner, when Skinny discovered him, after supper that evening, carefully scrubbing his molars.
Skinny watched the performance, saw the result, and murmured:
"Guess I'll get me one of them layouts!"
On Friday the quartette went to Eagle Butte, Old Heck driving, withOphelia beside him, and Carolyn June and Skinny in the rear seat of theClagstone "Six."
It was on this trip, while Ophelia and Carolyn June were in the Golden Rule doing some shopping, that Old Heck and Skinny strolled into the Elite Amusement Parlor. Lafe Dorsey, owner of the Y-Bar outfit and to whom belonged the black Thunderbolt horse; Newt Johnson, Dave Stover and "Flip" Williams—the latter three cowboys on the big Vermejo ranch—were playing a four-handed game of billiards at one of the tables near the front of the place.
Dorsey noticed the entrance of the pair from the Quarter Circle KT. All were range men and were well known to one another. The Y-Bar owner had been drinking. Boot-leg liquor was obtainable, if one knew how and where, in Eagle Butte.
"Hello, there, Old Heck!" Dorsey greeted them hilariously and with a half-leer. "Howdy, Skinny! How's the Cimarron? Don't reckon you've taught Old Quicksilver to run yet, have you?" with a boisterous laugh as he referred to the race in which Thunderbolt had defeated Old Heck's crack stallion.
The taunt stung Old Heck while it called out a suppressed snicker from the cowboys who were with Dorsey and the loafers in the pool-room. The bull-like guffaw of Mike Sabota, the gorilla-built, half-Greek proprietor of the Amusement Parlor roared out above the ripple of laughter from the others. The racing feud between the Y-Bar and the Quarter Circle KT was well known to all and Sabota himself had cleaned up a neat sum when the black horse from the Vermejo had outstepped the runner from the Quarter Circle KT.
Old Heck reddened at Dorsey's words but replied quietly:
"The Cimarron is middling—just middlin'. No, we ain't been paying much attention to teaching horses how to run lately. Old Quicksilver's pretty fair. Of course he ain't the best horse in the world but he'll do for cows and general knocking around. Horses are a good deal like men, you know, Dorsey—there's always one that's a little bit better!"
The Vermejo cow-man colored at the thrust.
"Any of you Quarter Circle KT fellers going in on anything at the Rodeo, this year?" one of the Y-Bar riders asked Skinny before Dorsey could reply.
"Charley said he might go in on the 'bull-dogging' and Bert is figuring some on the bucking events—but I don't reckon they'll either one enter," Skinny carelessly; "both of them got first money in them entries last year and they ain't caring much. The Mexican," referring to Pedro, "will probably do some roping—"
"What about you and the Ramblin' Kid?" Flip Williams interrupted, "ain't neither of you going to take part?"
"Probably not," Skinny drawled. "I ain't aiming to, and I don't know what th' Ramblin? Kid is figuring on. He ain't much for showing off. He only rode in the bucking contest last year because after that Cyclone horse killed Dick Stanley everybody said there wasn't any one that could ride him and the blamed little fool just wanted to demonstrate that there was. You never can tell what he'll do, though. He may be intending to go in on something or other."
"Guess you people ain't got anything out there for the two-mile sweepstakes this year, have you?" Dorsey broke in with a sneer. "Old Thunderbolt's too much for them sand-hill jumpers from the Cimarron."
"Oh, I don't know as he is," Old Heck said in a voice emotionless as an Indian's. "The Quarter Circle KT will probably be represented in the big event. It seems to me I heard Chuck mention entering that Silver Tip colt of his and, let's see, I believe th' Ramblin' Kid said something about running a new filly he's been riding some, didn't he, Skinny?"
"Since I come to think of it I believe he did," Skinny answered as if it were a matter without especial interest; "if I remember right he did speak something of it a day or two ago."
"Well, bring 'em on!" Dorsey exclaimed boastfully, "the Y-Bar will take all the money you Kiowa fellers feel like contributing! Old Thunderbolt's as fit as a new rawhide rope and is just aching to rake in another three or four thousand of Quarter Circle KTdineroif you people have got the nerve to back your judgment!"
There was a dead hush as the crowd in the pool-room waited for OldHeck's reply to Dorsey's drunken challenge.
"We'll kind of remember that invitation, Dorsey," Old Heck said in tones as hard and smooth and cold as ice, while his gray eyes narrowed and bored the boastful cow-man like points of steel, "we'll sort of bear in mind that suggestion of yours. The Quarter Circle KT will send a horse into the big race that will beat that Thunderbolt critter of yours just three times as bad as he set old Quicksilver back—and we'll give you action on any amount of money, cattle or anything else you want to name! You can put your friends here in on it too, if you want to—" with a scornful glance around the pool-room at the loafers in the place. "Come on, Skinny," he added as he started toward the door, "more than likely Ophelia and Carolyn June are through with their trading and ready to go home."
All stood silent until Skinny and Old Heck stepped out of the door, then Mike Sabota broke into a coarse, taunting laugh. As they turned up the street Old Heck and Skinny heard Dorsey and the crowd inside join in the merriment.
"Damn that fool, Dorsey!" Old Heck exclaimed viciously, as he heard the shouts of derisive laughter. "I'm going to wipe him out on that race—if he's got the guts to come across and back up that Thunderbolt horse as hard as he blows about him!"
"I think I'll hook Sabota for a few hundred on the sweepstakes, myself," Skinny replied with a good deal of feeling, "I don't like the way that dirty cuss acts any better than I like Dorsey's bragging!"
Carolyn June and Ophelia were waiting when Old Heck and Skinny arrived at the Golden Rule.
When the Clagstone "Six" whirled past the Amusement Parlor a few moments later Dorsey and Sabota were standing in the door.
Carolyn June glanced at them.
"Heavens," she said as her eyes rested an instant on the burly, low-browed, Greek proprietor of the place, "what a big brute of a looking fellow that is!"
The two men stared insolently at the occupants of the car and as it passed Sabota made some remark, evidently vulgar, that caused Dorsey to burst into another round of coarse laughter.
Old Heck was moody during the drive home.
For nearly two years Dorsey had been crowing because of the defeat of Quicksilver by the black racer from the Vermejo. It was becoming more than idle jesting. It looked as if, for some reason, he was trying to torment Old Heck until something serious was started. Old Heck was a good loser but he was growing tired of the persistent nagging. He had not whimpered at the loss of the twenty-five hundred dollars Dorsey won from him on the race. Even the humiliation of seeing his best horse put in second place by the Y-Bar animal had been endured philosophically and without malice because he believed the thing had been run square and the faster horse had won. But Dorsey on every occasion since had, drunk or sober, boasted of Thunderbolt's victory and taken a devilish delight in rubbing it in on the owner of the Quarter Circle KT.
To-day the Vermejo cattleman had been worse than usual, due, no doubt, to the rotten boot-leg whisky the brute-like proprietor of Eagle Butte's rather disreputable Amusement Parlor was supposed secretly to dispense to those who had the price and the "honor" to keep sacred the source of supply.
Old Heck was sore and he was ready to go the limit in backing the Gold Dust maverick. Both he and Skinny had purposely refrained from mentioning the horse the Ramblin' Kid would enter. The fame of the outlaw filly extended throughout all of southwestern Texas and if the Vermejo crowd had learned that the Ramblin' Kid had finally caught her and was intending to put her against Thunderbolt it was doubtful if the black horse would be entered at all in the sweepstakes. Even if he was, Dorsey and his crowd would be shy of the betting.
This was one reason Old Heck had so played the conversation that Dorsey definitely threw down the challenge and which was so coldly accepted.
The Vermejo cow-man would have to come in heavy on the betting or be placed in the role of a bluffer.
By the time they reached the ranch Old Heck's good humor was restored. He thoroughly enjoyed the supper Skinny and Carolyn June prepared and joked the girl about her coffee-jelly.
"She's learning how to make French toast, now," Skinny said proudly; "it won't be long till she's a darned good cook!"
"Why not?" Carolyn June laughed. "See who I have to teach me!" andSkinny flushed while his heart hammered joyously.
"Well, I reckon anybody could live on fried bread and coffee-jelly in a pinch," Old Heck joked back, "but for my part I'd be a good deal happier to mix a biscuit or two like Ophelia makes once in a while in with it"—giving the widow a worshipful look.
It was Ophelia's turn to register pleasurable confusion.
After supper Old Heck and the widow washed the dishes. When they were finished Ophelia went into the front room. Old Heck took a glass of water, stepped out of the kitchen door, and diligently scrubbed his teeth. While he was still at it Skinny came out with a dipper in his hand and sheepishly drawing a tooth-brush from his hip pocket faithfully imitated the actions of the other.
"I figure a man's taking a lot of chances if he don't keep his teeth clean and everything," Skinny spluttered as the water splashed down his chin.
"Yes, that's right," Old Heck agreed, "there's germs and so on in them!" as he flipped the water from his own brush, dried his lips on his shirtsleeve and turned back into the kitchen.
The next morning, Saturday, Old Heck came to the breakfast table again in a pensive mood.
"I was thinking about that man Dorsey," Skinny remarked, observing Old Heck's mental depression and attributing it to the meeting the day before in the pool-room at Eagle Butte. "Do you reckon the filly can really beat that Thunderbolt horse?"
"Of course she can," Old Heck answered. "Th' Ramblin' Kid knows. All I'm afraid is that when Dorsey finds out it's the Gold Dust maverick Thunderbolt has got to go up against he won't bet much on it."
"The boys ought to be in to-day," Skinny said, abruptly switching the subject; "they figured on getting the Battle Ridge cattle gathered and in the big pasture by to-night, didn't they?"
"Yes," Old Heck replied, "that was what was in my mind. Parker will be—" he stopped suddenly, "butting in again" he had started to say but caught himself and finished lamely, "—probably pretty anxious to hurry through as soon as possible and get the beef animals in the upland pasture!"
"How are you going to work things when he gets back?" Skinny asked with, a significant look at Old Heck.
"Blamed if I know—" Old Heck said uncertainly, stopping before he finished the sentence. He understood what Skinny meant and just that had been worrying him. He had reached the point where he could not endure the thought of going back to the old arrangement of day and day about with Parker in the enjoyment of the widow's society. Yet if Parker, on his return, insisted on dividing Ophelia's time with him in conformity with their original agreement, Old Heck knew he would have to yield. He thought for a moment he would get the widow away from Skinny and Carolyn June after breakfast and make a full confession of the whole thing, ask her to marry him, and have it done with. But he had not yet been able to get at the bottom of Ophelia's suffragette activities. What if she married him and then suddenly broke loose as a speech-maker or something for woman's rights? It wouldn't pay to take the risk. "It sure does keep a man guessing!" he murmured under his breath, the sweat starting to bead his forehead from the mental effort to solve the problem before him.
Carolyn June and Ophelia exchanged sly winks as they guessed the thing that was in Old Heck's mind.
Skinny, himself, was a bit worried as the time drew near for the return of the cowboys. He hoped Carolyn June wouldn't spring another dance or similar opportunity for indiscriminate love-making.
Nor had Carolyn June forgotten that to-day was Saturday and Parker and the cowboys were expected back from the first half of the beef round-up. The week had been pleasant enough but she had missed the Ramblin' Kid and the Gold Dust maverick more than she cared to confess. She wondered if the outlaw filly would remember her.
Saturday was a day of considerable tension for all at the Quarter Circle KT. Night came and Parker and the cowboys had not returned. Nor did they come on Sunday. Evidently the beef round-up had gone more slowly than was expected.
It was late Monday afternoon when the grub-wagon grumbled and creaked its way up the lane and stopped near the back-yard gate. Sing Pete climbed clumsily down from the high seat. Old Heck and Skinny unhitched Old Tom and Baldy while the Chinese cook chattered information about Parker, the cowboys and the round-up. He had left the North Springs early that morning. Two nights before the herd had run—it was a stampede—some sheep had been where the cattle were bedded. Maybe that was it. Chuck and Bert were on night guard and could not hold them. The steers mixed badly with the rangers. Nearly two days it took to gather them again. That was why they were late. Now everything was all right The cattle were being driven to the big pasture. Pedro would be along soon with the saddle cavallard. By dark maybe the others would be at the ranch.
It was midnight before Parker and the cowboys came in.
When Carolyn June stepped out on the porch Tuesday morning she glanced toward the circular corral, which for more than a week had been empty. Her heart gave a leap of delight.
Captain Jack was standing at the bars of the corral and behind him the early sunlight glinted on the chestnut sides of the Gold Dust maverick.
Eagle Butte was a jam of humanity. It was Tuesday noon. At one o'clock the Grand Parade would circle the mile track at the "Grounds"—a hundred level acres enclosed by a high board fence lying at the west edge of Eagle Butte, between the Cimarron River and the road that led out to the Vermejo—swing down the main street of the town, return again to the enclosed area, flow once more past the grandstand, salute the judges of the coming events, and the Fifth Annual Independence Rodeo of Eagle Butte would be officially opened.
Special excursion rates had brought thousands from all parts of western Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. Hundreds of tourists, sight-seeing the West, had so arranged their itineraries that they might be present at the big exhibition of riding, roping, racing, bull-dogging and other cow-country arts,—arts rapidly becoming mere memories of a day too quickly passing.
Moving-picture machine operators were seeking advantageous locations for their outfits; pedestrians dodged, indiscriminately, high-powered automobiles and plunging bronchos; the old and the new were slapped together in an incongruous jumble in the streets of Eagle Butte.
The best range men and women of the West were gathered in the westernTexas town.
New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, Texas herself, were represented by their most famous riders, ropers, bull-doggers, cow-experts, and noted outlaw horses.
There were many masqueraders.
Imitation cow-people, they were, made up in fancy wild-west costumes, long-haired chaps, mammoth black sombreros, gaudy neck-cloths, silver-spangled saddles, spurs and bridles—typical moving-picture cowboys, cowgirls and rough riders. But there were, as well, hundreds of real range people. People whose business it is to work every day at the "stunts" they were, for the next five days, to play at for the pleasure of proving their skill and winning the applause of the multitude of spectators packed each day in the grandstand behind the judges' box at the Eagle Butte Rodeo.
Every outfit in western Texas sent its most clever riders.
Indians and Mexicans, in picturesque attire, sprinkled the milling mass of humanity with a dash of rainbow color.
Dance-halls were running, fare layouts were operating, roulette wheels were spinning. For the time, with the consent of the sheriff and other reformed authorities, Eagle Butte tried hard to be as Eagle Butte was twenty—thirty—years ago.
The entire Quarter Circle KT crowd left the ranch early Tuesday morning'. Parker had surprised Old Heck, and filled his mind with misgivings, by calling him to one side after breakfast and stammering:
"I—I—reckon you'd just as well go ahead the rest of this week and—and—look after the widow by yourself—"
"What's the matter?" Old Heck asked suspiciously; "have you found out anything dangerous about that 'Movement' or whatever it is Ophelia's mixed up in?"
"No, it ain't that," Parker assured him, "I just thought I'd kind of—well, like to be free, to knock around at the Rodeo without being bothered with a woman or anything."
The truth was Parker was trying to hedge. When he had got away on the beef hunt and began to figure things out he had come to doubt the wisdom of his sudden infatuation for the widow. Thinking it over, out on the open range, he was appalled by his rash, headlong falling in love. He had never married, nor had he, until Ophelia came, been even near it. Someway, the moment Carolyn June and the widow arrived at the Quarter Circle KT some sort of devil seemed to possess him. He couldn't explain it. Maybe it had been just an impulse to get ahead of Old Heck. Whatever it was, Parker was worried. What would he do with a wife if he had one? All he wanted now was to let the thing blow over. Perhaps the widow would forget his impetuous proposal or fall in love with Old Heck.
Old Heck, his heart filled with a queer mixture of elation and uncertainty—with a sort of joy and sinking sensation all at once—agreed to Parker's suggestion.
Parker rode into Eagle Butte with the cowboys. Old Heck, Ophelia, Skinny and Carolyn June went in the Clagstone "Six." Chuck led Old Pie Face for Skinny to ride in the parade and Bert took Red John, Old Heck's most showy saddle horse—a long-legged, high-stepping, proud-headed, bay gelding—for Carolyn June to use, for she, too, had declared her intention of joining in the grand promenade with which the Rodeo would open.
The Ramblin' Kid left the Gold Dust maverick in the circular corral and rode Captain Jack to Eagle Butte. It would be necessary for him to register the filly, with the entry judges, on the first day of the Rodeo if she was to run in the two-mile sweepstakes.
The rules of the Rodeo required, also, that all who expected to participate in any of the events of the coming week must "show" in the grand march or parade. The animals that were to be used might also be paraded, but this was not compulsory.
Accompanied by Chuck, the Ramblin' Kid went directly to the entry offices of the Rodeo, which were roughly boxed-up compartments under the rear of the grandstand.
A group of "hot-dog" vendors and "concession spielers" looked curiously at the two as they left Captain Jack and Silver Tip, with bridle reins dropped over their heads, standing in front of the office and stepped inside.
Lafe Dorsey and Flip Williams were at the clerk's desk.
The Vermejo cattleman had just registered Thunderbolt, with Flip as rider, for the big race.
They looked around as the Ramblin' Kid and Chuck came in.
"Well, is the Quarter Circle KT getting up sand enough to go against old Thunderbolt again?" Dorsey asked with a curl of his lip and an ugly sneer.
"Oh, I reckon we've got a little nerve left," Chuck answered with mock humility, "not much, but a little, maybe. I was going to put Silver Tip in the sweepstakes," he went on, "but I guess I won't. Th' Ramblin' Kid's got an entry and it looks like a darned shame for one outfit to want to hog it all and grab first and second money both, so I'll stay out this time."
"You talk pretty loud," Dorsey snarled, catching instantly, as Chuck intended he should, the covert slur at the black Y-Bar stallion. "Maybe your money won't make so damned much noise!"
"Here's a couple hundred," Chuck said, pulling a roll of bills from his shirt pocket. "I'll invest that much on my judgment that Thunderbolt ain't as good as you think he is."
"I'll take it!" Dorsey snapped, jerking a wad of money from his own pocket and counting out the amount which he handed to the clerk as stake-holder. "And here's another hundred—or a thousand if you want it!"
"That two hundred is about all I can handle this morning," Chuck laughed. "But I understand Old Heck's aiming to bet a little," he drawled suggestively; "probably you'd like to see him?"
"I'll see him—and raise him till he squeals!" Dorsey sneered.
The Ramblin' Kid ignored the tilt between Dorsey and Chuck and leaned indifferently against the counter waiting for the clerk to fill out the entry blank.
"Event?" the clerk questioned.
"Two-mile run," was the quiet answer.
"Rider—and horse?" glancing up.
Dorsey and Flip paused and turned their heads to catch the names theRamblin' Kid gave.
"I'm the rider, I reckon," the Ramblin' Kid replied, "I guess you know who I am. Th' name of th' horse? Well, now ain't that funny?" he said with a little laugh, "I never have bothered to name that critter yet! But—oh, hell, what's the difference? We'll just call her 'Ophelia' for th' time bein'—in honor of a lady-widow that's visitin' out at th' ranch!"
"The Quarter Circle KT's getting to be quite a female institution, ain't it?" Dorsey said contemptuously. "I suppose this wonder horse of yours is one of the ranch fillies and regular lightning!"
For a second the Ramblin' Kid's eyes narrowed, then he replied coldly to the last half of Dorsey's sentence:
"Well, th' filly's been runnin' in that neighborhood an'"—with a laugh that had in it just the hint of a sneer—"she's pretty fair—good enough, I figure, to beat hell out of old Thunderbolt!"
"Are you backing that with money?" Dorsey and Flip spoke together.
"No," the Ramblin' Kid answered slowly, "money ain't no object with me in a horse-race. I don't run 'em for that purpose. Anyhow, poker is my favorite method of gamblin'!"
Dorsey and Flip whirled angrily out of the office and walked rapidly toward the stables where they had left their horses.
After reserving a box stall, which was to be occupied by Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick, the Ramblin' Kid and Chuck left the entry office and mounting their bronchos rode toward the section of the grounds, over by the stables, where the parade was already forming.
As they passed through the entrance to the track and the inside field which lay beyond Chuck and the Ramblin' Kid rode within a few feet of the Clagstone "Six," which was parked near the east end of the grandstand. Old Heck and Ophelia were in the front seat of the car watching the riders assemble for the parade. Carolyn June was standing on the running-board waiting for Skinny to come with Old Pie Face and Red John, the boys having left the horses at the stables.
Carolyn June looked up with a bright smile at Chuck. As her eyes met the Ramblin' Kid's there was a question in them. She was not sure yet that she had forgiven him for the brutal rebuff the night of the dance. If there was any feeling in his heart, either of resentment or otherwise, toward the girl the Ramblin' Kid hid it. The look he gave her was one of unfathomable humility and indifference.
Chuck wheeled Silver Tip to the side of the car and stopped. His eyes were filled with frank admiration as he gazed at the girl. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement, her white felt hat sat jauntily on the crown of brown hair, her eyes were sparkling and in the close-fitting riding suit she was the picture of youthful charm and grace. The Ramblin' Kid nodded to Old Heck, glanced at Ophelia with a smile, looked steadily an instant at Carolyn June and raising his hat to the two women passed on with the remark: "I reckon I'll go on over an' see what they're doin'."
"Has he entered the outlaw filly for the sweepstakes, yet?" Old Heck asked Chuck as the Ramblin' Kid reined Captain Jack down the race track.
"Yes," Chuck answered, "he signed her up."
"Did he name her as the Gold Dust maverick?" Old Heck inquired anxiously.
"No," Chuck grinned, "he called her 'Ophelia!'"
Old Heck leaned back in the seat and roared with laughter in whichCarolyn June and the widow joined.
"Dorsey was there," Chuck said with another grin, "he'd just finished entering Thunderbolt for the big race when th' Ramblin' Kid and me got to the registering office. I bet him two hundred dollars. He was bragging a good deal—"
Old Heck's eyes flashed and the mirth left them.
"He was blowing, was he?" he said with a hard laugh, "the damn—darned fool!" he corrected, remembering Ophelia at his side. "Well, 'egg' him on—the higher he flies the worse he'll flop when he bu'sts a wing!"
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 KThombresare 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.
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 theRamblin' 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.
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 outDixieand 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 CaptainJack 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.