For a moment he lost consciousness completely again:Th'—th' race—th' maverick! he mustn't forget—
He fought his way to his feet and groped along back of the building—the stall—which way was it? Down there? No—the other way—
As Carolyn June tightened the rear cinch on the Gold Dust maverick and turned toward the door of the stall with: "Look out, boys—I'm coming out!" the Ramblin' Kid, clutching at the side of the building, reeled around the corner of the stall. The cowboys saw him. He himself saw only black shapes where their horses were.
"Good God!" Skinny cried, "he's drunk!"
Carolyn June heard Skinny's exclamation at the instant the Ramblin' Kid, catching at the half-open door, almost fell into the stall. His eyes stared with a dull, puzzled, unrecognizing vacancy first at Carolyn June and then the Gold Dust maverick. "Who th' hell—" he mumbled stiffly. "What—th'—oh, yes—there's th' filly—th'—th'—race. It must—be—time. Th' mare's saddled! That's—that's—funny! I can't remember. Th' race—th' sweepstakes—that's it—"
Reaching over he jerked the reins from the hand of Carolyn June.
"Who—who—get the—" came like the thick growl of a beast from his throat. "You—you—can't ride—she'll—she'll—kill—"
Carolyn June shrank back as if she had been struck. She pressed her hands against her cheeks and stepped away with a look of horror and disgust as the Ramblin' Kid backed out of the stall with the Gold Dust maverick. Outside he fumbled grotesquely at the silky mane and climbed weakly into the saddle.
Chuck and Bert started toward him.
"Get—the—hell—" he snarled as he saw their horses—mere shadow shapes they were to him—approach.
"Let him alone!" Skinny said. "He's drunk! You'll just scare the filly and make her hurt him!"
The boys let him go.
With blanched cheeks Carolyn June mounted Red John and with Skinny, Bert and Chuck, rode back to the Clagstone "Six." Her heart was utterly sick. So this was it? It had come out—the brute—the beast that was in him!
They reached the car as the Ramblin' Kid, at the horse entrance, at the other end of the grandstand, came on the track with the Gold Dust maverick.
Old Heck looked up when the group approached. He saw the agony inCarolyn June's eyes and started to speak.
"Th' Ramblin' Kid's drunk," Skinny said dully. "He showed up—yonder he is—" as the beautiful copper-tinted, chestnut filly appeared behind the other horses entered for the two-mile sweepstakes.
"Drunk?" Old Heck cried incredulously. "Are you sure?"
"Watch him!" Chuck said miserably.
The starter was standing with arm outstretched and flag ready to fall. The filly came down the track jumping nervously from side to side in short springing leaps. The starter paused, watch in hand. A shout of admiration and wonder went up from the crowd as the splendid creature dancing down the track was recognized. The next instant it was succeeded by a cry of horror that rolled in a great wave from a thousand throats.
"Th' Ramblin' Kid is drunk! He's drunk—the mare will kill him!" as they saw the slim rider weaving limply in the saddle, his head dropped forward as if he were utterly helpless.
"Rule that horse off the track!" Dorsey, who was standing with MikeSabota, in a box-seat just below the judges' stand, shouted as he sawthe Ramblin' Kid, even in his half-conscious condition, reining the GoldDust maverick with consummate skill into position, "her rider's drunk!"
The Ramblin' Kid heard the voice and—by some miracle of the mind—recognized it, although his eyes, set and glassy, could not see the speaker.
He turned his head in the direction from which the cry came and answered, slowly measuring each word:
"Go—go—t' hell—you—you—coyote!"
The next instant the starter dropped the flag. As it went down the filly crouched and reared straight into the air.
That one second gave the other horses the start.
Then the outlaw mare leaped forward directly behind Thunderbolt, running against the inside rail. Say-So, the Pecos horse, jammed close to the side of the black stallion; Snow Johnson, rider of Prince John, pushed the big sorrel ahead with his nose at the roan's tail; Dash-Away hugged against the heels of Prince John. The Gold Dust maverick was "pocketed!"
A breathless hush fell over the crowd in the grandstand after the first mighty roar:
"They're off!"
Black devils of torture clutched the throat, the mind, the body of the Ramblin' Kid. Streams of fire seemed to be flowing through his veins. He couldn't see—he was blind. "What th'—what th'—hell!" he muttered over and over. He was vaguely conscious of the thunder of hoofs around him—under him. Dimly, black shadows were rushing along at his side. He fought with all his will to master his faculties. Where was he? What was it? Was it a—a—stampede? What?Oh, yes, th' race—th'—th'— sweepstakes—that—that was it—Over and over the fleeting flashes of consciousness kept throwing this one supreme idea on the mirror of his mind!
Not a word was spoken by any of the party at the Clagstone "Six" as the five fastest horses ever on the Eagle Butte track swept past the car toward the first quarter-turn of the course.
Carolyn June's face was as white as marble. Her breast heaved and fell as if it would burst. Dry-eyed, every nerve tense, she stared at the straining racers. Unconsciously she gripped into hard knots of flesh and bone, both hands, while she bit at her underlip until a red drop of blood started from the gash made in the tender skin by her teeth.
"Drunk!" she thought, "drunk!Beastly drunk—and throwing away the greatest race ever run on a Texas track!"
Old Heck sat impassive as though carved from stone and said nothing.
Ophelia nervously chewed at the finger of her glove while her eyes moistened with sympathy and pity.
Skinny, Chuck and Bert sat gloomily, moodily, on their bronchos and watched Thunderbolt lead the quintette of running horses.
For the life of him Skinny could not keep from thinking of the five hundred dollars he had bet with Sabota, on the race, and the number of white shirts and purple ties he might have bought with the money!
Over in the track-field Parker, Charley and Pedro saw the start of the race and each swore softly and silently to himself.
Sing Pete, alone of the Quarter Circle KT crowd, in the jam of the grandstand, stretched his neck and followed with inscrutable eyes the close-bunched racers. The start had puzzled him, yet he murmured hopefully:
"Maybe all samee Lamblin' Kid he beatee hell out of 'em yet!"
The loyal Chinese cook had wagered the savings of a dozen years on the speed of the Gold Dust maverick's nimble legs and his faith in the "Lamblin' Kid."
A blanket might have covered the five horses as they swung around the first mile.
The speed-mad animals roared down the homestretch, finishing the first half of the race in the almost identical position each had taken in the getaway.
The Ramblin' Kid rode the mile more as an automaton than as a living, conscious human being. He had no memory of time, place, events—save for the instants of rationality he forced his will to bring.
Gradually, though, his mind was clearing.
But which was it—the first half?—the last half? How long had they been running? How many times had they gone around the track? He could not remember!
Down the straight stretch the racers came in a mighty whirlwind of speed.
"Thunderbolt is taking it!"
"The Y-Bar horse leads!"
"Th' black's got 'em!" roared from the throats of the crowd in the grandstand and the mass of humanity crushing the railing along the track.
Dorsey and Sabota leaped to the edge of the box as the horses thundered past the judges' stand. The voice of the owner of Thunderbolt shrieked out in a hoarse bellow:
"Hold him to it, Flip! Keep your lead—you've got the filly!"
The Ramblin' Kid heard again—or thought he heard again—the voice of the Vermejo cattleman. He caught, as an echo, a note of triumph in it. It was like a tonic to his drug-numbed faculties.
Suddenly he saw clearly. He had just a glimpse of Sabota standing by the side of Dorsey. He understood. In a flash it all came to him. The first half of the great sweepstakes race was behind them! Once more they were to circle the track. The glistening black rump of Thunderbolt rose and fell just ahead of the Gold Dust maverick's nose—at her side, crowding her against the rail, was another horse. Which one? It didn't matter! Back of it was another. He was "pocketed!" Hell, no wonder Thunderbolt was ahead of the outlaw mare!
Half-way around the quarter-turn he pulled the filly down.
She slackened ever so little. Thunderbolt—the horse at her side—all of them—shot ahead.
He was behind the bunch—clear of the field!
The crowd saw the filly dart to the right. It looked as though she would go over the outside rail before the Ramblin' Kid swung her, in a great arch, to the left clear of, but far behind, the other horses.
He was crazy! The Gold Dust maverick was getting the better of theRamblin' Kid. He had lost control of the wonderful mare!
So thought the thousands watching the drama on the track before them.
Away over, next to the outside fence, on the far side of the track, open now before him for the long outfield stretch, the Rambling Kid straightened the Gold Dust maverick out. The other racers were still bunched against the inner rail—lengths ahead of the filly.
Leaning low on the neck of the maverick, the Ramblin' Kid began talking, for the first time, to the horse he rode.
"Baby—Baby! Girl!" he whispered incoherently almost. "Go—go—damn 'em!'Ophelia'"—he laughed thickly, reeling in the saddle. "Hell—_no—'Little—Little—Pink Garter!—that's—that's—what y' are! Little—Pink—Garter—" he repeated irrationally. "That's it—show 'em—damn 'em—show 'em what—what runnin'—what real runnin' is!" fumbling caressingly at the mare's neck with hands numb and stiff and chuckling pitifully, insanely, while his face was drawn with agony nearly unendurable.
Then the Gold Dust maverick ran!
Never had ground flowed with such swiftness under the belly of a horse on a Texas track.
"Good God!" Skinny yelled, "looky yonder! He's passin' them! Th'Ramblin' Kid is passin' 'em!"
No one answered him.
His voice was drowned in the mighty roar that surged from five thousand throats and rolled in waves of echoing and re-echoing sound across the field.
"He's ridin' round 'em!"
"Th' Ramblin' Kid is goin' around them!"
"Great heavens! Look at that horse go!"
"She's a-flyin'!She's a-flyin'!"
The Gold Dust maverick closed the gap—she caught Dash-Away—she evened up with Prince John—she left the big sorrel behind—she passed Say-So—nose to nose for a few rods she ran opposite the black wonder—the Thunderbolt horse from the Vermejo.
Flip Williams, spurs raking the flanks of Dorsey's stallion, looked around.
The Ramblin' Kid leaned toward him:
"Hell—why—don't you—make that—thing run!" he sneered at the Y-Bar rider.
The next instant the Gold Dust maverick's neck and shoulders showed in the lead of the Y-Bar stallion.
At the turn for the home stretch the outlaw filly shot ahead of the wonderful black horse from the Vermejo, swung close to the inside rail, and like a flash of gold-brown darted down the track toward the wire.
The grandstand was turned into a madhouse of seething humanity. The immense crowd came to its feet roaring and shrieking with frenzy. Men smashed their neighbors with clenched fists—not knowing or caring how hard or whom they struck—or that they themselves were being hit. Women screamed frantically, hysterically, tears streaming from thousands of eyes because of sheer joy at the wonderful thing the Gold Dust maverick was doing. Even the stolid Sing Pete was jumping up and down, shouting:
"Come on—come on—Lamblin' Kid! Beat 'em—beatee hell out of 'em!"
Full three lengths in the lead of the "unbeatable" Thunderbolt the GoldDust maverick flashed under the wire in front of the judges!
Dorsey, shaken in every nerve, lips blue as though he were stricken with a chill, reeled out of the box from which he had watched his whole fortune swept away by the speed of the Cimarron mare. At his side, profaning horrible, obscene oaths staggered Mike Sabota.
Old Heck, white-faced, but his lips drawn in a smile of satisfaction, stood up in the Clagstone "Six" and watched the Ramblin' Kid—his eyes set and staring, his body twitching convulsively, check the filly, swing her around, ride back to the judges' stand, weakly fling up a hand in salute and then, barely able to sit in the saddle, rein the Gold Dust maverick off the track and ride toward the box stall.
Skinny drew a hand across his eyes and looked at Carolyn June.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
It was Monday morning, clear and cloudless, with a whiff of a breeze kissing the poplars along the front-yard fence at the Quarter Circle KT. On the sand-hills north of the Cimarron, Pedro was pushing the saddle cavallard toward Rock Creek, where the last half of the beef round-up was to begin. Parker and the cowboys were just splashing their bronchos into the water at the lower ford. Sing Pete, on the high seat of the grub-wagon, was once more clucking and cawing at Old Tom and Baldy as they drew the outfit along the lane and followed the others to the open range.
Old Heck, Skinny, Ophelia and Carolyn June again were alone at theQuarter Circle KT.
The Eagle Butte Rodeo had closed, with one last riotous carnival of wildness at midnight Saturday night.
Once more the straggling town, its pulse gradually beating back to normal, lay half-asleep at the foot of the sun-baked butte that stood silent and drowsy beyond the Sante Fe tracks.
Tom Poole, the lank marshal, loafed as usual about the Elite Amusement Parlor, over which hung a sullen quiet reflecting the morbid emotions of Mike Sabota, its brutish-built proprietor, resulting from his heavy losses on Thunderbolt in the two-mile sweepstakes when the Gold Dust maverick, ridden by the drug-crazed Ramblin' Kid, darted under the wire lengths ahead of the black Vermejo stallion.
Friday evening Old Heck had met Dorsey in the pool-room.
Judge Ivory handed over to the owner of the Quarter Circle KT the Y-Bar cattleman's check for ten thousand dollars and the bill of sale he had recklessly given and which transferred to Old Heck all the cattle the Vermejo rancher owned.
Dorsey was game.
"You put it on me," he said to Old Heck "but the Ramblin' Kid won square and I'm not squealing!"
Old Heck turned the check slowly over in his hand and looked at it with a quizzical frown on his face:
"I reckon this is good?"
"It's my exact balance," Dorsey replied; "I saw to that this morning."
For a long minute Old Heck studied the bill of sale that made him owner of every cow-brute burnt with the Y-Bar brand.
"My men will gather the cattle within fifteen days," Dorsey said dully, noting the half-questioning look on Old Heck's face, "or you can send your own crew, just as you please. I suppose you'll meet me half-way and receive the stock in Eagle Butte?"
"Can Thunderbolt run?" Old Heck asked irrelevantly.
"Not as fast as that imp of hell of the Ramblin' Kid's!" Dorsey answered instantly and with a short laugh.
Old Heck chuckled.
"You say you'll turn the Y-Bar cattle over to me within fifteen days?" he asked again, reverting to a study of the paper he held in his hand.
"Yes," Dorsey replied; "is that satisfactory?"
"You're a pretty good sport, after all, Dorsey," Old Heck said quietly. "I'll cash this check"—glancing at the yellow slip of paper—"and this thing, here—we'll just tear it up!" as he reduced the bill of sale to fragments. "Keep your cattle, Dorsey," he added, "ten thousand dollars is enough for you to pay for your lesson!"
Dorsey flushed a dull red.
"I ain't asking—"
"I know you're not," Old Heck interrupted, "and that's the reason I tore up that bill of sale!"
"Old Heck," Dorsey said, his voice trembling, "you're white! I'd like to shake—"
The rival cattlemen gripped hands and the racing feud between theQuarter Circle KT and the Y-Bar was ended.
A week later Dorsey sent Flip Williams to the Quarter Circle KT. TheVermejo cowboy led the beautiful black stallion that had masteredQuicksilver and had in turn been whipped by the Gold Dust maverick.
"Dorsey said, Tell Old Heck Thunderbolt's a pretty good saddle horse,'" Flip explained, "'and he'd do to change off with Quicksilver once in a while! So he sent him over as a sort of keepsake!'"
The Ramblin' Kid did not return to the Quarter Circle KT until lateSunday night. After the two-mile sweepstakes he was horribly ill. AllFriday night he laid, in a semi-conscious condition, in the stall withCaptain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick.
Parker and some of the cowboys visited the stall after the race, but they thought the Ramblin' Kid was drunk and the best thing was to allow him to sleep it off.
"I can't figure it out," Chuck said as they turned away, "he never did get drunk before that I knew of—"
"You can't tell what he's liable to do," Charley interrupted, "he sure took an awful chance getting on a tear at the time he did!"
"Well, he won the race," Parker said admiringly, "drunk or sober, you've got to give him credit for that!"
Saturday the Ramblin' Kid got Pedro to stay with the horses while he went over to the Elite Amusement Parlor. He had nothing to say to Sabota or any of the loafers in the place.
He was looking for Gyp Streetor.
Until Sunday afternoon he searched Eagle Butte, trying to find the tout. All he wanted was to locate the man who had sold him that cup of coffee—he could remember drinking the coffee; after that until the following morning all was hazy.
But Gyp was gone.
When the Gold Dust maverick, with the Ramblin' Kid swaying uncertainly on her back, had appeared on the track for the two-mile run, the tout, his eyes like those of a harried rat, sneaked out of the crowd in front of the book-makers' booths and hurried toward the Santa Fe railroad yards. An hour later he slipped into an empty freight car—part of a train headed for the West—and Eagle Butte saw him no more.
It was midnight Sunday when the Ramblin' Kid reached the Quarter Circle KT, turned Captain Jack and the outlaw filly into the circular corral, and without disturbing Old Heck, Parker, or the cowboys, already asleep in the bunk-house, sought his bed.
Monday morning he was at breakfast with the others.
Throughout the meal the Ramblin' Kid was silent. Carolyn June, still shocked by what she thought was his intoxication the day of the race, and believing he had remained in Eagle Butte over Saturday night and Sunday to continue the debauch, ignored him.
None of the others cared to question him and the Ramblin' Kid himself volunteered no information.
Once only, Old Heck mentioned the race.
"That was a pretty good ride you made in the two-mile event," he said, addressing the Ramblin' Kid; "it looked at first like the filly—"
"You won your money, didn't you?" the Ramblin' Kid interrupted in a tone that plainly meant there was nothing further to be said.
That was the only reference to the incidents of Friday afternoon.
After breakfast the Ramblin' Kid saddled the Gold Dust maverick, turnedCaptain Jack with the cavallard, and with Parker and the other QuarterCircle KT cowboys rode away to help gather the beef cattle from the westhalf of the Cimarron range.
The week that followed passed quickly.
During the entire period the Kiowa lay under a mantle of sunshine by day and starlit skies by night.
Carolyn June once more provided the evening dessert of coffee-jelly and Skinny finished teaching her the art of dipping bread in milk and egg batter, frying it in hot butter, and calling the result "French toast"
Skinny again put on the white shirt and the shamrock tinted tie. He had not dared to wear what Chuck called his "love-making rigging" during the week of the Rodeo. It would have made him entirely too conspicuous among the hundreds of other cowboys gathered at Eagle Butte for the big celebration. Situations filled with embarrassment would have been almost certain to develop.
"It's getting so it needs a washing a little," Skinny remarked toCarolyn June the first time he reappeared in the once snowy garment.
He was quite right.
Carolyn June herself had noticed that the shirt had lost some of its immaculateness.
"It doesn't look hardly as white as it did at first!"
"No, it don't," Skinny answered seriously. "I guess I'll wash it to-morrow. I never did wash one but I reckon it ain't so awful hard to do—"
"I'll help you," Carolyn June volunteered. "I've never washed one either, but it will be fun to learn how!"
The next day they washed the shirt.
The ceremony was performed in the kitchen after they had finished doing the breakfast dishes. Ophelia, after water for a vase of roses, came into the room while Skinny was rinsing the shirt in the large tin dishpan.
The garment was a sickly yellow.
"Darned if I know what's wrong with it," Skinny said, a trifle discouraged, while Carolyn June, her sleeves rolled above dimpled elbows, stood by and watched the slushy operation. "Carolyn June and me both have blamed near rubbed our fingers off trying to get it to look right again but somehow or other it don't seem to work."
"Did you put bluing in your rinse water?" Ophelia asked with a laugh.
"Bluing?" Carolyn June and Skinny questioned together. "What does that do to it?"
"Bleaches it—makes it white," the widow replied with another laugh as she returned to the front room.
"By golly, maybe that's what it needs!" Skinny exclaimed hopefully.
"Of course," Carolyn June cried gaily. "How silly we were not to think of it! Any one ought to know you put bluing in the water when you wash things. Wonder if Sing Pete has any around anywhere?"
They searched the kitchen shelves and found a pint bottle, nearly full, of the liquid indigo compound.
"How much do you suppose we ought to put in?" Carolyn June asked, pulling the cork from the bottle and holding it poised over the pan of water in which the shirt, a slimy, dingy mass, floated drunkenly.
"Darned if I know," Skinny said, scratching his head. "She said it would make it white—I reckon the more you put in the whiter the blamed thing'll be. Try about half of it at first and see how 'it works!"
"Gee, isn't it pretty?" Carolyn June gurgled as she tipped the bottle and the waves of indigo spread through the water, covering the shirt with a deep crystalline blue.
"You bet!" Skinny exclaimed. "That ought to fix it!"
It did.
The shirt, when finally dried, was a wonderful thing—done in a sort of mottled, streaky, marbled sky and cloud effect.
But Skinny wore it, declaring he liked it better—that it more nearly matched the shamrock tie—than when it was "too darned white and everything!"
To Parker and the boys on the beef hunt everything was business.
The days were filled with hard riding as they gathered the cattle, bunched the fat animals, cut out and turned back those unfit for the market, stood guard at night over the herd, steadily and rapidly cleaned the west half of the Kiowa range of the stuff that was ready to sell.
It was supper-time on one of the last days of the round-up.
The outfit was camped at Dry Buck. Bed rolls, wrapped in dingy gray tarpaulins or black rubber ponchos, were scattered about marking the places where each cowboy that night would sleep. The herd was bunched a quarter of a mile away in a little cove backed by the rim of sand-hills. Captain Jack and Silver Tip, riderless but with their saddles still on, were nipping the grass near the camp—the Ramblin' Kid and Chuck were to take the first watch, until midnight, at "guard mount." Parker and the cowboys were squatted, legs doubled under them, their knees forming a table on which to hold the white porcelain plate of "mulligan," in a circle at the back of the grub-wagon. Sing Pete trotted around the group and poured black, blistering-hot coffee into the unbreakable cups on the ground at the side of the hungry, dusty riders.
The sun had just dipped into the ragged peaks of the Costejo range and a reddish-purple crown lay on the crest of Sentinel Mountain forty miles to the southeast.
"It looks to me like Parker's sort of losing out," Chuck suddenly remarked, as he wiped his lips on the back of his hand after washing down a mouthful of the savory stew with gulps of steaming coffee. "Ophelia stuck closer than thunder to Old Heck all through the Rodeo."
Parker reddened and growled: "Aw, hell—don't start that up again!"
"By criminy, she didn't stick any closer to Old Heck than Skinny stuck to Carolyn June," Bert complained. "Nobody else had a look-in!"
"Skinny's sure earning his money," Charley muttered half enviously.
"Bet he's got on that white shirt and having a high old time right now! They're probably in the front room and she's playingLa Palomaon the piano while Old Skinny's setting back rolling his eyes up like a bloated yearling!" Chuck laughed.
"And Old Heck and Ophelia are out on the porch holding hands and looking affectionate while the mosquitos are chewing their necks and ankles!" Bert added with a snicker.
"Her and Old Heck'll probably be married before we get back," Chuck said solemnly, with a wink at the Ramblin' Kid and a sly glance in the direction of Parker.
"Do you reckon there's any danger of it?" Parker asked in a voice that showed anxiety, but not of the sort the cowboys thought.
"They're darned near sure to," Chuck replied seriously, heaving what he tried to make resemble a sigh of sympathy.
"What makes you think so?" Parker questioned, seeking confirmation from the lips of other, of a hope that had been rising in his heart since the first moment he had begun to regret his rash proposal of marriage to the widow.
"Well, for one thing"—Chuck began soberly—"the way they'd look at each other—"
"I saw her squeeze Old Heck's arm once!" Bert interrupted.
"Aw, she's done that lots of times," Chuck said airily; "that ain't nothing special! But the worst indication was them flowers she wore on her bosom every day—Old Heck bought 'em!" he finished dramatically, leaning over and speaking tensely as though it pained him immeasurably to break the news to Parker while he fixed on Old Heck's rival a look he imagined was one of supreme pity.
"Yeah, he had them sent up from Las Vegas," Bert added, picking up the cue and lying glibly. "I saw the express agent deliver a box of them to him one day. There was four dollars and eighty cents charges on 'em!"
A gleam, which the cowboys misunderstood, came into Parker's eyes.
"Why don't you and Old Heck fight a duel about Ophelia?" Bert suggested tragically and in a voice that was aimed to convey sympathy to the Quarter Circle KT foreman. "You could probably kill him!"
"Sure, that's the way they do in books," Chuck urged.
"Yes," the Ramblin' Kid broke in with a slow drawl, "fight one with sour-dough biscuits at a hundred yards! That'd be sensible—then both of you'd be genuine heroes!"
"Gosh, th' Ramblin' Kid's awake!" Bert laughed. "How does it happen you ain't fell in love with Carolyn June?" he asked, turning toward the slender, dark-eyed, young cowboy. "So far you're the only one that's escaped. The rest of us are breaking our hearts—"
For an instant the Ramblin' Kid flashed on Bert a look of hot anger while a dull red glow spread over his sun-tanned cheeks.
"There's enough damned fools loose on th' Kiowa range without me bein' one, too!" he retorted slowly, getting up and going toward Captain Jack.
"Blamed if he'll stand a bit of joshing on that subject!" Bert muttered, his own face flushing from the look the Ramblin' Kid had given him.
"Not a darned bit," Chuck added, "but it is funny; the way he shys off from Carolyn June!"
"Th' Ramblin' Kid ain't interested in women," Charley said, as they pitched their plates to one side and the meal was finished. "He ain't the kind that bothers with females!"
When Chuck had idly suggested that Old Heck and Ophelia might be married before Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys returned to the ranch from the beef hunt, he did not know it, but the words he spoke in jest voiced the very thought at the same instant in the mind of Old Heck—miles away though he was. Perhaps it was mental telepathy, thought vibration, subconscious soul communication—or a mere coincident, that caused Chuck, far out on the open range, to speak the thing Old Heck, sitting at supper with Carolyn June, Ophelia and Skinny, at the Quarter Circle KT was thinking.
Ever since Parker had voluntarily surrendered during the Rodeo, his right to alternate, day and day about, with Old Heck in the widow's society, the owner of the Quarter Circle KT had been watching Ophelia, covertly and carefully, for any sign of "Movements" or an outbreak as a dreaded suffragette.
While he watched her the widow was becoming more and more a necessity in the life of Old Heck.
The night of the conversation between Parker and the cowboys, away over at Rock Creek, Old Heck sat at the supper table in the kitchen at the ranch and debated in his mind the future relationships of Parker, Ophelia and himself. In a few days Parker would return. Almost certainly the foreman would again wish to share, fifty-fifty, in the courtship of the widow. Old Heck felt that if such were so those odd days, when Parker was with Ophelia, would be little less than hell. Yet, he dreaded that suffragette business. If she would only break loose and let him see how bad she was liable to be he could easily make up his mind. He was almost ready to take a chance, to ask Ophelia to marry him and settle it all at once.
Throughout the meal he was moody. After supper he had little to say and the next few days he brooded constantly over the matter.
Tuesday Parker and the cowboys were expected to return with the beef cattle. Monday morning, at breakfast, the widow asked Old Heck if he would take her to Eagle Butte that day.
"I must see the minister's wife," she said, as Old Heck steered theClagstone "Six" up the grade that led out to the bench and to EagleButte, "—it is very important"
Old Heck murmured assent and drove silently on. Probably she was going to start a "Movement" or something to-day! To-morrow, Parker would be back. It sure did put a man in a dickens of a fix!
Before they reached the long bridge across the Cimarron a mile fromEagle Butte Old Heck's mind was made up.
"You want to stop at the preacher's house?" he asked.
"If you please," Ophelia replied, "for some little time. There are things to discuss—"
"Would you mind if I drove around to the court-house first?" Old Heck questioned again.
"Not at all," she answered sweetly.
A few moments later Old Heck stopped the Clagstone "Six" in front of the yellow sandstone county building. Leaving Ophelia in the car with the remark, "I'll be out in a minute!" he went inside and hurried along the dark corridor that led to the clerk's office.
In Old Heck's eyes was a set, determined look when he came out of the court-house and stepped up to the Clagstone "Six" in which he had left Ophelia a few moments before. The end of a long yellow envelope protruded from the side pocket of his coat. His face was flushed and his hand trembled slightly as he opened the door of the car and climbed into the front seat beside the widow. He pressed his foot on the "starter," threw the clutch into gear and turning the car about drove slowly toward the home of Reverend Hector R. Patterson, Eagle Butte's only resident clergyman.
He did not speak until the car stopped at the gate of the little unpainted parsonage beside the white, weather-boarded church.
"Wait a minute," he said as Ophelia started to get out of the Clagstone"Six," "maybe I'll go in with you!"
"Splendid," the widow replied, settling again against the cushions. "I'd be delighted to have you come along and I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Patterson would be glad to see you!"
"Well, it—it"—Old Heck stammered, not knowing how to begin what he wanted to say—"it—it all depends on you! Here"—he said abruptly as a bright thought came to him—"read that and—and—tell me what you think about it!" at the same time pulling the yellow envelope from his pocket and handing it to Ophelia.
With a questioning lift of her eyebrows the widow drew the folded, official-looking document from the envelope.
"Why, it's a—it's a—" she started to say and stopped confused, her cheeks blazing crimson.
"It's a marriage license—" Old Heck said, coming to her rescue, "—made out for you and me. I—I—didn't know what to tell the clerk when he asked me how old you was—so I just guessed at it!"
The widow looked shyly down at the names written on the document.
The license granted "Ophelia Cobb, agetwenty-three, of Hartville,Connecticut, and Josiah Alonzo Heck, age forty-eight, of Kiowa County,Texas," the right to marry.
Ophelia's actual years were thirty-nine!
From under drooping lashes she glanced up suspiciously into the earnest gray eyes beside her. She saw that Old Heck had been sincere in his "guess."
"But—but—"
"I know it's kind of unexpected," Old Heck interrupted nervously, "—perhaps I had ought to have said something about it first, but, well, I figured I'd go on and get the license and show that my intentions was good and—and—sort of risk the whole thing on one throw! It always seemed like there was something missing at the Quarter Circle KT," he went on, his voice grown softer and trembling a bit, "and—and when you came I—I—found out what it was—"
Ophelia sat silently with downcast eyes, her pulse racing, the license unfolded on her lap, while she bit uncertainly at the tip of the finger of her glove.
"I—I—know I ain't very good-looking or—or—anything," Old Heck continued, "but I thought maybe you—you—liked me a little—enough anyhow to get married—that is if you—. Oh-h—thunder, Ophelia!" he exclaimed in despair, feeling that he was hopelessly floundering, "I—I—love you! Please let's use that license! Let's use it right away —to-day—and get it over with!" he urged as the widow still hesitated.
"But—I—I'm not suitably dressed—" she stammered.
"I think that dress you've got on is the prettiest goods I ever saw in my life," he interrupted, looking adoringly at the clinging summer fabric caressing Ophelia's shapely form, "I always did think it would be awful appropriate for us to—to—get married in!" he finished pleadingly.
"But—Carolyn June and—and—Parker—" Ophelia murmured.
At the mention of Parker, Old Heck started while a look of anguish came into his eyes. So she loved Parker! That was why she was so backward, he thought. Well, the Quarter Circle KT foreman was a little better-looking, maybe, and some younger! He couldn't blame her.
His head dropped. For a moment Old Heck was silent, a dull, sickening hurt gripping his heart. A deep sigh escaped from his lips. He reached over and picked up the license.
"I—I—guess I made a mistake," he said numbly. "We'll just—just—tear this thing up and forget about it!"
Ophelia looked demurely up at him, her mouth twitching. One small gloved hand slipped over and rested on the strong brown fingers that held the license. Roses flamed over the full round throat and spread their blush to her cheeks. Her eyes were like pools of liquid blue:
"Don't tear it—it—up!" she whispered with a little laugh—a laugh that sent the blood leaping, like fire, through Old Heck's veins, "it—it would be a shame to waste it!"
For an instant Old Heck was dazed. He looked at her as if he could not believe he had heard aright. Suddenly a wave of undiluted happiness swept over him.
"Ophelia!" he cried huskily. "Oh, Ophelia!" and the minister's three small sons, pausing in their play in the grassless yard at the side of the house, while they watched the beautiful car standing in front of the parsonage gate, saw the owner of the Quarter Circle KT, in broad daylight, on the principal residence street of Eagle Butte, before the eyes of the whole world—if the whole world cared to look—throw his arms around the plump lady sitting beside him and press one long, rapturous kiss on her moist, unresisting lips!
A moment later Ophelia and Old Heck, both much embarrassed but tremulously happy, stepped inside the door of the parsonage.
They were driving away from the minister's house—going to the Occidental Hotel for a little all-by-their-ownselves "wedding luncheon"—before either thought of the matter concerning which Ophelia had desired to see the clergyman's wife.
"Gee whiz!" Old Heck exclaimed, "you forgot that consultation or whatever it was with Mrs. Patterson to start your woman's suffrage 'movement'—"
"To start my what?"
"Your 'woman's rights,' 'female voter's organization'—or whatever it is!" Old Heck explained, a new-born tolerance in his voice. "I didn't mean to interfere with your political activities—"
Ophelia threw back! her head, while a ripple of laughter trilled out above the purr of the Clagstone "Six."
"Why, my dear—dear—Old Boy!" she cried, "I am not engaged in 'political activities,' or 'suffragette movements!' Of course," she continued archly, "I believe women ought to be allowed to vote—if they haven't intelligence enough for that they haven't brains enough to be good 'pardners' with their husbands—"
"By gosh, you're right!" Old Heck agreed, "I never thought of it that way before!"
"And," she continued, "naturally I shall vote whenever the opportunity comes, but I'm not an 'Organizer' for anything of that kind. Mrs. Patterson and I are going to organize the wives, sisters and sweethearts, in Eagle Butte, into a club for the study of 'Scientific and Efficient Management of the Home!' We think we should be as proficient in those arts—and which we believe are peculiarly womanly functions—as the men are in the direction of the more strenuous business affairs in which they themselves are engaged."
"So that's what you're an 'Organizer' for?" Old Heck queried while a radiant contentment spread over his face.
"That is it," Ophelia said simply, adding with a most becoming heightening of color, "it is so we will be—will be—better wives!"
"My Gawd!" Old Heck breathed fervently. "My Gawd! The Lord has been good to me to-day!"
While Old Heck and Ophelia were in Eagle Butte getting married, Skinny and Carolyn June had been riding line on the upland pasture fence. They had just returned to the Quarter Circle KT, unsaddled their horses, turned them into the pasture, gone to the house and stopped a moment on the front porch to watch the glow in the west—the sun was dipping into a thundercap over the Costejo Mountains—when the Clagstone "Six" rolled down the grade and up to the string of poplars before the house.
"Gee, we thought you two had eloped!" Carolyn June laughed as the couple climbed out of the car and came, rather bashfully, in at the gate. Old Heck and Ophelia looked at each other guiltily.
"We did come darn near it!" Old Heck chuckled, plunging at once into the task of breaking the news. "We got married—I reckon you'd call that the next thing to eloping!"
"Got married?" Skinny and Carolyn June cried together.
"Who—who—got married?" Skinny repeated incredulously.
"Ophelia and me," Old Heck answered with a sheepish grin but proudly. "Who else did you think we meant? We just thought," he continued by way of explanation, "we'd go ahead and do it kind of private and save a lot of excitement and everything!"
Carolyn June threw her arms around Ophelia and kissed her.
"Good-by, chaperon," she laughed With a half-sob in her throat, "h—hello, 'Aunt.'" Then she strangled Old Heck with a hug that made him gasp.
"What the devil—are you trying to do—choke me?"
"Well, by thunder, Old Heck!" Skinny finally managed to ejaculate, "it was the sensiblest thing you ever done! I—I've—been"—with a sidelong look at Carolyn June—"kind of figuring on doing it myself!"
Carolyn June saw the expression in Skinny's eyes. A pained look came into her own. She had known, for a long while, that sooner or later there would have to come an understanding between this big, overgrown, juvenile-hearted cowboy and herself. She resolved then that it should come quickly. Further delay would be cruel to him. Besides, she was sick of flirtations. Her disappointment in the character of the Ramblin' Kid, her realization of his weakness, when he had gotten, as she believed, beastly drunk at the moment so much depended on him the day of the two-mile sweepstakes, had hurt deeply. Somehow, even his magnificent ride and the fact that, in spite of his condition, he won the race, had not taken the sting away. She had thought the Ramblin' Kid was real—rough and crude, perhaps, but all man, rugged-hearted and honest. Sometimes she wondered if the queer unexplainable antagonism between herself and the sensitive young cowboy had not, in a measure, been responsible for his sudden moral breaking down. The thought caused her to lose some of that frivolity that inspired the dance and the wild flirtations she carried on that night with all the cowboys of the Quarter Circle KT. After all, these plain, simple-acting men of the range were just boys grown big in God's great out-of-doors where things are taken for what they seem to be. No wonder an artless look from sophisticated brown eyes swept them off their feet!
She made up her mind to disillusion Skinny at once.
After supper the quartette gathered in the front room.
"Come on, Skinny," Carolyn June said with forced gaiety, "let us take a walk. That pair of cooing doves"—with a playfully tender glance at Ophelia and Old Heck—"wish nothing so much as to be permitted to 'goo-goo' at each other all by their little lonelies!"
Bareheaded she and Skinny strolled out the front gate and along the road that led up to the bench. At the top of the grade they sat down, side by side, on a large boulder that hung on the brink of the bench. The Quarter Circle KT lay before them—restful and calm in the shadows of early evening. The poplars along the front-yard fence stood limp in the silent air. Across the valley the sand-hills were mellowing with the coming softness of twilight. Up the river, to the west, beyond Eagle Butte, a summer thunder-cloud was climbing higher and higher into the sky. In the direction of Dry Buck, far toward the northwest, a fog of dust was creeping along the horizon, gradually approaching the upland pasture. Skinny saw it.
"By golly," he cried, "that's either Parker and the boys coming in with the cattle—or else it's a band of sheep! It surely can't be 'woollys'—they never get over in there! If it's our outfit, though, they've got through quicker than they figured!"
A few moments later the dim bulk of the "grub-wagon" appeared, miles away, slowly crawling toward the Quarter Circle KT.
For a time Skinny and Carolyn June were silent.
Skinny's hand crept slyly across the rock and found the pink fingers ofCarolyn June. She did not draw away.
"Carolyn June," he whispered haltingly, "Carolyn June—I—Old Heck andOphelia have got married—let's you and—and—"
"Please, Skinny, don't say it!" she interrupted, her voice trembling. "I—I know what you mean! It hurts me. Listen, Skinny"—she hurried on, determined to end it quickly—"maybe you will despise me, but—I like you, truly I do—but notthatway! I don't want to grieve you—I wish us to be just good friends—that's why I'm telling you! Let's be friends, Skinny—just friends—we can't be any more than that—"
Skinny understood. A dull, throbbing pain tightened about his throat. His fingers gripped Carolyn June's hand an instant and then relaxed. The whole world seemed suddenly blank.
"Can't you—won't you—ever—ca—care?" he asked in a voice filled with despair.
"I do care, boy," she replied softly, "I do care—but not that way! Oh, Skinny," she exclaimed, wishing to make it as easy as possible for the sentimental cowboy at her side, "maybe I have done wrong to let you go ahead, but, well, I found out—I guessed the 'arrangements'—how you had been chosen to make 'love' to me and how Parker and Uncle Josiah were to divide Ophelia between them. Perhaps that is why I have flirted so—just to punish you all! Truly, Skinny, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me like—like—the Ramblin' Kid does!" she finished with a shaky little laugh.
"He—don't hate you," Skinny answered dully, "at least I don't think th' Ramblin' Kid hates you—or anybody. And you knowed all the time that I was getting paid to make love to you? Well, I was," he added chokingly, "but I'd have done it for nothing if I'd had the chance!"
"Yes, Skinny," she replied, "I knew—I know—and I don't blame you!"
"I don't blame you, either," he said humbly, "it was a—a—excuse me, Carolyn June—a damned mean trick to frame up on you and Ophelia that way—but we didn't know what to do with you! I reckon," he continued in the same despairing tone, "I was a blamed fool!"
For a long moment they sat silent.
"Carolyn June," Skinny finally said, a sigh of resignation breaking from his lips, "I'll be what you said—just a good friend—I always will be that to you! But before we start in, do you mind if I—if I—go up to Eagle Butte and get—drunk!"
In spite of herself she laughed. But in it was a tenderness almost mother-like.
"Poor disappointed, big boy," she answered and her eyes filled, "if it will make you happy, go ahead and get—get—drunk, 'soused,' all over—just this once!"
With only a passing pang Carolyn June was willing for Skinny to get drunk—to do the thing she had been scarcely able to forgive in the Ramblin' Kid!
For an instant she wondered why.
A half-hour later Skinny and Carolyn June went silently down the grade to the ranch house. They had gone up the hill—lovers; they returned—"good friends"—and such they would always be.
* * * * *
It was nearly ten o'clock when Sing Pete stopped the grub-wagon at the bunk-house; Pedro wrangled the saddle cavallard into the pasture below the barn; Parker and the cowboys jogged their bronchos to the stable door and the Ramblin' Kid, riding the Gold Dust maverick—Captain Jack at her heels—rode to the circular corral, jerked the saddle from the filly's back and turned the little roan stallion and the outlaw mare inside the corral.
Old Heck and Skinny heard the commotion and went out to where Parker and the cowboys were unsaddling their horses.
"Well, you got through, did you?" Old Hack questioned casually.
"Yes," Parker replied, "we've got the beef critters in I guess—they're in the upland pasture. There are seven hundred and ninety, I think it is, that'll do for the market."
"That's pretty good," Old Heck answered with satisfaction. "We'll push them right on into Eagle Butte to-morrow or next day and ship them. The cars will be in to-night, the agent said. I'm sending them to Chicago this time. I'd like to see you, private, a minute, Parker!" he finished abruptly.
"What do you want?" Parker asked suspiciously, as he followed Old Heck around the corner of the barn.
"It's about Ophelia—" Old Heck began.
Parker's heart leaped and then dropped with a sickening foreboding of something disagreeable. The widow, he thought instantly, had told Old Heck about that darned fool proposal of marriage and was going to insist on him coming across and making good! There was no way out.
"I—I—reckon I'll have to do it if she's determined," Parker stuttered; "but—aw, hell—I must have been crazy—"
"Who's determined on what?" Old Heck asked, puzzled by the queer jumble coming from the lips of the Quarter Circle KT foreman, "and how crazy?"
"Ophelia determined on marrying me!" Parker blurted out.
"Ophelia marryyou?" Old Heck exclaimed. "Marry you! She can't! Her and me have already done it. We got married to-day—that was what I wanted to tell you!"
Momentarily a pang of regret shot through Parker's heart. It was quickly followed by a sense of relief.
"You—you—and Ophelia married?" he stammered.
"We sure are," Old Heck answered positively. "We done it to-day!"
Suddenly Parker determined to "cover up."
"My, lord!" he half-groaned, pretending terrible grief, "this is awful!It—it—come so sudden—but there ain't no hard feelings, Old Heck!I—I—wish you both joy and happiness!"
"Darned if that ain't white of you, Parker!" Old Heck exclaimed, immensely relieved. "I won't forget it! When you and the boys take them steers to Chicago, stay over a week or so and have a good time and count it in on expenses!"
Parker turned his head and in the darkness winked solemnly at a yellow star above the peak of Sentinel Mountain.
He and Old Heck started toward the house.
"Hey, you fellows!" Old Heck called, pausing and turning toward the barn where the cowboys were putting away their saddles, "when you get through all of you come on up to the house! Ophelia and me's married and the bride is waiting to be congratulated!"
"Good lord," Charley gasped, "hear that, fellers? Old Heck said him and the widow's married!"
"Gosh!" Chuck laughed, "it must have been a jolt to Parker! I bet his heart's plumb bu'sted!"
As soon as their saddles were put away the cowboys hurried toward the house. They met the Ramblin' Kid, crossing from the circular corral to the bunk-house.
"Come on," Bert called to him, "Old Heck and Ophelia's gone and got married! We're going up to the house to sympathize with the widow!"
"I ain't needed," the Ramblin' Kid answered with a careless laugh. "You fellers can take my 'love' to th' afflicted couple!"
After the cowboys had gone to the house Skinny went and got Old Pie Face. Stopping at the stable, he saddled the pinto and strolled over to the bunk-house. The Ramblin' Kid was lying stretched on his bed. Skinny rolled the white shirt carefully into a bundle and wrapped a newspaper around it.
"What you goin' to do?" the Ramblin' Kid asked.
"I'm goin' to town!" Skinny answered shortly. "I'm going up to Eagle Butte and get on a hell of a drunk—if I can get hold of any boot-leg whisky—Carolyn June and me have bu'sted up on our love-making!"
"Going to get drunk, are you?" the Ramblin' Kid queried with a note of scorn in his voice, "an' forget your sorrows?"
"Yes," Skinny retorted, "I'm going to get drunk as you was the day of the race!"
"Drunk as I was th' day of th' race?" the Ramblin' Kid repeated quizzically. "Oh, hell, yes—now I understand—" pausing, while a smile curled his lips.
"Yes," Skinny retorted again. "Where'd you get yours that day?"
"Never mind," was the answer. "I guess I'll go to Eagle Butte with you! You'll need somebody to ride herd on you while you're snortin' around. Anyhow, I feel like goin' on a tear myself—not a drunk—a man's a darned fool that'll let any woman make a whisky barrel out of him! But I got an itchin' for a little poker game or somethin'. Wait till I get Captain Jack!"
"Where's Skinny and th' Ramblin' Kid?" Old Heck asked after he and Parker and the cowboys were at the house and the first flush of embarrassment had passed.
Carolyn June thought she knew where Skinny was, but did not answer.
"I don't know what's become of Skinny," Parker said. "Th' Ramblin' Kid's probably out mopin' somewhere. I think he's getting ready to 'ramble' again—he's been acting plumb despondent ever since the Rodeo in Eagle Butte!"
Carolyn June stepped to the door. Dimly through the darkness she saw two riders pass up the grade that led to the bench and turn their horses to the west, toward Eagle Butte, and ride straight into the outflung shadow of the thunder-storm—from which now and then leaped jagged flashes of lightning—and which was rolling from the Costejo Mountains across the Kiowa range in the direction of the Quarter Circle KT.
Silent and with a heavy heart she turned away from the door.
It was long after midnight when the Ramblin' Kid and Skinny rode into Eagle Butte and the heels of Captain Jack and Old Pie Face echoed noisily on the board floor of the livery stable as the bronchos turned into the wide, open doorway of the barn. A drowsy voice from the cubby-hole of an office called:
"In just a minute—I'll be out!"
"Aw, thunder," Skinny answered, "go on back to sleep, we'll find stalls and put 'em up!"
Captain Jack and Old Pie Face cared for, Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid stepped out into the deserted street.
Eagle Butte was sleeping.
Here and there a blaze of light from a store window invited belated passers to covet the bargains offered within; a half-dozen incandescent bulbs, swung on cross-wires at intervals along the street, glowed feebly as if weary with the effort to beat back the darkness clutching at the throat of the town; over the sidewalk in front of the Elite Amusement Parlor an illuminated red and green sign told that Mike Sabota's place was still open; across the porch of the Occidental Hotel and spilling itself on the ground out in the street a stream of light guided weary travelers to the portals of that ancient, though hospitable, institution; from the sides of the Butte beyond the railroad tracks a coyote yelped shrilly a jerky, wailing challenge—a dozen dogs, suddenly aroused in different parts of the town, answered.
"Pretty dead-lookin'," the Ramblin' Kid remarked. "Let's go down toSabota's."
"All right," Skinny replied, and they moved down the street.
The pool-room offered nothing of interest. A couple of traveling men, waiting for the early morning train, were playing a listless game of billiards at one of the tables; a pair of Jap sugar-beet workers and a negro section hand sat half-asleep and leaned against the wall; "Red" Jackson, Sabota's chief lieutenant, with an air of utter boredom, lounged behind the soft-drink bar. Sabota was not there.
"What's happened to everybody?" Skinny asked; "where's Mike?"
"Everybody's got religion, I guess," Red yawned, "and gone to bed. What do you want with Sabota?" looking suspiciously at the Ramblin' Kid; "he's over at Vegas; won't be back till to-morrow—or to-day it is now, I reckon—evening sometime!"
"Th' Ramblin' Kid and me have been out in the rain," Skinny said suggestively, "and thought we might take cold—"
"Nothing doing!" Red laughed, "ain't a drop around! When Mike gets back he'll fix you up, maybe—that's what he's gone after!"
"We'd just as well go to bed!" Skinny grumbled disgustedly to theRamblin' Kid.
"I reckon," was the laconic answer.
They returned to the hotel, roused the clerk from his doze, secured a room and retired.
It was eight o'clock when they got up.
Both went directly to the livery stable and saw that Captain Jack and Old Pie Face were properly attended to. While at the barn Skinny took the bundle he had wrapped in the bunk-house at the ranch from the saddle where he had tied it.
"What's that?" the Ramblin' Kid queried.
"It's that darned shirt!" Skinny retorted. "I'm going to make Old Leon eat it—it wasn't the size Parker asked for!"
The Ramblin' Kid laughed, but said nothing.
They returned to the hotel and had breakfast. Manilla Endora waited on them. Before Carolyn June and Ophelia came to the Quarter Circle KT Manilla's yellow hair and blue eyes were the flames that fanned the affections of Skinny. He felt guilty as, sweetly as ever and without a hint of reproach, Manilla took their orders and served them with their ham and eggs and coffee.
After breakfast Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid explored the town.
Eagle Butte had come to life. The stores were open. Business was brisk. The "dray" was delivering the express accumulated the night before at the depot. Here and there a morning shopper was passing along the street. At the post-office there was quite a crowd.
Skinny carried the shirt, wrapped in the soggy, rain-soaked newspaper. As he and the Ramblin' Kid came near the dingy, general merchandise establishment kept by the squint-eyed Jew from whom Parker had bought the unfortunate garment a sudden look of cunning gleamed in the eyes of Skinny. He laughed aloud. A box of eggs, ten or twelve dozen it contained, was set, with other farm produce, in a display on the sidewalk at the side of the door of the store.
"Hold on a minute," Skinny said to the Ramblin' Kid, stopping in front of the Jew's place of business, "I got an idea—By golly," he continued argumentatively and with apparent irrelevancy, in a loud voice, "I tell you I'm the lightest man on my feet in Texas!" and he winked knowingly at the Ramblin' Kid. "I can walk on eggs and never bu'st a one! I've done it and"—as Leon came to the door—"I'll bet four-bits I can jump in that box of eggs right there and never crack a shell!" The Ramblin' Kid understood.
"Aw, you're crazy," he laughed. "I don't want to win your money!"
"What's the matter?" Leon asked curiously, having heard only part ofSkinny's boast.
"This locoed darn' fool thinks he can walk on them eggs an' not mash 'em!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed again. "He wants to bet me four-bits he can—"
"Walk on them eggs and not preak them?" Leon exclaimed disdainfully."You ought to lock him up! He iss crazy!"
"By gosh," Skinny argued, "you don't realize how light-footed I am—I can jump on them, I tell you, and I got money to back it up!" And he pulled a half-dollar from his pocket.
"Put away your money, you blamed idiot—" the Ramblin' Kid began.
"I'll bet him four-bits he can't!" Leon cried, jerking a coin from his own pocket.
Skinny and Leon each handed the Ramblin' Kid fifty cents.
"By thunder, I can," Skinny said, pausing, "that is, I'm willing to bet my money on it—"
"Vhy don't you go ahead and do it, then?" Leon exclaimed. "Vat you standing there for? Vhy don't you do it if you're so light on your feet?"
"Well, I can!" Skinny argued, still hesitating.
"Den go ahead and chump—chump I told you—into the box!" Leon shouted excitedly.
Skinny jumped. The eggs crushed under the heels of his riding boots. In an instant the box was filled with a squashy mass of whites, yolks and broken shells. Skinny pawed around until there wasn't a whole egg left in the box.
At the first crunch Leon laughed hilariously.
"I knowed you'd lose!" he cackled. "Giff me the money!"
"You win, Leon!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed, handing over the wager."Skinny wasn't as delicate on his feet as he thought he was!"
"Thunderation, that's funny!" Skinny said soberly as he stepped out of the box; "it wouldn't work that time! Something must have slipped!"
With a grin he calmly unwrapped the one-time white shirt and with it began to wipe the slimy mess from his boots.
"The next time you won't be so smart!" Leon cried, then paused in consternation, his eyes riveted on the scrambled mixture in the box. "But mine eggs!" he exclaimed, suddenly suspicious. "Who pays for the eggs? There vas twelve dozen—they are worth seventy cents a dozen—that is more as eight dollars. Pay me for the eggs!"
"Pay, hell!" Skinny said. "I didn't agree to furnish no eggs! You won my fifty cents and th' Ramblin' Kid gave it to you—"
"That's right, Leon," the Ramblin' Kid chuckled, "you got th' four-bits—that's all you won!"
"But pay me—" Leon whined.
"I'll pay you, you dirty crook!" Skinny snapped as he slapped the soppy, egg-splattered shirt in Leon's face. "I'll pay you with that! The next time," he added as he and the Ramblin' Kid started down the street—"anybody asks for a size fifteen shirt don't give them a sixteen and a half!"
The day was spent idling about town waiting for Sabota to return so Skinny could get some whisky and drown his disappointment in love in intoxicated forgetfulness.