The Ramblin' Kid, Earl Wayland Bowman [mind reading books .TXT] 📗

laugh and yet deep below the mirth something thoughtful, honest and unafraid, finished the wreck of the cowboy's susceptible heart. Trim and smooth was Carolyn June, suggesting to Skinny Rawlins a clean-bred filly of saddle strain that has developed true to form.

Old Heck gazed in equal awe at the more mature Ophelia.

Somewhere near forty she may have been, cozily plump and solid. She had gray-blue eyes that were steady and frank yet clearly accustomed to being obeyed. Her hair was a trifle darker in shade than the silky brown on the head of Carolyn June. She was dressed with immaculate neatness and taste and carried that well-preserved assurance no woman in the world save the American of mature development acquires.

There was energy in every line of her body and Ophelia gave Old Heck, the embarrassed owner of the Quarter Circle KT, more thrills in that one moment of silent scrutiny than he ever before had felt in the presence of any woman.

As they looked, Skinny and Old Heck instinctively, a bit awkwardly perhaps, removed the Stetsons they wore on their heads.

"Howdy-do!" Old Heck finally managed to say.

Skinny gulped like an echo, another "Howdy-do!" in the direction of
Carolyn June.

"I reckon you are Carolyn June and Missus Ophelia Cobb," Old Heck stammered "Which one of you is which?" unconsciously paying tribute to the well preserved youthfulness of the widow.

"Oh, Ophelia, beware!" Carolyn June laughed, not in the least offended; "the gay old rascal is at it already!"

"He didn't mean nothing" Skinny interposed, sensing that Old Heck some way had made a blunder. "I guess you must be Carolyn June?" looking questioningly at the girl.

"Excuse me," Old Heck said, "I'm your uncle, I suppose, and this is
Skinny Rawlins—"

"Howdy-do; I'm glad to meet you," Skinny muttered, reaching for the hand
Carolyn June frankly extended.

"I'm glad, too," she replied candidly; "and this is Mrs. Ophelia Cobb—just Ophelia—Uncle Josiah," Carolyn added, turning to Old Heck who clumsily shook hands with the widow while his weather-tanned face flushed a burning, uncomfortably red.

"We was expecting you," he said, retaining life hold on her hand.

"That was very kind," Ophelia murmured. "I am sure we are delighted to be here."

"Now I guess we are all acquainted," Carolyn June said with a little laugh. "It's easy for folks to get acquainted, isn't it?" turning suddenly to Skinny.

"Seems like it after they once get started," Skinny answered.

"We'd better be heading for home I reckon," Old Heck said, releasing at last the widow's hand and lifting the bags in the car. "Sing Pete will have dinner ready by the time we get there."

"We have some trunks," Carolyn June said, "can we take them with us?"

"Yes," Old Heck replied, "get in, and we'll drive over to the depot and get them."

With Carolyn June and Ophelia in the rear seat and Skinny and himself in the front Old Heck drove the car across to the station and the trunks were fastened with ropes on the hood of the engine and running-boards of the car.

As they started away Carolyn June asked:

"Which way now, Uncle Josiah?"

"Out to the ranch."

"Hadn't we better stop at the drug store," she asked soberly, "and get some medicine?"

"Medicine? Who for?" Old Heck inquired innocently.

"Why, the patients, of course," Carolyn June answered with a mischievous chuckle.

"What patients?"

"Out at the Quarter Circle KT where that epidemic of smallpox is raging!" she answered sweetly.

"That's all a mistake," Old Heck said hastily; "we thought is was smallpox but it wasn't—"

"No, everybody's got over it," Skinny added nervously; "they're all cured!"

"Yes, they was just broke out with the heat and didn't have the smallpox at all—" Old Heck explained.

"Liars, both of them," Carolyn June said laughingly to Ophelia; "they just didn't want us to come!"

"Very likely," Ophelia answered.

"No, honest, we thought we had it," Old Heck stammered.

"We were plumb uneasy for fear you wouldn't arrive," Skinny declared. "After we found out it wasn't smallpox we were going to send a special delivery message and tell you it was all a misunderstanding and to come anyhow!"

"Shall we forgive them?" Carolyn June asked the widow.

"Perhaps, this time—their first offense!"

"I'll tell you," Carolyn June said, "well suspend sentence pending good behavior!"

Skinny leaned close to Old Heck.

"Stop a minute at the Golden Rule," he whispered; "I want to do some personal trading."

"If it ain't important," Old Heck answered, "we oughtn't to take the time. What do you want to buy?"

"I want to get me a white shirt—"

"Gosh," Old Heck exclaimed, "that bad already! What'll he be in week?"

"Did you speak, Uncle Josiah?" Carolyn asked.

"Huh—no, I—Skinny just thought I was going to hit a rock!" he answered, and giving the engine more gas, he headed the car, at a thirty-mile clip, toward the east and the Quarter Circle KT.

The party rode in silence. The speed of the car and the fan of the warm wind against their faces made conversation difficult. A mile from Eagle Butte they crossed the long, low, iron-railed bridge over the Cimarron River and climbed out on to the bench away from the bottom lands. From that point on to the Quarter Circle KT the road followed the brow of the bench on the south side of the river. It was smooth and good.

Carolyn June thrilled at the bigness of it all as they swept quickly past the irrigated district close to the town and sped out on the open unfenced range. For miles the country was level with here and there arroyos cross-sectioning into the river valley. Long stretches with the barest undulations made driving a joy and the winding road was a natural speedway. Scattered over the plain were dusters of mesquit and in the low sags where moisture was near the surface patches of thorns. Carolyn June loved the width and breadth of the great range, strange and new to her. Here was freedom sweeping as the winds of heaven. Dimly, on the southern horizon she could see the blue outline of Sentinel Mountain standing alone out on the plain. To the left green pasture-lands lay along the river. A narrow strip of cottonwood trees marked the curving path of the Cimarron. Beds of white quicksand, treacherous and fatal and dreaded by every rider of the open country could be seen, occasionally, through openings in the trees showing the bed of the river itself. In the distance behind them was Eagle Butte, towering above the town they had left a few brief moments before, and beyond that the Costejo Mountains, rugged and massive and covered in part on their lower slopes with blue-green thickets of pine. Across the river was a choppy sea of sand-dunes stretching away to the north as far as sight could reach. Here and there a high-flung mound, smooth and oval or capped with ledges of black, glistening rode broke the monotony of the view.

Engrossed in the study of the almost primitive picture Carolyn June forgot the flight of time and the speed at which they were traveling.

"Yonder's the ranch!" Skinny announced suddenly, turning half around in his seat and pointing ahead and to the left toward the river.

The valley widened till it was a mile or more across. The Cimarron swung sharply to the north and hugged the foot of the bench as if unwilling to spoil the meadowlands past which it flowed. In a great half-crescent—"Quarter Circle," Old Heck called it—the green basin-like area lay spread out before them. It was a half dozen miles in length, reaching from the canyon gate at the upper end of the valley where the river turned abruptly northward, to the narrow gorge at the south through which it disappeared.

A blue crane lazily flapped across the valley.

"Seven thousand acres in the bottoms," Skinny volunteered.

"Beautiful!" Carolyn breathed.

"Splendid!" Ophelia exclaimed.

Half-way down the valley, a quarter of a mile from the bench, the buildings of the Quarter Circle KT clustered together in a group—the low adobe house, bunk shack, stables, graineries. Out in the fields were hay yards with half-built stacks of alfalfa—over the tops of the stacks white tarpaulins. In a pasture beyond the house were horses and cattle, perhaps a hundred head in all. Climbing the hills north of the river were a number of moving figures, dimly seen through the haze.

"Are those cattle," Carolyn June asked, "those things across the river?"

"Where?" Skinny inquired.

"Over there, on the hills," pointing toward the objects.

Old Heck glancing in the direction she indicated answered for Skinny:

"That's Parker and the boys, going over to the North Springs—they're checking up on some yearlings we just turned across from this side of the range." Then, speaking to Skinny: "They've already had their dinner and won't be in till supper-time—"

"Are they cowboys?" Carolyn June asked.

"I reckon," Old Heck responded.

"Is Skinny one?" she inquired naively.

"Sort of, I suppose," Old Heck chuckled while Skinny felt his face coloring up with embarrassment, "but not a wild one."

"Oh, who is that?" Carolyn June cried suddenly as a lone rider whirled out of the corral, around the stables, and his horse sprang into a gallop straight down the valley toward the harrows at its lower end.

"That," Skinny said after a quick glance, "oh, that's th' Ramblin' Kid—Where in thunder do you reckon the darned fool's going now?" he added to Old Heck.

"Can't tell nothing about where he's going," Old Heck said. "He's liable to be heading for anywhere. What's he riding?" he asked without looking up.

"Captain Jack," Skinny replied. "Wonder if he ain't going over to Battle
Ridge to find out if it's so about them sheep coming in over there?"

"Maybe," Old Heck grunted, "either that or else he's took a notion to hunt that Gold Dust maverick again"—referring to a strange, wonderfully beautiful, outlaw filly that had appeared on the Kiowa range a year before and tormented the riders by her almost fiendish cunning in dodging corral or rope—"if he's riding Captain Jack that's probably what he's after."

"Who is he, what's his real name?" Carolyn June asked with interest.

"Just th' Ramblin' Kid, as far as I know," Old Heck answered.

"Does he live at the Quarter Circle KT?" Carolyn June continued curiously as she studied the slender form rising and falling with the graceful rhythm of his horse's motion—as if man and animal were a single living, pulsing creature.

"Off and on," Old Heck replied, "when he wants to he does and when he don't he don't. He's a witch with horses and knows he's always got a job if he wants it, and I reckon that makes him kind of undependable about staying in any one place long at a time. That's why they call him th' Ramblin' Kid—he's liable to ramble any minute."

The car curled down the narrow dugway off of the bench and a moment later stopped at the gate in front of the ranch house of the Quarter Circle KT.

"We're here," Skinny said, as Sing Pete, the Chinese cook, appeared at the open door.

"They've come, Sing Pete," Old Heck called, climbing out of the car; "this is them! Is dinner ready?"

"All leady—waitee!" the Oriental answered, shuffling out to the car to help with the luggage and twisting and squirming as he kept bowing in greeting.

"This is great!" Carolyn June said, as she stepped on the long cool porch in front of the house and paused a moment before entering the open door, "—it's cool and pleasant, I'm going to like it," she added, as she went into the big low-ceilinged room.

The floor was bare of carpet but spotlessly clean; shades, but no curtains, were over the windows; in the center stood a large flat-topped reading table; at one end of the table was a Morris chair upholstered in brown Spanish leather; a wolf-skin rug was thrown on the floor before an old-fashioned Mexican fire-place built into one corner of the room; in another corner was a smaller table on which was a graphophone; a rocker and several chairs were set about the room and against the north wall; between two doors, evidently opening into twin bedrooms, was an upright grand piano—.

"Oh, a piano!" Carolyn June exclaimed delightedly noticing the instrument. "Who plays?"

"Nobody," Old Heck answered foolishly, "I—I—well, what's the use of lying?—I bought it one day, before prohibition come, when I was drunk and just had it brought out because I didn't know what else to do with it—"

"You funny old uncle!" Carolyn