"Catch him and take it off," Carolyn June cried, "it's hurting him!"

Skinny started toward the rapidly gyrating jumble of claws, can and cat.

"I will if the darn' thing'll hold still a minute!" he said.

Carolyn June looked at the Ramblin' Kid, still leaning against the fence watching the cat's contortions.

"Why don't you help him?" she asked impatiently. "Skinny can't do it alone--can't you see it's choking?"

"No, he's not choking," the Ramblin' Kid replied without moving from where he stood, "--he's sufferin' some, but he ain't chokin'. He's got quite a lot of wind yet an' is gettin' some valuable experience. That cat's what I call a genuine acrobat!" he mused as the terrified creature leaped frantically in the air and somersaulted backward, striking and clawing desperately to free itself of the can tightly wedged on its head.

Carolyn June was accustomed to obedience from men creatures. The Ramblin' Kid's indifference to her request, together with his apparent cruelty in refusing to aid in relieving the cat from its torturing dilemma, angered and piqued the girl.

"Help Skinny take it off, I tell you!" she repeated, "haven't you a spark of sympathy--"

The Ramblin' Kid resented her tone and detected as well the note of wounded pride. Instinctively he felt that at that instant the cat, with Carolyn June, had become a secondary consideration.

"Well, some, I reckon," he answered, speaking deliberately, "generally a little, but right now darned little for that old yaller cat. I figure he's a plumb free moral agent," he continued as if speaking to himself; "he got his head in that can on his own hook an' it's up to him to get it out or let it stay in _this time_, just as he pleases--"

"But Sing Pete put b.u.t.ter in the can!" Carolyn June said, arguing.

"He's done it before," the Ramblin' Kid answered with a glance at the Chinese cook still gleefully enjoying the results of his cruel joke. "He won't no more. But that don't make no difference," he laughed, "th'

darn' cat hadn't ought to have yielded to temptation!"

"You're a brute!" she exclaimed pa.s.sionately, "--an ignorant, savage, stupid brute--" The harsh words sprang from the lips of Carolyn June before she thought. The Ramblin' Kid flinched involuntarily as if he had been struck full in the face. A look came in his eyes that almost made her regret what she had said.

"I reckon I am," he replied, gazing steadily at her without feeling or resentment and speaking slowly, "yes, I'm an 'ign'rant, savage, stupid brute,'" deliberately accenting each word as he repeated the stinging phrase, "--but--what's the use?" he finished with a mirthless laugh.

"Anyhow," he added, glancing again at the cat and Skinny's futile efforts to catch it, "I ain't interferin' this time, at least, with that d.a.m.ned cat!"

Carolyn June knew she had hurt with her unintentionally cruel words. For an instant there was a humane impulse to temper their severity.

"I--I--didn't--" she started to say, but the Ramblin' Kid had turned and, ignoring the cat, Skinny and herself, was leaning on the fence with his back to her, looking off across the valley, apparently lost in thought. She did not finish the sentence.

The cat bucked its way to the fence. As it went under the wire the can caught on a barb of the lower strand. Jerking furiously, the animal freed itself from the can, leaving splotches of hair and hide on the ragged edges of tin. Still spitting and clawing, with its tail standing out like an enormous yellow plume, it dashed toward the barn, eager to put distance between itself and the thing that had been torturing it.

"Gosh a'mighty," Skinny said, sweating with the exertion and the excitement of trying to catch the cat, "it'll be noon before we get started for that ride!"

"We'll go now," Carolyn June answered, "--before some other horrible thing occurs."

"We're going over to the river and maybe out on the sand-hills a ways,"

Skinny casually remarked to the Ramblin' Kid as Carolyn June and he pa.s.sed through the gate. "Oh, yes," he added, "Chuck said tell you he took your rope--there was a weak spot in his and he didn't get it fixed yesterday!"

The Ramblin' Kid did not answer.

Skinny had been wrong about the Ramblin' Kid not caring what any one thought of him. He was supersensitive of his roughness, his lack of education and conscious crudeness, and the words of Carolyn June were still in his mind. When Skinny and the girl were going toward their horses the Ramblin' Kid turned and entered the gate. Sing Pete was still at the kitchen door.

The Ramblin' Kid stepped up to him.

"You d.a.m.ned yellow heathen," he said in a level voice, "if you ever play that trick on that cat again th' Quarter Circle KT will be shy a cook an' your ghost'll be headin' p.r.o.nto for China!"

Without waiting for a reply he went back to the gate and watched Skinny and Carolyn June ride down the lane. The deftness and skill with which the girl handled the horse she rode forced a smile of admiration to the lips of the Ramblin' Kid. She sat close in the saddle and a glance showed she was a born master of horses. "She's a wonder," he said to himself, "a teetotal wonder--" A shade of melancholy pa.s.sed over his face. "An ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" he murmured bitterly, "well, I reckon she was right--h.e.l.l!" he exclaimed aloud, "I wonder if Skinny'll remember about that upper crossin' bein' dang'rous with quicksand after the rain--Guess he did," he finished as the two riders turned to the right toward the lower and more distant river ford and disappeared among the willows and cottonwood trees that fringed the Cimarron.

CHAPTER VII

THE GREEDY SANDS

When the Ramblin' Kid, working the rope-conquered and leg-weary Gold Dust maverick from the North Springs back to the Quarter Circle KT, crossed the Cimarron at dawn Captain Jack and the filly swam a raging, drift-burdened river. Less than twelve hours later Carolyn June and Skinny, at the lower ford, rode into a stream that again was normal. Old Blue and Pie Face splashed through water barely reaching the stirrup leathers. Only the fresh rubbish flung out on the meadows by the flood's quick anger or lodged in the willows, still bent by the pressure of the torrent that had rushed over them and slimy with yellow sediment left on their branches and leaves, told the story of the swift rise and fall of the Cimarron the night before.

On the bluff north of the river Carolyn June and Skinny checked their horses while the girl gazed down on the panorama of green fields, narrow lanes, corrals and low buildings of the Quarter Circle KT. The sight thrilled her. On all the Kiowa range there was no more entrancing view.

"It's kind of pretty, ain't it?" Skinny ventured.

"Beautiful!" she breathed.

"I'd--I'd like to stand here and look at it always--if you--if you'd enjoy it!" he said and was instantly appalled by his own audacity.

Carolyn June flashed a quick look at him.

"We had better go on," she said, then added lightly: "Does it always affect you so when you get this view of the valley?"

"No. But, well, somehow it's different this morning--maybe it's because you are here!" he blurted out hurriedly.

"Please," she said, starting Old Blue toward the west along the crest of the ridge, "don't be sentimental. I'm afraid--" she added, intending to say it would spoil their ride.

"You needn't be, with me along!" Skinny interrupted hastily, misinterpreting her meaning.

She laughed and without explaining urged her horse forward.

Skinny followed pensively on Old Pie Face.

The Ramblin' Kid, while going from barn to corral, glanced across the valley and saw Carolyn June and Skinny as they rode along the ridge. It was two miles from the ranch to the bluff on which they were riding, but so clear was the rain-washed air that the horses and riders were easily recognized. He watched them until they reached the corner of the upland pasture. There the roads from the lower and upper fords came together.

The couple turned north along the fence and disappeared beyond the ridge.

For a mile Carolyn June and Skinny rode without speaking. He felt already a reaction from his over-boldness of a while ago and silently swore at himself for his rashness. She was not eager to resume a conversation that had threatened a painfully emotional turn. She was quite content to enjoy the fresh air of the morning, the changing scenes through which they pa.s.sed and the easy motion of the horse on which she was mounted.

The bronchos p.r.i.c.ked forward their ears at the sound of galloping hoofs.

"Somebody's coming," Skinny spoke as Pedro, riding rapidly toward them, rounded the point of a low hill a little distance ahead.

"What's wrong?" Skinny questioned, when the three met and stopped their horses.

"The pasture fence is bu'sted," Pedro answered; "at the northeast corner it is broke. The cattle are out. Ten--fifteen maybe--are dead--the lightning strike them perhaps. The others all of them are gone. They go p.r.o.nto, stampede I think, toward the Purgatory. Chuck and me can not get them alone--I go to tell Old Heck so the boys will come and help!"

It was plain to Skinny what had occurred. The cattle had drifted before the storm until stopped by the wire. While crowded against it a bolt of lightning had struck the fence, followed the metal strands, and killed the animals touching or nearest to it. In the fright the others plunged madly forward and had broken their way to freedom. Five hundred Diamond Bar steers, recently bought by Old Heck and brought from the Purgatory forty-five miles north of the Quarter Circle KT were out and rushing back to their former range.