"Ain't you starting the beef hunt too early?" Charley asked.

"I don't know as I am," Old Heck answered doggedly.

"Aw, that'll put us right in the middle of it on the Fourth of July when the Rodeo is going on in Eagle b.u.t.te--" Bert began.

"And I ain't going to miss that, either," Chuck interrupted, "that Y-Bar outfit over on the Vermejo took everything in the two-mile sweepstakes last year and they've been bragging about it ever since.

They think that Thunderbolt horse of theirs can't be beat. I was going to put Silver Tip in this year. He can put that black in second place--"

"No, he can't," the Ramblin' Kid remarked quietly, "--you'd lose your money. There's only one animal on th' Kiowa range that can outrun that Vermejo horse."

"What animal is that?" Charley asked.

"She's in th' circular corral," the Ramblin' Kid answered laconically.

"The Gold Dust maverick?" Bert questioned.

"That's the one I mean," the Ramblin' Kid replied in a low voice, "for two miles--or five--there ain't nothin' in western Texas, or Mexico either, that can catch her."

"Why don't you take her in when the Rodeo is on and run her in the sweepstakes then?" Chuck asked eagerly. "I ain't caring what Kiowa horse gets the money just so that Y-Bar outfit is taken down a notch or two.

Ever since they got that Thunderbolt horse and beat Old Heck's Quicksilver with him they've been crowing over the Quarter Circle KT and I'm getting plumb sick of it--"

"Old Heck lost three thousand dollars on that race!" Bert interrupted rather triumphantly.

"I didn't neither," Old Heck corrected sullenly, "it was only twenty-five hundred!"

"Well, that Vermejo crowd has got a hundred of mine," Chuck said vindictively, "but I don't give a darn for that--I'd be willing to lose twice that much again just to set that Thunderbolt horse of theirs back in second place!"

"Why don't you run the outlaw filly?" Charley asked coaxingly of the Ramblin' Kid.

"Yes, go on and put her in," Skinny urged, "--you ought to!"

The Ramblin' Kid remained silent, seemingly indifferent to the teasing of the others.

Carolyn June leaned over and said, in a voice audible only to him, while her eyes grew mellow with a look that tested his composure to the uttermost but which wrung no sign from him:

"Please, race the maverick--I--want you to--Ramblin' Kid!"

It was the first time she had used his name in speaking directly to him and the tone in which it was spoken made him tremble in spite of himself. For a moment he returned her gaze. Her words and manner were so different that by their very difference they reminded him of what she had called him yesterday--"an ignorant, savage, stupid brute"--when he had refused to interfere with the cat when its head was caught in the can. He started to make a cynical reply. Then he remembered her sympathy for Old Blue, her apology later for the harsh words--anyhow he knew or felt in his heart they were true--and suddenly he seemed to see the pink satin garter he still carried in his pocket. The look that came into his eyes made Carolyn June lower her own. He smiled a whimsical but hopeless smile, as, replying apparently to the pleading of Charley and Skinny, he said, softly, the single word:

"Maybe!"

Old Heck had forgotten the annual Rodeo held in Eagle b.u.t.te, for some days each summer, around the Fourth of July. His sudden determination and eagerness to have the beef round-up begin earlier than usual in order to get Parker away from the widow had driven all else but that one idea from his mind. The protests reminded him of his oversight. He had not intended to deprive the cowboys of the opportunity to enjoy the one big event happening yearly in the Kiowa country and which temporarily turned Eagle b.u.t.te, for a few days each summer, into a seething metropolis of care-free humanity.

"I think it's a darned shame to spring the beef hunt so it will interfere with the Rodeo," Bert grumbled, "--and us have to be out on the hills wrangling steers while the celebration is going on!"

"I'm not-goin! to be out on th' hills then," the Ramblin' Kid said quietly but with unchangeable finality.

"You can all go to the Rodeo," Old Heck interposed, not feeling just right in his conscience about sending Parker away in advance of the time expected, and wishing to make amends,"--Parker and all of you. You can 'break' the round-up for a few days during the Rodeo and what cattle you've got gathered by then can be turned into the big pasture and held there till it's over. That'll let you all get into Eagle b.u.t.te for the Fourth--I'd like to see that blamed Thunderbolt horse beat myself! But we'll start the beef hunt Monday the way I said in the first place--"

"Who's going to cook, this year, on the round-up?" Charley queried. "You can't take the c.h.i.n.k from here this time, can you?"

"I reckon Sing Pete'll have to go along as usual," Old Heck answered; "it'll make it a little unhandy at the ranch, but--"

"Ophelia and I can 'batch' while you are gone," Carolyn June suggested.

"We won't mind being alone and it will be fun to cook our own meals."

"We will enjoy it," Ophelia added agreeably.

"You ain't going to be alone," Old Heck said; "Skinny and me will be here. When it comes to the cooking maybe between the four of us we can get along some way!"

"Well, if the round-up's got to start Monday," Parker declared sullenly as they left the table, "I'll have to go down to town again to-day and get me a new saddle. Mine was on Old Blue."

"I'll go with you," Old Heck said in a conciliatory way. "Charley and the other boys can be working on them dead steers till we get back.

We'll go in the car and ought to make the round-trip by noon."

CHAPTER X

FIXING FIXERS

The widow and Carolyn June were alone at the house. Old Heck and Parker went immediately from the breakfast table to the garage to get the car out to go to Eagle b.u.t.te. The cowboys were at the barn preparing to begin the day's work. Skinny had excused himself, ostensibly to attend to some ranch ch.o.r.es, but in reality to get away to the bunk-house and "fix up" for the day's courtship of Carolyn June. He planned, when the cowboys were gone, to put on the white shirt Parker brought, yesterday, from Eagle b.u.t.te.

"Ophelia," Carolyn June said mysteriously as they stepped out on the front porch and filled their lungs with the clean air of the morning, "you made a 'discovery' yesterday, I believe?" pausing questioningly.

"Yes," the widow smiled, recalling their conversation relative to Parker's abrupt proposal of marriage.

"To-day," Carolyn June continued impressively, "it is my turn--I have made one!"

"And it is?"

"You and I have been 'framed!'" was the answer spoken solemnly yet scarcely louder than a whisper, while the brown eyes of Carolyn June sparkled with a mixture of suppressed anger, merriment and indignation.

"Framed?" the widow repeated inquiringly, "just what does 'framed' mean, my dear?"

"Framed means," Carolyn June replied wisely, "'tricked,' 'jobbed,'

'jinxed,' 'fixed,' or whatever it is people do to people when they scheme to do something to them without the ones to whom they are doing it knowing how it is done!"

"Exceedingly lucid, my love," the widow laughed, "but you are so agonizingly fond of suspense--"

"Come inside," Carolyn June said as she led the way into the house, "and in a dark corner--no, that would be too near to the walls and their proverbial 'ears,' in the center of the room is better--I will expose the whole diabolical plot!"

At the end of the reading table they stopped and faced each other.

"And now?" Ophelia said, expectantly.

"And now," Carolyn June repeated, her voice low and carefully guarded.