"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 b.u.t.te 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 b.u.t.te, towering above the town they had left a few brief moments before, and beyond that the Costejo Mountains, rugged and ma.s.sive 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 cl.u.s.tered 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.