sometime. It's what I call a rotten joke
anyhow!"

Sing Pete appeared at the kitchen door cackling with fiendish joy at the
success of his ruse.

Carolyn June stared, apparently stricken dumb by the antics of the
struggling animal.

"Sun-fish! Go to it--you poor deluded son-of-sorrow!" The Ramblin' Kid,
who, unnoticed by Carolyn June and Skinny, at that moment had come from
the corral and stood leaning against the fence, chuckled half pityingly,
yet making no move toward the creature.

"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 butter 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