carefully, as a lover courts a sweetheart. The beautiful creature
reminded him of Carolyn June. "They was made for each other!" he
repeated softly as he worked with the mare. From the corral he could see
the road across the river where Skinny and the girl had gone. Often he
turned his eyes in that direction.

He was fingering the garter in his pocket and looking toward the river
when Carolyn June appeared on the ridge as she returned alone to the
ranch. He stood and watched her. The ugly words she had spoken at the
gate came into his mind and a bitter smile curled his lips. Still he
watched the girl, expecting Skinny would ride into view. She turned down
the ridge toward the upper ford.

"That's funny," he thought, "wonder where Skinny's at?" Then it flashed
through his mind that something must be wrong for the girl was riding
alone. "Hell!" he exclaimed aloud, "she's by herself an' headin'
straight for th' upper ford!" Only an instant he paused. "Jack!" he
cried sharply, running to the corral gate and swinging it partly open.
"Come--_quick_!"

The roan stallion started at a trot toward the gate, then, trained to
obey instantly the word of the master he loved better than life, leaped
nimbly through the opening. Slamming and fastening the gate the Ramblin'
Kid ran to the shed, the broncho at his side. He threw the blanket and
saddle on the little roan, cinched quickly but carefully the double
gear, slipped the bit into the waiting mouth of the horse and without
stopping to put on his chaps sprang on Captain Jack's back and whirled
him in a dead run around the corner of the shed and down the lane toward
the north. At the pasture corral below the barn he guided the broncho
close to the fence and scarcely checking him leaned over and lifted a
rope, coiled and hung on a post near the gate, from its place--the one
Chuck that morning had left because of the flaw.

"God!" he groaned, "--an' a bad rope!"

He glanced toward the ridge across the river. Carolyn June had
disappeared down the trail that led to the upper ford.

"Go, Little Man, go--for th' love of God, go!" the Ramblin' Kid
whispered as he leaned forward over the neck of the horse. Captain Jack
answered the agonized appeal as he would never have responded to the
cruel cut of spurs and leaped ahead in a desperate race to beat Old Blue
and his precious burden to the greedy sands of the Cimarron.

As he rode, the Ramblin' Kid slipped his hand around the coils of