uilt neck, and when, after an hour, the girl
started toward the house, the outlaw mare protested so eagerly against
being left alone that she turned back to the corral and leaning against
the fence stroked the soft muzzle thrust between the bars.

Carolyn June was cooing endearing terms to the filly and playing with
the quivering underlip when she heard a horse galloping swiftly up the
lane and past the barn. Instinctively she stepped back and turned just
as the Ramblin' Kid, riding Captain Jack, wheeled around the end of the
shed near the corral.

His sudden appearance surprised her. She had thought he was with the
cowboys over at the upland pasture helping skin the steers killed by the
lightning.

When they left the ranch the Ramblin' Kid had ridden away with Charley
and the others, but not with any intention of going to the big pasture.
Where the road turned toward the lower ford he held Captain Jack to the
left.

"Ain't you going with us," Charley Saunders asked, "and help skin them
steers?"

"No," the Ramblin' Kid replied quietly. "I ain't. I've got something
else to do. Anyhow, I ain't a butcher--I work with live cattle, not dead
ones!" he concluded as Captain Jack continued in the direction of the
upper crossing.

"He's the independentest darn' cuss I ever saw!" Charley remarked to his
companions as the Ramblin' Kid disappeared. "It's a wonder Old Heck
don't fire him."

"He can't," Bert laughed. "Th' Ramblin' Kid don't stay at the Quarter
Circle KT by the grace of Old Heck, but by the choice of th' Ramblin'
Kid! Anyhow, he's too good with horses--" His voice trailed away to a
low mutter as they turned in among the willows and cottonwood trees
along the bank of the Cimarron.

At the upper crossing on almost the same spot where he had lifted
Carolyn June from the quicksand to the solid ground of the meadow land,
the Ramblin' Kid stopped Captain Jack. He looked out over the placid,
unbroken surface of the sand-bar and saw the end of the broken rope
coiled loosely where Old Blue had been drawn under. A few yards away the
white felt hat Carolyn June had tossed to one side, to be a mute and
pathetic messenger of her fate, when she thought death was certain,
still rested on the smooth surface of the sand. It was to get the hat
the Ramblin' Kid had come again to the scene of yesterday's tragedy. He
had seen it lying there when Carolyn June and he rode away on Captain
Jack and thought then of trying to get it,