night had settled over the desolation
about him mounted the little broncho and turned him to the south, in the
direction of the Cimarron, toward the Quarter Circle KT, where the Gold
Dust maverick waited, alone, in the corral.

Carolyn June could not sleep. The night was more than half gone and
still she sat on the front porch and watched the gradual spread of a
misty, silvery sheen over the brow of the bench and the distant peaks of
the shadowy Costejo range as the pale moon, in its last half, lifted
itself above the sand-hills at the gap through which the Cimarron
tumbled out of the valley.

Old Heck and Ophelia had retired hours ago.

The Quarter Circle KT was sleeping. From the meadows the heavy odor of
wilted alfalfa hung on the night air as the dew sprinkled the windrows
of new-cut hay.

A strange restlessness filled the heart of the girl.

Something seemed to be holding her in a tense, relentless grip. She had
no desire to seek her room. Indeed, she felt that the air of the house
would stifle her. She arose and strolled idly through the gate, past the
bunk-house where Skinny, Pedro and the hay hands snored peacefully, as
she wandered aimlessly through the slanting moonlight down to the
circular corral.

The Gold Dust maverick seemed to reflect the girl's own uneasy mood.

The filly moved with quick nervous strides about the corral. As Carolyn
June leaned against the bars and stretched out her hand the mare
whinnied softly, tossed her head, nosed an instant the white fingers and
trotted in a circle around the enclosure.

"What's the matter, Heart o' Gold?" Carolyn June laughed
sympathetically, "can't you either?"

In the shed at the side of the corral, on the spot where, that first
morning, the Ramblin' Kid's saddle had rested and the cowboy slept,
Carolyn June's own riding gear was lying. She glanced at the outfit For
a second she fancied she saw again the slender form stretched in the
shadow upon the ground while a pair of black inscrutable eyes looked
with unfathomable melancholy up into her own.

"Seein' things!" she laughed jerkily, with a little catch in her throat.
"I'll ride it off!"

Quickly she stepped over, picked up the saddle, bridle and blanket,
returned to the corral gate, swung it open and entered.

The Gold Dust maverick came to her, as if eager, herself, to get out
into the night.

A moment later Carolyn June was in the saddle and the mare, dancing
lightly, pranced out of the gat