The Ramblin' Kid Part 14

"You go help Chuck," Skinny said to Pedro. "Carolyn June and me will turn around and take the news to Old Heck and send some of the boys to help you. If them cattle ain't bunched before they hit the Purgatory and get scattered over their old range it will take a month to gather them and get them back again!"

"Why don't you yourself go with Pedro and Chuck?" Carolyn June asked Skinny. "I can ride to the ranch alone and tell the others about it."

"I'm supposed to stay with--" he begun.

"With me, I presume," she interrupted. "Well, this is one time you don't. Go on with the boys. You are needed after those steers a lot more than you are to 'herd' me back to the ranch!"

Without waiting to argue she wheeled Old Blue toward the Quarter Circle KT. Skinny watched her a moment, then started with Pedro in the other direction. Suddenly checking his horse he swung around in the saddle.

"Go back the way we came!" he called after the girl. "Don't try the upper ford!"

Carolyn June looked around and threw up her hand, motioning toward the north. Thinking that she understood, Skinny touched Old Pie Face with the spurs and soon overtook the Mexican.

He was mistaken. Carolyn June had not understood the warning. The distance was too great for his words to reach her distinctly. She thought he was merely protesting against her going alone. At the fork of the road she saw that the trail that led to the upper ford was much the nearer way to the ranch. Reining Old Blue into it she rode swiftly along the ridge and down the slope toward the dangerous crossing.

The Ramblin' Kid spent the morning at the circular corral. He was studying the moods and working to win the confidence of the Gold Dust maverick. He was watching her and thinking always a little ahead of the thought that was in the mind of the mare. His love for a horse and understanding of the wonderfully intelligent animals was as natural as were the brown eyes, the soft low voice, the gentle but strong touch, by which it was expressed. He wooed the outlaw filly thoughtfully, 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. "h.e.l.l!" 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.

"G.o.d!" 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 G.o.d, 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 the rope till his fingers found the broken strands that told of the weakness that caused Chuck to leave it behind that morning. Bending over it, while his horse ran, he worked frantically to weave a rawhide saddle string into the fiber and so strengthen the dangerous spot.

Thinking only to reach the ranch as quickly as possible Carolyn June guided Old Blue down the trail and through the thin patches of willows and cottonwood trees that grew along the river. The stream looked innocent enough and the crossing perfectly safe. Swift but apparently shallow water flowed close to the northern bank. Beyond that was a clean, pebble strewn bar and then a smaller, narrower p.r.o.ng of the river. On the south side stretched a white, unbroken expanse of sand a hundred feet or more wide and ending against the low slope of the meadow land.

At the brink of the stream Old Blue stopped short and refused to go on.

"What's the matter," Carolyn June laughed lightly, "--afraid of getting your 'little tootsies' wet?"

The horse reared backward when she tried to urge him ahead and wheeled half around in an effort to get away from the water.

"Look here, Old Fellow," she spoke sharply, tightening the reins as she touched his flank with her spur, "we haven't time for foolishness!

Generally, in fact always," accenting the last word, "horses--and men--go in the direction I want them to go! Why, you're as stubborn--as--as the Ramblin' Kid!" she finished with another laugh as Old Blue, with a snort of fear, yet not daring to resist further the firm hand and firmer will of his rider, stepped into the water.

"Gee, when you do start you go in a hurry, don't you?" Carolyn June said as the broncho went rapidly forward as if eager to negotiate the crossing, seeming to know that safety lay in the quickness and lightness of his tread. As he lunged ahead the girl had the sensation that the saddle was sinking from under her. Reaching the firmer footing of the gravel bar in the center of the stream Old Blue tried again to turn about.

"Go on!" Carolyn June cried impatiently yet with a feeling somehow of impending danger she could not wholly define, "--you've got to do it, so you had as well quit your nonsense and go ahead!" at the same time raking the horse's sides sharply again with the spurs.

Crossing the shallow branch of the river the broncho reached the smooth, firm appearing beach of sand.

With his head down, his muzzle almost touching the ground, as if scenting, feeling, his way, he went forward stepping rapidly, easily, as possible. At each step his foot slipped lower into the yielding, quivering ma.s.s. Carolyn June felt him tremble and the sensation that the horse was being pulled from under her grew more and more p.r.o.nounced. She noticed how he sank into the sand and observed also the sweat beginning to darken the hair on the neck of her mount.

"Pretty soft, isn't it?" she said, speaking to the broncho kindly as though to encourage him and perhaps at the same time to allay a bit the queer sense of uneasiness she felt, for even yet she did not realize the danger into which she had unknowingly ridden.

Half-way to the firm black soil of the southern bank of the stream Old Blue's front feet seemed suddenly to give way beneath him. He began to plunge desperately. Then it was the truth came to Carolyn June. Her cheeks grew white.

"The quicksand!" she exclaimed aloud, at the same time trying to help the horse with a lift of the reins. It was too late to turn back. Her only salvation lay in reaching the solid ground such a few yards ahead--and yet so fearfully far away. Old Blue struggled madly to go forward, gaining a little but at each effort sinking deeper into the sand. Carolyn June tried to encourage him with words:

"Come on, come on! Good Little Horse--you can make it! Keep trying--that's it--now!--you're doing it! Brave Old Blue--don't give up--don't give up, Boy!" she pleaded, pity for the horse causing her almost to forget her own terrible peril.

It was useless.

Twenty-five feet from safety Old Blue's front quarters went down until his breast was against the sand. The hind legs were buried to the stifles. He wallowed and floundered helplessly. His hoofs touched nothing solid on which to stand. He stretched his head forward, straining-to lift himself away from that horrible, clinging suction. His efforts only forced him down--down--always down!

Carolyn June's own feet were in the sand. She threw herself from the saddle--as far to one side and ahead of the horse as she could. With her weight removed perhaps Old Blue could get out. Anyway it was death to stay on the horse. Perhaps alone she could escape--she was lighter--the sand might hold her up--by moving rapidly surely she could go that short twenty-five feet to the firm ground ahead of her. At the first step she sank half-way to her thigh. She fell forward thinking to crawl on her hands and knees. Her arms went into the ma.s.s to the shoulder.

Silently--without a word--but with horrible fear gripping her heart she fought the sand. She sank deeper--slowly--steadily--surely. The h.e.l.lish stuff closed about her body to the waist. If she only had something--anything--solid to hold to! She took off her hat, grasped the edges of the brim, reached her arms out and tried to use the frail disk of felt for a buoy. It held a moment then gradually settled below the surface of the shifting, elusive substance. Again and again she lifted the hat free from the sand and sought to place it so it would bear a part at least of her weight. Her efforts were vain. The insidious ma.s.s crept higher and higher on her body. She remembered reading that one caught in the quicksand by his struggles only hastened his own destruction. She tried to be perfectly still. In spite of all she was sinking--sinking--the sand was engulfing her.

During all her struggles Carolyn June remained silent. She had not thought to cry out. Somehow she could not realize that she was to die.

The sun was bright, the sky cloudless, the trees along the river-bank barely swayed in a little breeze! How beautiful the world! How queer that such a little distance away was the green gra.s.s of the meadow and the firm black earth in which it was rooted and she--she was held fast and helpless in the embrace of the deadly sand! Strange thoughts rushed through her mind. She wondered what they would think at the ranch when night came and she did not return. Would they know? Would they guess the thing that had happened? Would the sand draw her down--down--until it covered her so none would ever know where or how she died? She looked at Old Blue. "Poor old fellow!" she whispered, "I am sorry--I didn't know--it looked so white and firm and safe!" The sand was half-way up the sides of the horse and he swayed his body in pathetic, futile efforts to free himself.

A strange calm came over Carolyn June. So this was the end? She was to die alone, horribly, in the treacherous sands of the Cimarron? Surely it could not be--G.o.d would not let her die! She was so young! She had just begun to live--She thought of Hartville, her father, the old friends.

How far away they seemed! How queer it was--she could not image in her mind any of the familiar scenes, the face of her father or any of the friends she had known so well! She tried to think of her Uncle Josiah, Ophelia, Skinny Rawlins--poor fellow, how susceptible was his big, innocent, boyish heart! She called each one up in a mental effort to remember how they had looked, the sound of their voices--they were only names--dim shadowy names! There was nothing in the whole world but Old Blue--herself--and the sand--the sand--an eternity of sand pulling, dragging, sucking her down! She closed her eyes tightly, thinking to shut out the impression of utter loneliness. The face of the Ramblin'

Kid flashed into her mind! She could see him! She saw him lying under the shed, as he had looked that morning, his head resting on the saddle, his eyes gazing steadily into her own; she saw him again as he had looked when she stung him with her harsh words at the gate. She seemed to see the agonized humility in his expression and hear the low tenseness of his voice as he repeated aloud the words she had used--"An ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" She laughed almost hysterically. "Why can I see him--just him--and not the others? Has he come to--to--haunt me?" she finished with a gasp.

The sand had reached her breast. How long before it clutched at her throat? Her mouth? Her eyes? Ah, would she hold up her arm as she went down--down--and reach out her hand as if to wave the world a last, long farewell? "I will--I will!" she cried, the pressure around her body almost stopping her breath, "I--I--will--and--wiggle my fingers to the end!" she added with a choking half-hysterical laugh, so tightly did she cling to life. Her mood changed. "I--guess--I ought to pray!" she said, "but--I--G.o.d--G.o.d knows anyhow!" her voice trailing away to a whisper as if she had grown suddenly, utterly, tired. She stretched out her hands once more with the hat, trying to use it to buoy her up. Under the weight of her arms it sank in the sand. She tossed it to one side. "It will--stay--on top by itself," she choked. "I--I--will leave it--maybe they will find it--and know--" She felt her senses were leaving her.

Even yet she had not called for help. It had not occurred to her that rescue was possible. As if it were an echo to her thoughts there came the throbbing tattoo of hoofs pounding the earth. She listened intently.

Some one was riding down the lane toward the river from the ranch! The horse was evidently running--running madly, desperately. Would he cross at the upper or lower ford? Her heart pulsed with heavy dull throbs. The sand was crushing her chest. A wave of weakness swept over her. She almost fainted. At that instant Captain Jack, carrying the Ramblin' Kid, leaped through an opening in the willows and stopped--his front feet plowing the firm ground at the edge of the quivering beach of sand.

"Pure luck!" the Ramblin' Kid breathed fervently, his eye quickly measuring the distance to the nearly exhausted girl; "she's close enough I can reach her with th' rope! G.o.d, if it'll only hold!" Already the coils were in his hand. With a single backward fling of the noose and forward toss he dropped the loop over the head of Carolyn June.

"Pull it up--close--under your arms!" he commanded shortly, "an' hang on with your hands to take th' strain off your body!"

The girt obeyed without a word.

He double half-hitched the rope to the horn of the saddle, swung Captain Jack around. "Look out!" he called to the girl as he started away from the brink of the sand. "Steady, Boy, be careful--" to the broncho. The slack gradually tightened. The strain drew on Carolyn June's arms till it seemed they would be pulled from the sockets. The rope cut cruelly into her body under her shoulders. She wanted to cry--to scream--to laugh. She did neither. She threw back her head and clung with all her strength to the rough lariat, stretched taut as a cable of steel.

The Ramblin' Kid leaned forward in the saddle, his body half turned, eyes looking back along the straight line of the severely tested rope.

He swore softly, steadily, under his breath. "G.o.d--if it will only hold--if it only don't break!"

Slowly, surely, the little stallion leaned his weight against the tensely drawn riata and Carolyn June felt herself lifted, inch by inch, out of the sand that engulfed her. At last she fell forward--her body free. Without stopping the horse the Ramblin' Kid continued away from the river-bank and dragged the girl across the yielding surface to the solid earth and safety. The instant she was where he could reach her he whirled Captain Jack and rode quickly back. Carolyn June was trying to get to her feet when he sprang from the broncho and helped her to the firm ground on which he stood. She was panting and exhausted.

"Get--get--Old Blue out!" she gasped and dropped limply down on the gra.s.s, fingering at the rope to remove it from around her body.

"Danged if she ain't got more heart than I thought she had!" the Ramblin' Kid said to himself as he lifted the loop from over her head.