The Ramblin' Kid Part 46

"Ramblin' Kid, oh, Ramblin' Kid," she murmured, while the long lashes lifted over brown pools tenderness, "a man--my man--does not need to be or to know all of those things, any of those things, before a girl like me--"

He crushed her to him and stopped the words on her lips.

"My G.o.d--don't fool me--be sure you know!" he cried, his whole body quivering with the intensity of his feelings; "don't tell me you love me--unless you mean it! I can stand to love you--without hope--in silence--alone! But I can't--an' I swear I wont, be lifted up to Paradise just to be dropped again into the depths of h.e.l.l! Don't say you love me unless you know it is _all_ love! Half love ain't love--it's a lie! An'

love ain't to play with! Don't insult G.o.d by makin' a joke of th' thing He made an' planted in th' hearts of all Creation to hold th' Universe together."

"Ramblin' Kid," she whispered softly, "G.o.d himself is looking down into my heart!"

He smothered her mouth with his own--they drank each other in, their souls mingled in a mad-sense-reeling, time-defying pressure of lips!

It was their hour, as was the next and yet the one that followed that.

When the old-rose of dawn melted the gray above the sand-hills behind them and the white moon was fading in the zenith above the Kiowa; when the cottonwoods beside the Cimarron began to shake their leaves in the morning breeze that tripped across the valley; when the low buildings of the Quarter Circle KT silhouetted against the bench beyond the meadows; when the smooth surface of the beach of quicksand under which the body of Old Blue was hidden began to look smoother yet and still more firm, the Ramblin' Kid and Carolyn June parted.

"I'm goin' away," he said; "I'm goin' away, Carolyn June, but I'm goin'

for another reason now. I'm goin' away an' make myself so you'll never have a chance to be ashamed of me! I'm goin' away an' learn how to talk without cussin' 'most every other word--I'm goin' away an' get that polish I know; women love in men th' same as they love their own shoes to be shiny an' their own dresses to be soft an' dainty! When I've got that I'll come back! I ain't goin' to Mexico. I'm going to ride into that world that you come out of an' when I'm so you'll be proud to walk in that world with me--when I'm so you won't need to apologize for me in Hartville or any other place, I'm comin' back an' a preacher can O.K.

th' bargain you an' me have made! Will you keep faith an' be true, Carolyn June? Will you keep faith an' be true--? Will you be waitin'?"

"I'll be waiting," she whispered, "--and keep faith and be true!"

And he rode away into the face of the red glow rising above the sand-hills. He rode away--to meet the morning sun--hidden yet behind the eastern horizon--to conquer himself, to master the ways of men, in the world that lay beyond!

Carolyn June watched him go.

Then she guided the outlaw filly down the grade, across the Cimarron and along the lane, in the gently stirring dawn, back to the still sleeping Quarter Circle KT. In her heart was a song; in her eyes a new light; in her soul a great peace--on her lips, a smile. She carried in her bosom their secret--hers and the Ramblin' Kid's--and she knew he would return, for he would not lie.

THE END