The Ramblin' Kid Part 8

"What did the--the Ramblin' Kid do?" she asked.

"He just laughed kind of soft and scornful," Skinny said, "and got on Captain Jack and rode away while we was picking the fellow up!"

During the rest of the meal Carolyn June's eyes looked frequently and curiously at the unused plate at her right. She felt, some way, that an affront had been shown her by the absence of the one for whom it was laid. The other cowboys, it was quite evident to her intuitive woman's mind, had looked forward with considerable eagerness to the arrival of herself and Ophelia. The Ramblin' Kid, at the very moment almost of their reaching the Quarter Circle KT, had deliberately mounted Captain Jack and ridden away. It seemed like little less than an intentional snub! In addition to the half-resentment she felt, there remained in her mind an insistent and tormenting picture of the slender, subtle, young rider swaying easily to the swing of Captain Jack as he galloped down the valley earlier in the day.

Bert, Charley, Chuck, before the meal was finished cast frankly admiring glances at Carolyn June and Skinny plainly was gaining confidence at a rapid rate, while Pedro, silent throughout it all, kept, almost constantly, his half-closed eyes fixed in a sidelong look at the girl at the end of the table.

Attention and admiration, Carolyn June expected from men. They had always been hers. She was beautiful and was conscious of it. Had the cowboys of the Quarter Circle KT not registered appreciation of her charms by their looks Carolyn June would have believed something was wrong with her dress or the arrangement of her hair. Her eyes--she was sure of them--without effort lured men to her feet.

"It's hotter than blue blazes in here," Old Heck said when all had finished; "we'd better go out into the big room. Maybe Carolyn June will play some on the piano."

"The boys and me will go on out on the porch," Parker said as they reached the front room, speaking significantly to Old Heck, but in a tone both Ophelia and Carolyn June heard. "We'll leave you and Skinny with the ladies and not intrude--"

"You won't be intruding if you remain," Ophelia said brightly. "Carolyn June and I are not partial at all and want you to feel that we enjoy meeting you all."

"Yes, stay," Carolyn June added, somewhat reluctant that of the entire group only one should be left to the wiles of her unconsciously intentional coquetry; "there is plenty of room in here and it's cool--"

"We're much obliged," Bert said, "but we'd better do the way Parker mentioned. Anyhow that was the agreement."

"Agreement?" Ophelia spoke with a questioning lift of her brows.

"Yes," Chuck said, evidently trying to relieve the embarra.s.sment of Old Heck, Parker and Skinny who looked daggers at Bert when he spoke of an agreement, "Parker and Old Heck was to take turn about--"

"Bert meant," Parker interrupted hastily, "--he meant they--they had to agree not to loaf in this room before Old Heck would give them jobs on the Quarter Circle KT!"

"Yes," Old Heck added quickly, "that was the bargain on account of--of--getting it mussed up and everything and making too much work for Sing Pete to clean it up!"

Ophelia and Carolyn June looked curiously at each other as if they suspected some secret that had to do with their presence at the Quarter Circle KT.

Outside, the cowboys lounged on the porch or lay spread full length on the gra.s.s smoking their cigarettes, and silent. Each was busy with thoughts of his own. Carolyn June had been very impartial during the evening meal, distributing her smiles and little attentions freely among them all. Now she was sitting at the piano playing s.n.a.t.c.hes of random melodies as they came to her mind, while Skinny sat stiffly on a high-backed chair at the corner of the instrument.

A drone of voices reached the ears of Parker and the cowboys as Old Heck, skilfully led on by Ophelia, told about the ranch, the Kiowa range and the traditions of western Texas.

"Can you play _La Paloma?_" Skinny asked as Carolyn June paused after running over a dainty and vivacious one-step, memories of which made her think of Hartville and the fashionable ballrooms where she had reigned as princess at least if not as queen, and which seemed now very far away.

"I'm afraid not--unless I have the music, but I'll try," she answered, and her fingers again sought the keys.

The dreamy Mexican air drifted seductively out on the sultry motionless night.

Bert looked through the window and saw Skinny lean back in his chair, his eyes closed and an expression of supreme content stealing over his face.

"Skinny's gone--he's surrendered," he said to Chuck, lying full length on the porch at his side; "look at the poor cuss with his eyes shut and grinning as if he was seeing visions of Paradise!"

"That combination would capture most anybody," Chuck answered. "I'm starting to feel affectionate myself."

Bert didn't reply, Chuck having expressed too nearly his own swelling emotions.

"Uncle Josiah!" Carolyn June called, suddenly whirling around on the piano stool as she finished the last bars of _La Paloma_, "may I have a horse?"

Old Heck, grown silent under the spell of the music, and, like Skinny, sitting dreaming dreams that almost frightened him, started quickly.

"A--a what?" he asked.

"A horse--" she answered, "a broncho to ride!"

"Oh, uh--sure! Skinny, go get her one!" he replied confusedly.

"Not now," Carolyn June laughed, "to-morrow--any time, whenever I want to use it!"

"Can you ride?" Skinny asked eagerly.

"Ever since I can remember," Carolyn June said, "daddy has kept horses--I love 'em! Ophelia rides, too," she added.

"In automobiles--" Ophelia corrected.

"That's a good arrangement," Skinny said; "it will make everything work out all right."

"I don't understand," Carolyn June said; "what arrangement?"

"We'd better be going to bed, Skinny," Old Heck interposed anxiously, "it's getting late!"

"Guess we had," Skinny said reluctantly. "Gosh, it's warm to-night!"

"You can leave the door and windows open," Old Heck said to Ophelia and Carolyn June as he and Skinny moved toward the door; "we don't have burglars out here."

Parker and the cowboys straightened up when they heard Skinny and Old Heck preparing to leave and went around the corner of the building toward the bunk-house.

Ophelia and Carolyn June stepped out on the porch with Old Heck and Skinny.

The air was oppressively still and hot. The black cloud bank that had hung over the Costejo Mountains earlier in the evening now covered the whole western half of the sky. Night sounds seemed almost stifled by the suffocating heat. From the pasture below the stables the faint call of a kill-deer suddenly shrilled out, followed by intense silence. No lightning flash filled the wall-like blackness slowly creeping over the earth from the west. A pale glow on the rim of the rolling hills across the valley, herald of the moon not yet above the horizon, intensified the pall beneath the approaching cloud. A sullen roar, throbbing angrily, rising and falling in volume, could be heard coming out of the depths of the storm.

"Acts like it's going to be a bad one," Old Heck observed, studying the cloud they all were watching.

"Wicked," Skinny said, "one of them mutterin' kind until it breaks and then all h.e.l.l tears loose."

"If th' Ramblin' Kid is out in the sand-hills to-night he'll--"

A withering stream of fire poured from the cloud almost over their heads; it was accompanied by a crashing peal of thunder that rocked the earth under their feet and stopped the words on Old Heck's lips. The flame lighted the whole valley. They had an instant's glimpse of a writhing, overhanging curtain of dust and rain sweeping toward them. In the glare they saw a giant cottonwood that stood alone in the meadow west of the house reel and sway like a drunken thing and pitch to the earth.

"It's here! It struck that tree!" Old Heck yelled. "Run for the bunk-house, Skinny, maybe we can make it! You women go inside and shut the door!"

Carolyn June and Ophelia sprang--were blown almost--inside the house and slammed the door as another bolt fell, flooding the room with a blaze that made the light from the lamp on the reading table seem faint and dim. Old Heck and Skinny darted around the corner as the tempest pulled and tugged at the buildings of the Quarter Circle KT.

For an hour Ophelia and Carolyn June sat and listened to the storm and while it still raged went to bed.

Carolyn June fell asleep watching the incessant glare of the lightning as flash after flash filled the room with light and illumined the world outside, while the rain and wind lashed the trees in the garden near her window. Above the tumult the words of Old Heck: "If the Ramblin' Kid is out in the sand-hills to-night"--kept repeating themselves over and over in her mind. Try as she would, she could not shut out the picture of a slender young rider, alone, far out on the range in the storm-mad night, unsheltered from the fury and wrath of the elements.