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! God, 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. "God--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
grass, 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