live and of fiendish cunning, that grasped its victim and then paused
in his destruction to gloat over his hopeless agony.

The Ramblin' Kid sat Captain Jack and watched.

"Why did God ever want to make that stuff anyhow!" sprang hoarsely from
his lips. He was torn between blind unreasoning anger at the quicksand
and pity for the struggling horse. Suddenly he jerked the forty-four,
always on his saddle, from its holster. As the gun swung back and then
forward there was a crashing report and Old Blue's head dropped, with a
convulsive shudder, limp on the sand.

Carolyn June screamed and buried her face in her hands.

At the sound of the shot Captain Jack stiffened and stood rigid. The
Ramblin' Kid, his face white and drawn, sat and looked dry-eyed at the
red stream oozing from the round hole just below the brow-band of the
bridle on the head of the horse he had killed.

"I--I--would have wanted somebody to do it to me!" he said softly and
rode to the side of the girl huddled on the ground. He dismounted and
stood, without speaking, looking down at her shaking form. After a time
she looked up, through eyes drenched with tears, into his face. Then as
if drawn by an irresistible impulse--one she could not deny--she turned
her head and looked at the spot where Old Blue had fought his last
battle with the quicksands of the Cimarron. A crimson stain, already
darkening, on the white surface; a few square feet of disturbed and
broken sand, even now settling into the smooth, innocent-looking
tranquillity that hid the death lurking in its depths; a short length
of rope, one end drawn beneath the sand, the other lying in a sprawling
coil; her hat resting a little distance to one side, were all that
remained to tell the story of the grim tragedy of the morning. She
shuddered and looked once more into the pain-filled eyes of the Ramblin'
Kid.

"We'd better be goin'," he said quietly, "you're wet an' them clothes
must be uncomfortable. You can ride Captain Jack!"

She stood up weak and trembling.

"I--I--thought Captain Jack was an outlaw," she said with a faint
smile. "He won't let me ride him, will he?"

"He'll let you," the Ramblin' Kid answered dully, "no woman ever has
rode him--or any other man only me--but he'll let you!"

As she approached the stallion he raised his head and looked at her with
a queer mixture of curiosity and antagonism, curving his neck in a
challenging way.

"Jack!" the Ramblin' Kid spoke sharpl