up in her heart. She thought of the
pink elastic she had lost and which she believed he was carrying now in
his pocket.

"Is the hat all--didn't you--" she intended to say "find something
else?" but quickly stopped. The Ramblin' Kid paused and turned again
toward Carolyn June. She hesitated in confusion. It had flashed to her
mind that if he had the garter he would not lie about it. He would say
as much and offer to return it to her. Someway, she did not wish
that--she wanted him to keep it, but she did not want him to know that
she wanted her garter to be carried by him!

His black eyes looked keenly at her, as if they would force from her
lips the thing she evidently dared not say.

"I--I was just getting acquainted with the Gold Dust maverick!" Carolyn
June finished lamely with a nervous laugh.

"You want to be careful," the Ramblin' Kid said with the slightest curl
of his lips at her obvious shifting of meanings, "she ain't exactly a
'lady's animal' yet. She'll fight. Skinny started to go in th' corral
this morning an' had to back up. Th' maverick went at him to kill.
She's goin' to be a 'one-man' horse th' same as Captain Jack."

"Perhaps it was because she was afraid of him," Carolyn June suggested.

"Maybe it was because Skinny was afraid of her," the Ramblin' Kid
chuckled.

"Aren't you going to ride the filly in that race at Eagle Butte?" she
asked suddenly with a hint of coquetry in her eyes and voice.

"Why?" he shot back at her, observing the changed inflection and look.

"I--I--would like you to," Carolyn June murmured demurely as she
followed up the feminine method of mastering a man, "it would be fun to
see her run!"

"Is that all?" the Ramblin' Kid asked gently and with a peculiar
emphasis.

"Isn't that enough?" the girl countered in a tone bordering close to the
tender.

The answer was slow in coming.

"Th' Gold Dust maverick will be in th' sweepstakes," the Ramblin' Kid
finally said, a note of contempt in his voice. "I'll ride her"--as he
jerked the saddle from Captain Jack, turned the stallion into the
corral, then started toward the bunk-house, while Carolyn June moved
away in the direction of the back-yard gate--"I'll ride her," he
repeated, emphasizing strongly the last ten words, "_to beat that
Thunderbolt horse from over on th' Vermejo_".

CHAPTER XI

A DANCE AND A RIDE

Old Heck and Parker returned from Eagle Butte before noon. Parker
climbed silently from the Clags