. Somehow, even his magnificent
ride and the fact that, in spite of his condition, he won the race, had
not taken the sting away. She had thought the Ramblin' Kid was
real--rough and crude, perhaps, but all man, rugged-hearted and honest.
Sometimes she wondered if the queer unexplainable antagonism between
herself and the sensitive young cowboy had not, in a measure, been
responsible for his sudden moral breaking down. The thought caused her
to lose some of that frivolity that inspired the dance and the wild
flirtations she carried on that night with all the cowboys of the
Quarter Circle KT. After all, these plain, simple-acting men of the
range were just boys grown big in God's great out-of-doors where things
are taken for what they seem to be. No wonder an artless look from
sophisticated brown eyes swept them off their feet!

She made up her mind to disillusion Skinny at once.

After supper the quartette gathered in the front room.

"Come on, Skinny," Carolyn June said with forced gaiety, "let us take a
walk. That pair of cooing doves"--with a playfully tender glance at
Ophelia and Old Heck--"wish nothing so much as to be permitted to
'goo-goo' at each other all by their little lonelies!"

Bareheaded she and Skinny strolled out the front gate and along the road
that led up to the bench. At the top of the grade they sat down, side by
side, on a large boulder that hung on the brink of the bench. The
Quarter Circle KT lay before them--restful and calm in the shadows of
early evening. The poplars along the front-yard fence stood limp in the
silent air. Across the valley the sand-hills were mellowing with the
coming softness of twilight. Up the river, to the west, beyond Eagle
Butte, a summer thunder-cloud was climbing higher and higher into the
sky. In the direction of Dry Buck, far toward the northwest, a fog of
dust was creeping along the horizon, gradually approaching the upland
pasture. Skinny saw it.

"By golly," he cried, "that's either Parker and the boys coming in with
the cattle--or else it's a band of sheep! It surely can't be
'woollys'--they never get over in there! If it's our outfit, though,
they've got through quicker than they figured!"

A few moments later the dim bulk of the "grub-wagon" appeared, miles
away, slowly crawling toward the Quarter Circle KT.

For a time Skinny and Carolyn June were silent.

Skinny's hand crept slyly across the rock and found the pink fingers of
Carolyn June. She did