to know all of those things, any of those things, before a girl like
me--"

He crushed her to him and stopped the words on her lips.

"My God--don't fool me--be sure you know!" he cried, his whole body
quivering with the intensity of his feelings; "don't tell me you love
me--unless you mean it! I can stand to love you--without hope--in
silence--alone! But I can't--an' I swear I won't, be lifted up to Paradise
just to be dropped again into the depths of hell! Don't say you love me
unless you know it is _all_ love! Half love ain't love--it's a lie! An'
love ain't to play with! Don't insult God by makin' a joke of th' thing
He made an' planted in th' hearts of all Creation to hold th' Universe
together."

"Ramblin' Kid," she whispered softly, "God himself is looking down into
my heart!"

He smothered her mouth with his own--they drank each other in, their
souls mingled in a mad-sense-reeling, time-defying pressure of lips!

It was their hour, as was the next and yet the one that followed that.

When the old-rose of dawn melted the gray above the sand-hills behind
them and the white moon was fading in the zenith above the Kiowa; when
the cottonwoods beside the Cimarron began to shake their leaves in the
morning breeze that tripped across the valley; when the low buildings of
the Quarter Circle KT silhouetted against the bench beyond the meadows;
when the smooth surface of the beach of quicksand under which the body
of Old Blue was hidden began to look smoother yet and still more firm,
the Ramblin' Kid and Carolyn June parted.

"I'm goin' away," he said; "I'm goin' away, Carolyn June, but I'm goin'
for another reason now. I'm goin' away an' make myself so you'll never
have a chance to be ashamed of me! I'm goin' away an' learn how to talk
without cussin' 'most every other word--I'm goin' away an' get that
polish I know; women love in men th' same as they love their own shoes
to be shiny an' their own dresses to be soft an' dainty! When I've got
that I'll come back! I ain't goin' to Mexico. I'm going to ride into
that world that you come out of an' when I'm so you'll be proud to walk
in that world with me--when I'm so you won't need to apologize for me in
Hartville or any other place, I'm comin' back an' a preacher can O.K.
th' bargain you an' me have made! Will you keep faith an' be true,
Carolyn June? Will you keep faith an' be true--? Will you be waitin'?"

"I'll be waiting," she whispered, "--and keep faith and b