about where he's going," Old Heck said. "He's liable
to be heading for anywhere. What's he riding?" he asked without looking
up.

"Captain Jack," Skinny replied. "Wonder if he ain't going over to Battle
Ridge to find out if it's so about them sheep coming in over there?"

"Maybe," Old Heck grunted, "either that or else he's took a notion to
hunt that Gold Dust maverick again"--referring to a strange, wonderfully
beautiful, outlaw filly that had appeared on the Kiowa range a year
before and tormented the riders by her almost fiendish cunning in
dodging corral or rope--"if he's riding Captain Jack that's probably
what he's after."

"Who is he, what's his real name?" Carolyn June asked with interest.

"Just th' Ramblin' Kid, as far as I know," Old Heck answered.

"Does he live at the Quarter Circle KT?" Carolyn June continued
curiously as she studied the slender form rising and falling with the
graceful rhythm of his horse's motion--as if man and animal were a
single living, pulsing creature.

"Off and on," Old Heck replied, "when he wants to he does and when he
don't he don't. He's a witch with horses and knows he's always got a job
if he wants it, and I reckon that makes him kind of undependable about
staying in any one place long at a time. That's why they call him th'
Ramblin' Kid--he's liable to ramble any minute."

The car curled down the narrow dugway off of the bench and a moment
later stopped at the gate in front of the ranch house of the Quarter
Circle KT.

"We're here," Skinny said, as Sing Pete, the Chinese cook, appeared at
the open door.

"They've come, Sing Pete," Old Heck called, climbing out of the car;
"this is them! Is dinner ready?"

"All leady--waitee!" the Oriental answered, shuffling out to the car to
help with the luggage and twisting and squirming as he kept bowing in
greeting.

"This is great!" Carolyn June said, as she stepped on the long cool
porch in front of the house and paused a moment before entering the open
door, "--it's cool and pleasant, I'm going to like it," she added, as
she went into the big low-ceilinged room.

The floor was bare of carpet but spotlessly clean; shades, but no
curtains, were over the windows; in the center stood a large flat-topped
reading table; at one end of the table was a Morris chair upholstered in
brown Spanish leather; a wolf-skin rug was thrown on the floor before an
old-fashioned Mexican fire-place built into one corner of the room; in
anoth