with
emphasis, "and if she suits me I'll--I'll ride her!"

"I'll go with you," Skinny offered as Carolyn June stepped from the
kitchen door and started toward the circular corral.

"Never mind!" she spoke shortly, "--you can go catch 'Old Blue'
and"--with scorn in her voice--"if he's able to walk, maybe it will be
safe for me to ride him to the end of the lane and back--Ugh! 'Old
Blue!' The very name sounds as if he was dead!"

"Old Blue's a good horse," Skinny protested, "--we work him on the hay
derrick--"

But Carolyn June was gone, walking rapidly across the open ground in the
direction of the corral in which the Ramblin' Kid had turned Captain
Jack and the Gold Dust filly.

"Jumpin' eats!" Bert exclaimed as the cowboys started toward the stable,
"didn't the young one show her teeth sudden?"

"Skinny's going to have his hands full if he don't look out," Charley
Saunders remarked sagely. "Still that kind ain't as dangerous as the
ones that act plumb gentle like the widow has acted so far."

"Any female is treacherous," Chuck observed grimly. "They're just like
cinch-binders--you can't tell when they're going to rare up and fall
over backwards!"

"I'll bet Ophelia turns out to be a W.C.T.U. or something," Bert
predicted solemnly.

"If she does it's all off with the Quarter Circle KT, because Parker and
Old Heck are both in love already," Charley said as they rounded the
corner of the barn.

Carolyn June gave a gasp of admiration as she stepped up to the circular
corral and saw the Gold Dust maverick closely.

"Oh, you beauty! You adorable beauty!" she breathed.

Captain Jack and the filly were near the fence next to the shed. Carolyn
June passed in between the low building and the corral to be closer to
the horses. The sky was cloudless and a wonderful liquid blue; the sun
glistened on the rich, golden, brown sides of the mare and made her coat
shine like delicate satin. When Captain Jack and the filly saw Carolyn
June they stood for a moment as rigid as though cast in bronze, heads
held high, eyes fixed curiously yet without fear on the slender girlish
figure.

Captain Jack took a step forward in a half-challenging way. The
maverick stood perfectly still.

"You beauty," the girl repeated, "you wonderful golden beauty! You are
going to be my horse--I'm going to ride you--_just you_--"

"You'll get you're neck broke if you do!" a voice, deliberate and of
peculiar softness, said behind her.

Caroly