The Ramblin' Kid Part 2

"Dear niece Carolyn June Dixon and Chaperon: Sorry, but there's an epidemic of smallpox at the Quarter Circle KT and you can't come. Chuck is dying with it. Old Heck's plumb prostrated, Bert is already broke out, Pedro is starting to and Skinny Rawlins and the Ramblin' Kid are just barely able to be up. I love you too much to want you to catch it.

Please go back to Hartville and give my regards to your pa and don't expose yourself. Answer by return telegram so I'll know your intentions.

Affectionately and absolutely your Uncle Josiah Heck," Parker read after writing a few moments. "How's that?"

"Sounds all right."

"Got it ready?" Chuck called from the fence, while Silver Tip, the trim-built half-blood Hambletonian colt he was riding, reared and pranced, eager for the road and a run.

"For lord's sake hurry up, Chuck," Old Heck yelled as the Ramblin' Kid handed the paper to Chuck and the cowboy whirled his horse into a gallop toward Eagle b.u.t.te. "Have the agent send it in care of whatever train they might be on and get an answer, then come back as quick as possible --waiting is agony!"

It was a long afternoon for Old Heck and the cowboys of the Quarter Circle KT. A band of colts were in the circular corral to be gentled to rope, saddle and hackamore. Old Heck sat on the top pole of the corral and moodily watched the struggle of the men and horses in the dry, dusty enclosure as one by one each young broncho was roped, saddled and ridden. Frequently he turned longing eyes toward Eagle b.u.t.te, anxious for sight of the cloud of dust from which Chuck would emerge bringing, he hoped, word that Carolyn June and Ophelia Cobb had heeded the misleading message.

The sun crept across the western sky and dropped lower and lower until it hung at last, a blazing disk of fire, close above the highest peaks of the Costejo mountain range. The poplars in front of the house flung slim black shadows across the low adobe buildings and splashed the tip of their shade in the dust-cloud that filled with haze the corral a hundred yards away. Sing Pete stepped from the door and beat a tattoo on the iron triangle suspended by a piece of wire from the lowest branch of a mesquit tree at the corner of the house, announcing by the metallic clamor that the work of the day was finished and supper was ready and waiting. Parker swung back the heavy gate at the corral entrance and the dozen colts, sweat streaks on heads and backs and bellies where hackamore, saddle and cinches told of the lessons of the afternoon, pus.h.i.+ng and jamming and with a clatter of hoofs, whirled out to freedom, around the stable and down a lane into an open meadow.

Kicking off their chaps the cowboys tossed them on the riding gear, piled already against the fence of the corral, and straggled stiffly toward the house. On the wire enclosing the back yard Sing Pete had hung a couple of heavy towels, coa.r.s.e and long. Some basins and several chunks of yellow laundry soap were on a bench beside an irrigation ditch that ran along the fence just inside the gate. Old Heck, Parker and the cowboys stopped at the ditch, pitched their hats on the gra.s.s and dipping water from the ditch scoured the dust and sweat from their faces and hands.

All were silent as if each was troubled with thoughts too solemn to be spoken aloud.

At last, Skinny, handing a towel to Bert after drying his own sun-tanned face and hands, remarked inanely:

"Chuck ain't come, has he?"

"Slupper!" Sing Pete called.

They filed into the kitchen and each took his regular place at the long, oilcloth covered table. The food, wholesome, plain and abundant, was already served.

Silently each heaped his plate with the viands before him while Sing Pete circled the table pouring coffee into the white porcelain cups. The Quarter Circle KT was famous for the excellence of its grub and the c.h.i.n.k was an expert cook.

"Lordy, oh, lordy," Old Heck groaned, "it don't seem possible them women are coming!"

"Maybe they won't," Parker sympathized. "When they get that telegram they ought to turn around and go back--"

"Chuck's coming!" Bert Lilly exclaimed at that moment and the sound of a horse stopping suddenly at the front of the house reached the ears of the group at the table.

"Go ask him if he got an answer, somebody, quick!" Old Heck cried.

As Charley Saunders sprang to his feet Chuck yelled, "They got it and sent an answer! I got one--" and rushed excitedly through the house and into the kitchen waving an envelope, twin to the one Skinny had brought earlier in the day. "They're on Train Number Seventeen, the agent said--"

"My Gawd!" Old Heck gasped, "what does it say? Give it here!" reaching for the message the cowboy held in his hand.

"Good lord, it didn't work!" he groaned as he read the telegram and handed it across the table to Parker.

"Read it out loud," several spoke at once.

"'We've both had it,'" Parker read, "'and are not afraid. Anyhow we think you are a darned old lovable liar. Will arrive according to schedule. If you are not a liar we'll nurse you back to health and happiness. If you are, watch out! Your affectionate but suspicious little niece Carolyn June Dixon. Postscript: Are there any nice wild, untamed, young cowboys out there?--Carolyn J.'"

"h.e.l.l-fire!" Skinny said, "what'll we do?"

No answer. Chuck went moodily out to attend to his horse, and the meal was finished in silence. Even Sing Pete seemed deeply depressed. After supper Old Heck straightened up and in a do-or-die tone said:

"We'll all go out where it's cool and hold a caucus and figure what ought to be done."

"There ain't nothing we can do but surrender, as far as I can see,"

Parker observed gloomily as they gathered on the porch in front of the house. "They seem plumb determined to arrive--"

"I've already give up hope," Old Heck answered, "but what will we do with them when they get here? We can't just brand 'em and turn them loose on the range."

"I make a motion we elect Skinny to ride herd on 'em!" Bert Lilly suggested.

"d.a.m.ned if I do!" Skinny exclaimed uneasily.

"It's a good idea," Parker said. "From all accounts the young one expects to be made love to and if she ain't she'll probably be weeping around all the time--"

"Well, I can't stand sobbin'!" Old Heck declared. "Any female is hard enough to endure and one that gets to mourning is plumb distasteful!

"That's probably the best thing to do," he continued, "just appoint Skinny to be official love-maker to Carolyn June while she's at the Quarter Circle KT. It will probably save confusion--"

"I brought the telegram telling about them coming and I've done my share," Skinny protested; "somebody else can be delegated to do the love-making!"

"That's just the reason it ought to be your job," Old Heck argued; "you went and got the telegram in the first place and are sort of responsible for them being here."

"Aw, let th' Ramblin' Kid do it," Skinny pleaded, "he's an easy talker and everything--"

The Ramblin' Kid straightened up and started for the gate.

"Where you going?"

"To catch Capt'n Jack," he drawled; "after that for a little ride down to th' Pecos or over in Chihuahua somewhere a couple hundred miles. I decline with enthusiasm to fall in love on th' spur of th' moment for any d.a.m.ned outfit!"

"You come on back," Parker called, "Skinny'll have to do it. He can have all his time for it and just pretend he's in love and sort of entertain her. He don't need to go and do it in earnest. Come on back, you darned chump, I need you on the beef hunt!"

"What'll I have to do?" Skinny asked cautiously.

"Just set on the front porch with her at night and make your eyes roll up like a calf's that's being branded and kind of sigh heart-broken once in a while," Bert volunteered. "It'll be easy when you get used to it--"

"If you know so much about it why don't you enlist yourself?" Skinny asked irritably. "Some of you fellows go on and volunteer," he pleaded dolefully.

"I would in a minute," Chuck chipped in, "if I was good-looking like Skinny and had a white s.h.i.+rt--"

"What's a white s.h.i.+rt got to do with it?"

"Listen to the innocent child," Chuck laughed, "as if any darned fool didn't know that the first thing a professional love-maker has to have is a white s.h.i.+rt!"

"That settles it," Skinny declared with emphasis, "I won't wear a white s.h.i.+rt to make love to no blamed woman--"

"Chuck's locoed," the Ramblin' Kid interposed; "you don't need to have no white s.h.i.+rt--of course it would be better but it ain't downright necessary--women don't fall in love with s.h.i.+rts, it's what's inside of them."

"Where did you find out so much about women?" Bert queried.