The Ramblin' Kid Part 36

"You bet!" Skinny exclaimed. "That ought to fix it!"

It did.

The s.h.i.+rt, when finally dried, was a wonderful thing--done in a sort of mottled, streaky, marbled sky and cloud effect.

But Skinny wore it, declaring he liked it better--that it more nearly matched the shamrock tie--than when it was "too darned white and everything!"

To Parker and the boys on the beef hunt everything was business.

The days were filled with hard riding as they gathered the cattle, bunched the fat animals, cut out and turned back those unfit for the market, stood guard at night over the herd, steadily and rapidly cleaned the west half of the Kiowa range of the stuff that was ready to sell.

It was supper-time on one of the last days of the round-up.

The outfit was camped at Dry Buck. Bed rolls, wrapped in dingy gray tarpaulins or black rubber ponchos, were scattered about marking the places where each cowboy that night would sleep. The herd was bunched a quarter of a mile away in a little cove backed by the rim of sand-hills.

Captain Jack and Silver Tip, riderless but with their saddles still on, were nipping the gra.s.s near the camp--the Ramblin' Kid and Chuck were to take the first watch, until midnight, at "guard mount." Parker and the cowboys were squatted, legs doubled under them, their knees forming a table on which to hold the white porcelain plate of "mulligan," in a circle at the back of the grub-wagon. Sing Pete trotted around the group and poured black, blistering-hot coffee into the unbreakable cups on the ground at the side of the hungry, dusty riders.

The sun had just dipped into the ragged peaks of the Costejo range and a reddish-purple crown lay on the crest of Sentinel Mountain forty miles to the southeast.

"It looks to me like Parker's sort of losing out," Chuck suddenly remarked, as he wiped his lips on the back of his hand after was.h.i.+ng down a mouthful of the savory stew with gulps of steaming coffee.

"Ophelia stuck closer than thunder to Old Heck all through the Rodeo."

Parker reddened and growled: "Aw, h.e.l.l--don't start that up again!"

"By criminy, she didn't stick any closer to Old Heck than Skinny stuck to Carolyn June," Bert complained. "n.o.body else had a look-in!"

"Skinny's sure earning his money," Charley muttered half enviously.

"Bet he's got on that white s.h.i.+rt and having a high old time right now!

They're probably in the front room and she's playing _La Paloma_ on the piano while Old Skinny's setting back rolling his eyes up like a bloated yearling!" Chuck laughed.

"And Old Heck and Ophelia are out on the porch holding hands and looking affectionate while the mosquitos are chewing their necks and ankles!"

Bert added with a snicker.

"Her and Old Heck'll probably be married before we get back," Chuck said solemnly, with a wink at the Ramblin' Kid and a sly glance in the direction of Parker.

"Do you reckon there's any danger of it?" Parker asked in a voice that showed anxiety, but not of the sort the cowboys thought.

"They're darned near sure to," Chuck replied seriously, heaving what he tried to make resemble a sigh of sympathy.

"What makes you think so?" Parker questioned, seeking confirmation from the lips of other, of a hope that had been rising in his heart since the first moment he had begun to regret his rash proposal of marriage to the widow.

"Well, for one thing"--Chuck began soberly--"the way they'd look at each other--"

"I saw her squeeze Old Heck's arm once!" Bert interrupted.

"Aw, she's done that lots of times," Chuck said airily; "that ain't nothing special! But the worst indication was them flowers she wore on her bosom every day--_Old Heck bought 'em_!" he finished dramatically, leaning over and speaking tensely as though it pained him immeasurably to break the news to Parker while he fixed on Old Heck's rival a look he imagined was one of supreme pity.

"Yeah, he had them sent up from Las Vegas," Bert added, picking up the cue and lying glibly. "I saw the express agent deliver a box of them to him one day. There was four dollars and eighty cents charges on 'em!"

A gleam, which the cowboys misunderstood, came into Parker's eyes.

"Why don't you and Old Heck fight a duel about Ophelia?" Bert suggested tragically and in a voice that was aimed to convey sympathy to the Quarter Circle KT foreman. "You could probably kill him!"

"Sure, that's the way they do in books," Chuck urged.

"Yes," the Ramblin' Kid broke in with a slow drawl, "fight one with sour-dough biscuits at a hundred yards! That'd be sensible--then both of you'd be genuine heroes!"

"Gosh, th' Ramblin' Kid's awake!" Bert laughed. "How does it happen you ain't fell in love with Carolyn June?" he asked, turning toward the slender, dark-eyed, young cowboy. "So far you're the only one that's escaped. The rest of us are breaking our hearts--"

For an instant the Ramblin' Kid flashed on Bert a look of hot anger while a dull red glow spread over his sun-tanned cheeks.

"There's enough d.a.m.ned fools loose on th' Kiowa range without me bein'

one, too!" he retorted slowly, getting up and going toward Captain Jack.

"Blamed if he'll stand a bit of jos.h.i.+ng on that subject!" Bert muttered, his own face flus.h.i.+ng from the look the Ramblin' Kid had given him.

"Not a darned bit," Chuck added, "but it is funny; the way he shys off from Carolyn June!"

"Th' Ramblin' Kid ain't interested in women," Charley said, as they pitched their plates to one side and the meal was finished. "He ain't the kind that bothers with females!"

When Chuck had idly suggested that Old Heck and Ophelia might be married before Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys returned to the ranch from the beef hunt, he did not know it, but the words he spoke in jest voiced the very thought at the same instant in the mind of Old Heck--miles away though he was. Perhaps it was mental telepathy, thought vibration, subconscious soul communication--or a mere coincident, that caused Chuck, far out on the open range, to speak the thing Old Heck, sitting at supper with Carolyn June, Ophelia and Skinny, at the Quarter Circle KT was thinking.

Ever since Parker had voluntarily surrendered during the Rodeo, his right to alternate, day and day about, with Old Heck in the widow's society, the owner of the Quarter Circle KT had been watching Ophelia, covertly and carefully, for any sign of "Movements" or an outbreak as a dreaded suffragette.

While he watched her the widow was becoming more and more a necessity in the life of Old Heck.

The night of the conversation between Parker and the cowboys, away over at Rock Creek, Old Heck sat at the supper table in the kitchen at the ranch and debated in his mind the future relations.h.i.+ps of Parker, Ophelia and himself. In a few days Parker would return. Almost certainly the foreman would again wish to share, fifty-fifty, in the courts.h.i.+p of the widow. Old Heck felt that if such were so those odd days, when Parker was with Ophelia, would be little less than h.e.l.l. Yet, he dreaded that suffragette business. If she would only break loose and let him see how bad she was liable to be he could easily make up his mind. He was almost ready to take a chance, to ask Ophelia to marry him and settle it all at once.

Throughout the meal he was moody. After supper he had little to say and the next few days he brooded constantly over the matter.

Tuesday Parker and the cowboys were expected to return with the beef cattle. Monday morning, at breakfast, the widow asked Old Heck if he would take her to Eagle b.u.t.te that day.

"I must see the minister's wife," she said, as Old Heck steered the Clagstone "Six" up the grade that led out to the bench and to Eagle b.u.t.te, "--it is very important"

Old Heck murmured a.s.sent and drove silently on. Probably she was going to start a "Movement" or something to-day! To-morrow, Parker would be back. It sure did put a man in a d.i.c.kens of a fix!

Before they reached the long bridge across the Cimarron a mile from Eagle b.u.t.te Old Heck's mind was made up.

"You want to stop at the preacher's house?" he asked.

"If you please," Ophelia replied, "for some little time. There are things to discuss--"

"Would you mind if I drove around to the court-house first?" Old Heck questioned again.

"Not at all," she answered sweetly.

A few moments later Old Heck stopped the Clagstone "Six" in front of the yellow sandstone county building. Leaving Ophelia in the car with the remark, "I'll be out in a minute!" he went inside and hurried along the dark corridor that led to the clerk's office.