The Ramblin' Kid Part 4

The lanky marshal had reached the station.

"It's a good thing there's prohibition in this town," Skinny muttered as he stepped from the car and started brus.h.i.+ng the dust from his coat;

"Why?"

"'Cause I'd go get drunk if there wasn't--. Wonder if a feller could get any boot-leg liquor?"

"Better leave it alone," Old Heck warned, "that kind's worse than none.

It don't make you drunk--just gives you the hysterical hydrophobia!'

"Well, I'd drink anything in an emergency like this if I had it,"

Skinny declared doggedly.

"Train's comin'," Old Heck said shortly; "reckon we'd better go over to the depot--"

"Let's wait here till they get off first," Skinny said. "We can see them from where we are and kind of size 'em up and it won't be so sudden."

"Maybe that would be better," Old Heck answered.

A moment later Number Seventeen, west-bound Santa Fe pa.s.senger train, stopped at the yellow station. The rear cars were obscured from the view of Skinny and Old Heck by freight sheds along the track. With the exception of the engine, baggage, mail and express cars, which were hidden by the depot, the rest of the train was in plain sight.

A couple of men got off the day coach. These were followed by a gawky, weirdly dressed girl of uncertain age carrying an old-fas.h.i.+oned telescope traveling bag. At sight of the girl Skinny caught his breath with a gasp. Immediately following her was the tallest, homeliest woman he had ever seen. Thin to the point of emaciation, a wide striped, ill-fitting dress of some cheap material accentuated the angular lines of her body. A tiny narrow-brimmed hat, bright green, with a white feather, dingy and soiled, sticking straight up at the back made her more than ever a caricature. The woman also carried a bag. The two stepped up to the marshal, standing at the cornet: of the station, apparently asking him a question. He answered, pointing as he did to Old Heck and Skinny leaning silently against the side of their car. The woman and girl started toward them.

Fascinated, the cow-men watched them approach.

"My Gawd!" Old Heck hoa.r.s.ely whispered, "that's them!"

"Let's go!" Skinny exclaimed, sweat starting in unheeded beads on his forehead. "Good lord, let's get in the car and go while we got a chance!"

Old Heck made a move as if to comply, then stopped. "Can't now," he said gloomily, "it's too late!"

As Old Heck turned the woman shrieked in a rasping voice:

"Hey--hey you! Wait a minute!"

The cow-men looked around and stared dumbly, dazedly, at her.

"Can I get you to take me an' my daughter out to that construction camp where they're buildin' a ditch or something?" she asked; "that policeman said maybe we could get you to--" she continued. "I got a job cookin'

out there an' Lize here is goin' to wait on table."

Old Heck, still looking up in her eyes, with horror written on every line of his face, his lips twitching till he could scarcely speak, finally managed to say:

"Ain't--ain't you Ophelia?"

"Ophelia? Ophelia who?" she asked, then before he could speak she answered his question: "Ophelia--huh! No, I ain't Ophelia! I'm Missus Jasamine Swope an' a married woman an' you'd better not try to get fresh or--"

Simultaneous with Old Heck's question, Skinny, his eyes riveted on the dowdy girl, asked in a voice barely audible:

"Are you--are you Carolyn June?"

"No, I ain't Carolyn June," she snorted. "Come on, ma; let's go! Them two's crazy or white slavers or somethin'!"

Expressing their scorn and disdain by the angry flirt of their skirts, the woman and girl whirled and walked briskly away toward the garage at the end of the street.

"Praise th' heavens," Old Heck breathed fervently as he gazed spell-bound after the retreating pair, "it wasn't them!"

"Carolyn June and the widow probably went back after all," Skinny said without, looking around and with the barest trace of disappointment, now that the danger seemed past, in his voice. "Maybe they got to thinking about that telegram and decided not to come at last."

"More than likely that was it," Old Heck answered.

Steps sounded behind them. Skinny and Old Heck turned and again they almost fainted at what they saw. The marshal, a leather traveling bag in each hand, accompanied by two smartly dressed women, approached.

"These ladies are huntin' for you," he said to Old Heck, dropping the bags and mopping his face with the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt. "Guess they're some kind of kin folks," he added.

Concealed by the freight sheds Carolyn June Dixon and Ophelia Cobb had stepped from the Pullman at the rear of the train, unseen by Old Heck and Skinny. Nor had either noticed, being engrossed with the couple that had left than a moment before, the trio coming across from the station.

As the cook and her daughter by their very homeliness had appalled and overwhelmed them, these two, Ophelia and Carolyn June, by their exactly opposite appearance stunned Old Heck and Skinny and rendered them speechless with embarra.s.sment. Both were silently thankful they had shaved that morning and Skinny wondered if his face, like Old Heck's, was streaked with sweat and dust.

For a moment the group studied one another.

Carolyn June held the eyes of Skinny in mute and helpless admiration.

Despite the heat of the blazing sun she looked fresh and dean and pleasant--wholly unsoiled by the marks of travel. A snow-white Panama hat, the brim sensibly wide, drooped over cheeks that were touched with a splash of tan that suggested much time in the open. An abundance of hair, wonderfully soft and brown, showing the slightest glint of coppery red running it in vagrant strands, fluffed from under the hat. The skirt of her traveling suit, some light substantial material, reached the span of a hand above the ankle. White shoes, silk stockings that matched and through which glowed the faint pink of firm, healthy, young flesh, lent charm to the costume she wore. Her lips were red and moist and parted over teeth that were strong and white. A saucy upward tilt to the nose, hinting that Carolyn June was a flirt; brown eyes that were level almost with Skinny's and that held in them a laugh and yet deep below the mirth something thoughtful, honest and unafraid, finished the wreck of the cowboy's susceptible heart. Trim and smooth was Carolyn June, suggesting to Skinny Rawlins a clean-bred filly of saddle strain that has developed true to form.

Old Heck gazed in equal awe at the more mature Ophelia.

Somewhere near forty she may have been, cozily plump and solid. She had gray-blue eyes that were steady and frank yet clearly accustomed to being obeyed. Her hair was a trifle darker in shade than the silky brown on the head of Carolyn June. She was dressed with immaculate neatness and taste and carried that well-preserved a.s.surance no woman in the world save the American of mature development acquires.

There was energy in every line of her body and Ophelia gave Old Heck, the embarra.s.sed owner of the Quarter Circle KT, more thrills in that one moment of silent scrutiny than he ever before had felt in the presence of any woman.

As they looked, Skinny and Old Heck instinctively, a bit awkwardly perhaps, removed the Stetsons they wore on their heads.

"Howdy-do!" Old Heck finally managed to say.

Skinny gulped like an echo, another "Howdy-do!" in the direction of Carolyn June.

"I reckon you are Carolyn June and Missus Ophelia Cobb," Old Heck stammered "Which one of you is which?" unconsciously paying tribute to the well preserved youthfulness of the widow.

"Oh, Ophelia, beware!" Carolyn June laughed, not in the least offended; "the gay old rascal is at it already!"

"He didn't mean nothing" Skinny interposed, sensing that Old Heck some way had made a blunder. "I guess you must be Carolyn June?" looking questioningly at the girl.

"Excuse me," Old Heck said, "I'm your uncle, I suppose, and this is Skinny Rawlins--"

"Howdy-do; I'm glad to meet you," Skinny muttered, reaching for the hand Carolyn June frankly extended.

"I'm glad, too," she replied candidly; "and this is Mrs. Ophelia Cobb--just Ophelia--Uncle Josiah," Carolyn added, turning to Old Heck who clumsily shook hands with the widow while his weather-tanned face flushed a burning, uncomfortably red.

"We was expecting you," he said, retaining life hold on her hand.