Skinny's hand crept slyly across the rock and found the pink fingers of Carolyn June. She did not draw away. "Carolyn June," he whispered haltingly, "Carolyn June--I--Old Heck and Ophelia have got married--let's you and--and--" "Please, Skinny, don't say it!" she interrupted, her voice trembling. "I--I know what you mean! It hurts me. Listen, Skinny"--she hurried on, determined to end it quickly--"maybe you will despise me, but--I like you, truly I do--but not _that_ way! I don't want to grieve you--I wish us to be just good friends--that's why I'm telling you! Let's be friends, Skinny--just friends--we can't be any more than that--" Skinny understood. A dull, throbbing pain tightened about his throat. His fingers gripped Carolyn June's hand an instant and then relaxed. The whole world seemed suddenly blank. "Can't you--won't you--ever--ca--care?" he asked in a voice filled with despair. "I do care, boy," she replied softly, "I do care--but not that way! Oh, Skinny," she exclaimed, wishing to make it as easy as possible for the sentimental cowboy at her side, "maybe I have done wrong to let you go ahead, but, well, I found out--I guessed the 'arrangements'--how you had been chosen to make 'love' to me and how Parker and Uncle Josiah were to divide Ophelia between them. Perhaps that is why I have flirted so--just to punish you all! Truly, Skinny, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me like--like--the Ramblin' Kid does!" she finished with a shaky little laugh. "He--don't hate you," Skinny answered dully, "at least I don't think th' Ramblin' Kid hates you--or anybody. And you knowed all the time that I was getting paid to make love to you? Well, I was," he added chokingly, "but I'd have done it for nothing if I'd had the chance!" "Yes, Skinny," she replied, "I knew--I know--and I don't blame you!" "I don't blame you, either," he said humbly, "it was a--a--excuse me, Carolyn June--a damned mean trick to frame up on you and Ophelia that way--but we didn't know what to do with you! I reckon," he continued in the same despairing tone, "I was a blamed fool!" For a long moment they sat silent. "Carolyn June," Skinny finally said, a sigh of resignation breaking from his lips, "I'll be what you said--just a good friend--I always will be that to you! But before we start in, do you mind if I--if I--go up to Eagle Butte and get--drunk!" In spite of herself she laughed. But in it was a tenderness almost mother-like. "Poor disappointed, big boy," she answered and her eyes filled, "if it will make you happy, go ahead and get--get--drunk, 'soused,' all over--just this once!" With only a passing pang Carolyn June was willing for Skinny to get drunk--to do the thing she had been scarcely able to forgive in the Ramblin' Kid! For an instant she wondered why. A half-hour later Skinny and Carolyn June went silently down the grade to the ranch house. They had gone up the hill--lovers; they returned--"good friends"--and such they would always be.