Carolyn June stepped to the door. Dimly through the darkness she saw two riders pass up the grade that led to the bench and turn their horses to the west, toward Eagle Butte, and ride straight into the outflung shadow of the thunder-storm--from which now and then leaped jagged flashes of lightning--and which was rolling from the Costejo Mountains across the Kiowa range in the direction of the Quarter Circle KT. Silent and with a heavy heart she turned away from the door. CHAPTER XIX THE GREEK GETS HIS It was long after midnight when the Ramblin' Kid and Skinny rode into Eagle Butte and the heels of Captain Jack and Old Pie Face echoed noisily on the board floor of the livery stable as the bronchos turned into the wide, open doorway of the barn. A drowsy voice from the cubby-hole of an office called: "In just a minute--I'll be out!" "Aw, thunder," Skinny answered, "go on back to sleep, we'll find stalls and put 'em up!" Captain Jack and Old Pie Face cared for, Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid stepped out into the deserted street. Eagle Butte was sleeping. Here and there a blaze of light from a store window invited belated passers to covet the bargains offered within; a half-dozen incandescent bulbs, swung on cross-wires at intervals along the street, glowed feebly as if weary with the effort to beat back the darkness clutching at the throat of the town; over the sidewalk in front of the Elite Amusement Parlor an illuminated red and green sign told that Mike Sabota's place was still open; across the porch of the Occidental Hotel and spilling itself on the ground out in the street a stream of light guided weary travelers to the portals of that ancient, though hospitable, institution; from the sides of the Butte beyond the railroad tracks a coyote yelped shrilly a jerky, wailing challenge--a dozen dogs, suddenly aroused in different parts of the town, answered. "Pretty dead-lookin'," the Ramblin' Kid remarked. "Let's go down to Sabota's." "All right," Skinny replied, and they moved down the street. The pool-room offered nothing of interest. A couple of traveling men, waiting for the early morning train, were playing a listless game of billiards at one of the tables; a pair of Jap sugar-beet workers and a negro section hand sat half-asleep and leaned against the wall; "Red" Jackson, Sabota's chief lieutenant, with an air of utter boredom, lounged behind the soft-drink bar. Sabota was not there. "What's happened to everybody?" Skinny asked; "where's Mike?" "Everybody's got religion, I guess," Red yawned, "and gone to bed. What do you want with Sabota?" looking suspiciously at the Ramblin' Kid; "he's over at Vegas; won't be back till to-morrow--or to-day it is now, I reckon--evening sometime!" "Th' Ramblin' Kid and me have been out in the rain," Skinny said suggestively, "and thought we might take cold--" "Nothing doing!" Red laughed, "ain't a drop around! When Mike gets back he'll fix you up, maybe--that's what he's gone after!"