Before she could reply an agonized spitting, yowling and hissing, accompanied by the rattle of tin, came from behind the kitchen. "What's that?" Carolyn June cried half frightened at the instant a yellow house cat, his head fastened in an old tomato can, came bouncing backward, clawing and scratching, from around the corner. "Gee whiz!" Skinny exclaimed, "it's that darned cat again--Sing Pete goes and dabs butter in the bottoms of the cans and the fool cat sticks his head in trying to lick it out and gets fastened. It looks like the blamed idiot would learn sometime. It's what I call a rotten joke anyhow!" Sing Pete appeared at the kitchen door cackling with fiendish joy at the success of his ruse. Carolyn June stared, apparently stricken dumb by the antics of the struggling animal. "Sun-fish! Go to it--you poor deluded son-of-sorrow!" The Ramblin' Kid, who, unnoticed by Carolyn June and Skinny, at that moment had come from the corral and stood leaning against the fence, chuckled half pityingly, yet making no move toward the creature. "Catch him and take it off," Carolyn June cried, "it's hurting him!" Skinny started toward the rapidly gyrating jumble of claws, can and cat. "I will if the darn' thing'll hold still a minute!" he said. Carolyn June looked at the Ramblin' Kid, still leaning against the fence watching the cat's contortions. "Why don't you help him?" she asked impatiently. "Skinny can't do it alone--can't you see it's choking?" "No, he's not choking," the Ramblin' Kid replied without moving from where he stood, "--he's sufferin' some, but he ain't chokin'. He's got quite a lot of wind yet an' is gettin' some valuable experience. That cat's what I call a genuine acrobat!" he mused as the terrified creature leaped frantically in the air and somersaulted backward, striking and clawing desperately to free itself of the can tightly wedged on its head. Carolyn June was accustomed to obedience from men creatures. The Ramblin' Kid's indifference to her request, together with his apparent cruelty in refusing to aid in relieving the cat from its torturing dilemma, angered and piqued the girl. "Help Skinny take it off, I tell you!" she repeated, "haven't you a spark of sympathy--" The Ramblin' Kid resented her tone and detected as well the note of wounded pride. Instinctively he felt that at that instant the cat, with Carolyn June, had become a secondary consideration. "Well, some, I reckon," he answered, speaking deliberately, "generally a little, but right now darned little for that old yaller cat. I figure he's a plumb free moral agent," he continued as if speaking to himself; "he got his head in that can on his own hook an' it's up to him to get it out or let it stay in _this time_, just as he pleases--" "But Sing Pete put butter in the can!" Carolyn June said, arguing.