"Thunderation!" he said aloud, "it's a good thing we fixed it up for just Skinny to make love to her--if we hadn't there'd have been a regular epidemic of bu'sted hearts on this blamed ranch! There wouldn't have been a buckaroo on the place that could have kept from mooning around sentimental--unless it was th' Ramblin' Kid," he added; "that blamed cuss is too independent and indifferent to fall in love with any female!" At the barn Charley and Bert overtook Old Heck. The three unsaddled and fed their horses and started toward the house for dinner. Sing Pete had seen them coming and immediately pounded the triangle. "Th' Ramblin' Kid's gone somewhere again," Bert observed as he noticed the Gold Dust maverick alone in the circular corral. "Captain Jack's not with the filly--" "Yonder th' Ramblin' Kid comes now," Charley said, looking toward the north; "he's been over to the river--what the devil kind of a combination is that?" he exclaimed as he got a better view of the horse coming up the lane. "Him and that girl both are riding Captain Jack." "Blamed if they ain't," Bert said curiously; "it's a wonder Captain Jack'll let them. But how does that come, anyhow? Where's Skinny? I thought it was his job to ride herd on Carolyn June--" "It is his job," Old Heck interrupted, "I don't understand--something must have gone wrong," he added excitedly as the stallion with his double burden drew near. "Carolyn June's all wet and she's lost her hat." Turning his horse toward the house, when he reached the end of the lane and with but a glance at the trio standing at the barn, the Ramblin' Kid rode straight to the back-yard gate. Old Heck and the cowboys hurried across the open space and reached the gate just as Carolyn June rather stiffly dismounted from the little roan. Her hair was disarranged, her riding suit soiled and wet from the sand and water, but her eyes were bright, cheeks flushed, and she showed only a trace of nervousness. "What's the matter?" Old Heck asked uneasily, "what's happened? Where's Skinny?" In a few words, while the Ramblin' Kid sat silently on the back of Captain Jack, Carolyn June told of the ride across the river; the meeting with Pedro and the message he brought that the cattle were out and some had been killed by lightning; of sending Skinny with the Mexican to help with the steers; of her return alone toward the ranch, the struggle in the quicksand and the death of the horse she had been riding. "Poor Old Blue--poor old fellow!" she finished with a little catch in her voice. Old Heck's cheeks whitened as he listened.