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THE RAMBLIN' KID
BY EARL WAYLAND BOWMAN
FRONTISPIECE BY W.H.D. KOERNER
1920
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I A NIGHT LETTER
II A BLUFF CALLED
III WHICH ONE'S WHICH
IV THE UNUSED PLATE
V A DUEL OF ENDURANCE
VI YOU'RE A BRUTE
VII THE GREEDY SANDS
VIII QUICK WITH A VENGEANCE
IX OLD HECK'S STRATEGY
X FIXING FIXERS
XI A DANCE AND A RIDE
XII YOU'LL GET YOUR WISH
XIII THE ELITE AMUSEMENT PARLOR
XIV THE GRAND PARADE
XV MOCHA AND JAVA
XVI THE SWEEPSTAKES
XVII OLD HECK GOES TO TOWN
XVIII A SHAME TO WASTE IT
XIX THE GREEK GETS HIS
XX MOSTLY SKINNY
XXI A GIRL LIKE YOU
THE RAMBLIN' KID
CHAPTER I
A NIGHT LETTER
Sand and gravel slithered and slid under the heels of Old Pie Face asSkinny Rawlins whirled the broncho into the open space in front of thelow-built, sprawling, adobe ranch house of the Quarter Circle KT andreined the pinto to a sudden stop. Skinny had been to Eagle Butte andwith other things brought back the mail. It was hot, late June, the timebetween cutting the first crop of alfalfa and gathering, from the openrange, the beef steers ready for the summer market. Regardless of theheat Skinny had ridden hard and his horse was a lather of sweat. Anumber of cowboys lounged, indolently, in the shade of the bunk-house,smoking cigarettes and contentedly enjoying the hour of rest after thenoon-day dinner. Another, lean-built, slender, boyish in appearance andwith strangely black, inscrutable eyes, stepped from around the cornerof the house as Skinny jerked Old Pie Face to a standstill.
"Where's Old Heck?" Skinny asked excitedly. "I brought the mail--here,take it to him!"
The other, known on the Kiowa and the range of western Texas and Mexicoonly as "the Ramblin' Kid," strolled leisurely out through the sagging,weight-swung gate and up to the panting horse from which Skinny had notyet dismounted.
"Asleep, I reckon," he replied in a voice peculiarly low and deliberate,"--what's your spontaneousness about? You act like a special d'livery orsomethin'."
"Old Heck's got a letter," Skinny said, jerkily; "maybe's it's bad newsan' he ought to have it quick," as the Ramblin' Kid reached for a yellowenvelope held in the outstretched hand.
At that instant Old Heck, owner and boss of the Quarter Circle KT cowoutfit, stepped from the shadow of the open ranch-house door. He wasshort and stocky, red-faced, somewhere near the fifties, and ayellowish-gray mustache hung over tobacco blackened lips. Overalls, achecked blue and white shirt, open at the throat, boots into which thetrousers legs were loosely jammed comprised his attire. He wasbareheaded and the sun glistened on a wrinkly forehead, topped by a thinsprinkling of hair.
"What's the matter?" he asked drowsily, his small, gray-blue eyesblinking in the yellow sun-glare and still sluggish from the napdisturbed by the noise of Skinny's arrival.
"Nothin'. Skinny's just got a letter an' is excited about it," theRamblin' Kid said, handing the envelope to him. "It's for you."
"My Gawd!" Old Heck exclaimed, "it's a telegram!"
The cowboys resting in the shade of the bunk-house rose to their feet,sauntered over and surrounded Old Heck and the Ramblin' Kid, commentingmeanwhile, frankly and caustically, on the fagged condition of thebroncho Skinny was on:
"Must 'a' been scared, the way you run that horse," Parker, rangeforeman of the Quarter Circle KT, a heavy-built, sandy-complexioned manin the forties, remarked witheringly to Skinny as the cow-puncherclimbed from the saddle and slid to the ground.
"He's mine, I reckon," Skinny retorted, "an' I figure it's nobody'sdarn' business how I ride him--anyhow I brought Old Heck a telegram!" headded triumphantly.
"Blamed if he didn't!" Charley Saunders, with a trifle of awe, pretendedor real, in his tone, said. "It sure is!"
"My Gawd!" Old Heck repeated, slowly turning the envelope over in hishand, "it's a telegram! Wonder what it's about?"
"Why don't you open it and see?" Parker suggested.
"Yes, open th' blamed thing and find out," Skinny encouraged.
"I--I've a notion to," Old Heck whispered.
"Go on and do it, it won't take but a minute," Charley Saundersentreated.
"Maybe he's one of these mind-readers and can read it through theenvelope," Bert Lilly volunteered.
"Aw, shut up and give him a chance!"
Trembling, Old Heck tore open the envelope and silently read themessage.
"My Gawd!" he groaned again. "The worst has come to the worst!"
"That ought to make it middlin' bad," Charley remarked soberly.
"Ought to," Bert added sententiously.
Parker crowded forward on sympathy bent.
"Tell us what's in it," he said; "if it's sorrowful we'll be plumb gladto condole!"
"It's worse than sorrowful--"
"Melancholical?" Skinny inquired.
"My Gawd!" Old Heck said again, his weatherworn features workingconvulsively, "it's more than a mortal man can endure and stand!"
"Bet somebody's dead!" Bert whispered to the Ramblin' Kid.
"Probably. Most everybody gets to be sooner or later," was the answerwithout emotion.
Sing Pete, Chinese cook for the outfit, dish-rag over his shoulder,edged out of the kitchen door and shuffled around to the group.Glimpsing the yellow slip of paper held in the shaking hand of Old Heckand the awed interest of the cowboys gathered about the boss, hequeried:
"Teleglam?"
No answer.
"Teleglam? Maybe alle samee somebody sickee?" he continued, cheerfullyconfident that questions enough would ultimately bring a reply. He wasrewarded:
"What do you know about 'teleglams'? You slant-eyed burner ofbeef-steaks!"
"Who's it from?" Charley asked. "Anybody we know--"
"My Gawd," Old Heck mourned once more, "she's comin'!"
"Who's she?" Parker coaxed.
"A female," Old Heck replied, "she's a female!"
"The darned old cuss has had a wife sometime and run off from her anddeserted her and she's pursuing him and trailing him down to earth!"Chuck Slithers, doubting Thomas of the outfit and student of SherlockHolmes, cunningly suggested. "I always imagined he was a varmint with apast--a' ex-heart breaker of innocent women or a train-robber or--"
"Aw, hell," the Ramblin' Kid rebuked, "him have a wife? Don't insult th'female population!"
"_Carramba!_" exclaimed Pedro Valencia, Mexican line-rider for theQuarter Circle KT, "perhaps she will stick him with the dagger, or shoothim with the gun when she arrive! The ladies with love kill quick whenthe love is--what you call him?--the jilt?"
"And I'd almost forgot I ever had one!" Old Heck continued talking as ifto himself.
"What'd I tell you?" Chuck exulted.
"Shut up! He's confessin'--let him alone an' he'll get it out of hisconscience sooner or later!"
"Had a what?" Parker urged sympathetically. "Maybe you didn't haveone--maybe you only imagined you did!"
"Had a brother--anyhow a half a one--our mothers was the same butdifferent fathers on account of mine dyin' when I was little and hismarrying our mother again; we was playmates together in our innocentchildhood and infancy until I run away and went to sea and finallyanchored on the Kiowa and got to raisin' cattle--"
"Where does he come in at?" Parker questioned.
"He said it was a female, to start with," Skinny added.
"--and his name is Simeon Dixon on account of h
is father's being thesame thing, and he went in the street railroad business in a place namedHartville in Connecticut, and he got married and had a wife--she wasZithia Forbes, and she's dead, and I knowed that, and he's rich I reckonand--"
"An' Amrak begat Meshak an' Meshak begat Zimri an' Zimri was th' founderof th' House of Old Heck," the Ramblin' Kid chanted. "What in thunderdoes details amount to, anyhow?"
"But you was mournin' about a she!" Parker insisted.
"Well, I reckon it ain't a wife--at least not the one I was thinkingabout," Chuck murmured disappointedly, "but I bet he's had one somewherein his vari'gated career and is hiding out from her in fear an'tremblin'--"
"And there will not be the grand, the beautiful murder?" Pedro sighed,questioningly.
"Wait a minute," Skinny pleaded, "--give him air!"
"--and he's got a female daughter--and I didn't know that--and he's--oh,Gawd!--he's sending her out to the Quarter Circle KT!"
"How big is she?" Parker whispered.
"She's--she's twenty-two--"
"Inches around or what?" Charley gasped.
"--and Ophelia is coming with her--Ophelia Cobb--C-o-double-b it is--iscoming with her for a chaperon--"
"Great guns!" Skinny breathed,"--two females!"
"Hold still and I'll read it--no, you do it, Parker--I'm too full ofemotion--my voice'd quiver--"
Parker read:
"Josiah Heck, Eagle Butte, Texas:
"Am sending my daughter, Carolyn June, out to your ranch for a while. She needs a change. She has broke all the he-human hearts in Hartville--that is all of them old enough or young enough to be broke--and is what's called a love-stimulator and won't settle. She is twenty-two and it's time she was calmed. Hoping six months on the Kiowa range will gentle her quite a lot, I am sympathetically your 1/2 brother, Simeon.
"P.S.--Mrs. Ophelia Cobb, a lady widow, is coming with her for a chaperon. Beware of both of them. They will arrive at Eagle Butte the 21st.--S."
"Gee, it's a long one!" Chuck said admiringly.
"It's one of these 'Night Letters,'" Parker explained.
"I knowed it was bad news," Skinny exclaimed, "--poor old Heck!"
"Better say, 'Poor we all!'" Bert declared. "Farewell peace and joy onthe Quarter Circle KT!"
"The Lord have mercy on Old Heck!" Charley cried with dramatic fervor.
"Holy smoke," Parker murmured desperately, "_two of them on thetwenty-first--and that's to-morrow!_"