“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.

* * * * *

It was nearly ten o’clock when Sing Pete stopped the grub-wagon at the bunk-house; Pedro wrangled the saddle cavallard into the pasture below the barn; Parker and the cowboys jogged their bronchos to the stable door and the Ramblin’ Kid, riding the Gold Dust maverick—­Captain Jack at her heels—­rode to the circular corral, jerked the saddle from the filly’s back and turned the little roan stallion and the outlaw mare inside the corral.

Old Heck and Skinny heard the commotion and went out to where Parker and the cowboys were unsaddling their horses.

“Well, you got through, did you?” Old Hack questioned casually.

“Yes,” Parker replied, “we’ve got the beef critters in I guess—­they’re in the upland pasture.  There are seven hundred and ninety, I think it is, that’ll do for the market.”

“That’s pretty good,” Old Heck answered with satisfaction.  “We’ll push them right on into Eagle Butte to-morrow or next day and ship them.  The cars will be in to-night, the agent said.  I’m sending them to Chicago this time.  I’d like to see you, private, a minute, Parker!” he finished abruptly.

“What do you want?” Parker asked suspiciously, as he followed Old Heck around the corner of the barn.

“It’s about Ophelia—­” Old Heck began.

Parker’s heart leaped and then dropped with a sickening foreboding of something disagreeable.  The widow, he thought instantly, had told Old Heck about that darned fool proposal of marriage and was going to insist on him coming across and making good!  There was no way out.

“I—­I—­reckon I’ll have to do it if she’s determined,” Parker stuttered; “but—­aw, hell—­I must have been crazy—­”