“I want to get me a white shirt—­”

“Gosh,” Old Heck exclaimed, “that bad already!  What’ll he be in week?”

“Did you speak, Uncle Josiah?” Carolyn asked.

“Huh—­no, I—­Skinny just thought I was going to hit a rock!” he answered, and giving the engine more gas, he headed the car, at a thirty-mile clip, toward the east and the Quarter Circle KT.

The party rode in silence.  The speed of the car and the fan of the warm wind against their faces made conversation difficult.  A mile from Eagle Butte they crossed the long, low, iron-railed bridge over the Cimarron River and climbed out on to the bench away from the bottom lands.  From that point on to the Quarter Circle KT the road followed the brow of the bench on the south side of the river.  It was smooth and good.

Carolyn June thrilled at the bigness of it all as they swept quickly past the irrigated district close to the town and sped out on the open unfenced range.  For miles the country was level with here and there arroyos cross-sectioning into the river valley.  Long stretches with the barest undulations made driving a joy and the winding road was a natural speedway.  Scattered over the plain were dusters of mesquit and in the low sags where moisture was near the surface patches of thorns.  Carolyn June loved the width and breadth of the great range, strange and new to her.  Here was freedom sweeping as the winds of heaven.  Dimly, on the southern horizon she could see the blue outline of Sentinel Mountain standing alone out on the plain.  To the left green pasture-lands lay along the river.  A narrow strip of cottonwood trees marked the curving path of the Cimarron.  Beds of white quicksand, treacherous and fatal and dreaded by every rider of the open country could be seen, occasionally, through openings in the trees showing the bed of the river itself.  In the distance behind them was Eagle Butte, towering above the town they had left a few brief moments before, and beyond that the Costejo Mountains, rugged and massive and covered in part on their lower slopes with blue-green thickets of pine.  Across the river was a choppy sea of sand-dunes stretching away to the north as far as sight could reach.  Here and there a high-flung mound, smooth and oval or capped with ledges of black, glistening rode broke the monotony of the view.

Engrossed in the study of the almost primitive picture Carolyn June forgot the flight of time and the speed at which they were traveling.

“Yonder’s the ranch!” Skinny announced suddenly, turning half around in his seat and pointing ahead and to the left toward the river.

The valley widened till it was a mile or more across.  The Cimarron swung sharply to the north and hugged the foot of the bench as if unwilling to spoil the meadowlands past which it flowed.  In a great half-crescent—­“Quarter Circle,” Old Heck called it—­the green basin-like area lay spread out before them.  It was a half dozen miles in length, reaching from the canyon gate at the upper end of the valley where the river turned abruptly northward, to the narrow gorge at the south through which it disappeared.