During all her struggles Carolyn June remained silent.  She had not thought to cry out.  Somehow she could not realize that she was to die.  The sun was bright, the sky cloudless, the trees along the river-bank barely swayed in a little breeze!  How beautiful the world!  How queer that such a little distance away was the green grass of the meadow and the firm black earth in which it was rooted and she—­she was held fast and helpless in the embrace of the deadly sand!  Strange thoughts rushed through her mind.  She wondered what they would think at the ranch when night came and she did not return.  Would they know?  Would they guess the thing that had happened?  Would the sand draw her down—­down—­until it covered her so none would ever know where or how she died?  She looked at Old Blue.  “Poor old fellow!” she whispered, “I am sorry—­I didn’t know—­it looked so white and firm and safe!” The sand was half-way up the sides of the horse and he swayed his body in pathetic, futile efforts to free himself.

A strange calm came over Carolyn June.  So this was the end?  She was to die alone, horribly, in the treacherous sands of the Cimarron?  Surely it could not be—­God would not let her die!  She was so young!  She had just begun to live—­She thought of Hartville, her father, the old friends.  How far away they seemed!  How queer it was—­she could not image in her mind any of the familiar scenes, the face of her father or any of the friends she had known so well!  She tried to think of her Uncle Josiah, Ophelia, Skinny Rawlins—­poor fellow, how susceptible was his big, innocent, boyish heart!  She called each one up in a mental effort to remember how they had looked, the sound of their voices—­they were only names—­dim shadowy names!  There was nothing in the whole world but Old Blue—­herself—­and the sand—­the sand—­an eternity of sand pulling, dragging, sucking her down!  She closed her eyes tightly, thinking to shut out the impression of utter loneliness.  The face of the Ramblin’ Kid flashed into her mind!  She could see him!  She saw him lying under the shed, as he had looked that morning, his head resting on the saddle, his eyes gazing steadily into her own; she saw him again as he had looked when she stung him with her harsh words at the gate.  She seemed to see the agonized humility in his expression and hear the low tenseness of his voice as he repeated aloud the words she had used—­“An ign’rant, savage, stupid brute!” She laughed almost hysterically.  “Why can I see him—­just him—­and not the others?  Has he come to—­to—­haunt me?” she finished with a gasp.

The sand had reached her breast.  How long before it clutched at her throat?  Her mouth?  Her eyes?  Ah, would she hold up her arm as she went down—­down—­and reach out her hand as if to wave the world a last, long farewell?  “I will—­I will!” she cried, the pressure around her body almost stopping her breath, “I—­I—­will—­and—­wiggle my fingers to the end!” she added with a choking