“It—­it—­is wonderful!” Carolyn June stammered, “it is—­I don’t think I ever saw one that was—­was—­whiter—­”

“It looked that way to me,” Skinny interrupted as if glad some one else had noticed a peculiarity of the garment that already had troubled him somewhat, “I thought it was uncommonly white!”

“Perhaps it just seems that way because we are not used to it,” Ophelia suggested sympathetically.

“That’s it!” Carolyn June exclaimed feverishly, “it is because we are not used to it—­it will be perfectly all right when we have looked at it a little more!”

Skinny decided he would risk the gauntlet of comment from Parker, Old Heck and the cowboys and wear the shirt the rest of the day.

Carolyn June was really sorry for Skinny, but—­she needed air—­she felt she must have it.

“Please,” she cried suddenly and with, an effort, “excuse me!  I—­I—­have something I wish to do!  You,” speaking to Skinny, “and Ophelia stay here and visit each other a while!”

Without waiting for an answer she stepped quickly into the kitchen, asked Sing Pete for a handful of sugar and hurried out to the circular corral.

“Oh, Skinny, Skinny, you are so funny,” she laughed aloud as she went through the back-yard gate.  “It breaks my heart to break your heart—­but you are one of the ‘fixers’ and you’ve got to be ‘fixed.’”

The Gold Dust maverick at first was shy when Carolyn June opened the gate and entered the corral.  After a few moments she recognized the girl and was soon eating the sugar from the hand of Carolyn June.  Before the supply was exhausted the friendship and confidence of the two, begun yesterday, was firmly reestablished.  The maverick allowed Carolyn June to swing her weight from the glossy withers, to clasp her arms tightly about the trim, clean-built neck, and when, after an hour, the girl started toward the house, the outlaw mare protested so eagerly against being left alone that she turned back to the corral and leaning against the fence stroked the soft muzzle thrust between the bars.

Carolyn June was cooing endearing terms to the filly and playing with the quivering underlip when she heard a horse galloping swiftly up the lane and past the barn.  Instinctively she stepped back and turned just as the Ramblin’ Kid, riding Captain Jack, wheeled around the end of the shed near the corral.

His sudden appearance surprised her.  She had thought he was with the cowboys over at the upland pasture helping skin the steers killed by the lightning.

When they left the ranch the Ramblin’ Kid had ridden away with Charley and the others, but not with any intention of going to the big pasture.  Where the road turned toward the lower ford he held Captain Jack to the left.

“Ain’t you going with us,” Charley Saunders asked, “and help skin them steers?”

“No,” the Ramblin’ Kid replied quietly.  “I ain’t.  I’ve got something else to do.  Anyhow, I ain’t a butcher—­I work with live cattle, not dead ones!” he concluded as Captain Jack continued in the direction of the upper crossing.