The Ramblin Kid | Page 3

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 on
the Quarter Circle KT!"
"The Lord have mercy on Old Heck!" Charley cried with dramatic
fervor.
"Holy smoke," Parker murmured desperately, "_two of them on the
twenty-first--and that's to-morrow!_"

CHAPTER II
A BLUFF CALLED
The Quarter Circle KT was a womanless ranch. Came now, like a bolt
from the clear sky or the sudden clang of a fire-alarm bell, the threat of
violation of this Eveless Eden by the intrusion of a pair of strange and
unknown females. The arrival of the telegram telling of the coming of
Carolyn June Dixon, Old Heck's niece, and Ophelia Cobb, her
chaperon, filled with varying emotions the hearts of Old Heck, Parker
and the cowboys.
To Old Heck their presence meant nothing less than calamity. Long
years of he-man association had made him dread the petty restraints he
imagined would be imposed by intimate contact with womankind.
Good lord, a man wouldn't be able even to cuss freely, and without
embarrassment, with a couple of women in the house and prowling
around the ranch!
Skinny, Bert, Chuck, Pedro, Charley, the Ramblin' Kid, even the Chink

cook and Parker, quivered with excitement and curiosity behind thinly
veiled pretense of fear and horror. Secretly they rejoiced. It was
marvelous news borne by the telegram Skinny brought. Here would be
diversion ample, unusual, wholly worth while and filled with
possibilities of romance as luring as the first glimpse of a strange new
land shadowed with mystery and promise of thrilling adventure.
Sing Pete paddled back to the unfinished business of the kitchen,
chattering excitedly. The cowboys stood mutely and stared at Old Heck
and the fatal slip of yellow paper.
"What'll I do?" Old Heck asked the group despairingly. "They'll ruin
everything."
"Can't you head 'em off, somehow?" Parker suggested.
"Can't be done. They're already on their way and probably somewhere
this side of Kansas City by now."
"Find out which train they're on and let the Ramblin' Kid and me cut
across to the Purgatory River bridge and wreck it," Skinny Rawlins,
always tragic, darkly advised.
"I ain't particular about killin' females," the Ramblin' Kid objected,
"besides, we ain't got no dynamite."
"Send them a telegram and say Old Heck's dead and not to come," Bert
Lilly volunteered.
"Aw, you blamed idiot, they'd come anyhow then, just to attend the
funeral--"
"I got an idea," Chuck Slithers exclaimed; it's a telegram too. Send
them one C.O.D. in care of the train that will get to Eagle Butte the
twenty-first and tell them we've all got the smallpox and we're sorry but
everybody's dangerously sick and to please answer!"
"That might work," Parker said; "they'd be mighty near sure not to want

to catch it."
"We'll try it," Old Heck agreed. "Chuck wants to ride over to Eagle
Butte anyway and he can have the depot agent send it and wait for a
reply."
"Go get your horse ready, Chuck," Parker said, "we'll write it while
you're saddlin' up!"
Chuck hurried to the corral while Old Heck went into the house for
pencil and writing-paper. Parker and the cowboys moved in a group to
the shade of the porch in front of the house.
"What'll we tell them?" Old Heck asked, reappearing with writing
materials. "Here, Parker, you write it."
"Dear niece Carolyn June Dixon and Chaperon: Sorry, but there's an
epidemic of smallpox at the Quarter Circle KT and you can't come.
Chuck is dying with it. Old Heck's plumb prostrated, Bert is already
broke out, Pedro is starting to and Skinny Rawlins and the Ramblin'
Kid are just barely able to be up. I love you too much to want you to
catch it. Please go back to Hartville and give my regards to your pa and
don't expose yourself. Answer by return telegram so I'll know your
intentions. Affectionately and absolutely your Uncle Josiah Heck,"
Parker read after writing a few moments. "How's that?"
"Sounds all right."
"Got it ready?" Chuck called from the fence, while Silver Tip, the
trim-built half-blood Hambletonian colt he was riding, reared and
pranced, eager for the road and a run.
"For lord's sake hurry up, Chuck," Old Heck yelled as the Ramblin' Kid
handed the paper to Chuck and the cowboy whirled his horse into a
gallop toward Eagle Butte. "Have the agent send it