His black eyes looked keenly at her, as if they would force from her lips the thing she evidently dared not say.
"I—I was just getting acquainted with the Gold Dust maverick!" Carolyn
June finished lamely with a nervous laugh.
"You want to be careful," the Ramblin' Kid said with the slightest curl of his lips at her obvious shifting of meanings, "she ain't exactly a 'lady's animal' yet. She'll fight. Skinny started to go in th' corral this morning an' had to back up. Th' maverick went at him to kill. She's goin' to be a 'one-man' horse th' same as Captain Jack."
"Perhaps it was because she was afraid of him," Carolyn June suggested.
"Maybe it was because Skinny was afraid of her," the Ramblin' Kid chuckled.
"Aren't you going to ride the filly in that race at Eagle Butte?" she asked suddenly with a hint of coquetry in her eyes and voice.
"Why?" he shot back at her, observing the changed inflection and look.
"I—I—would like you to," Carolyn June murmured demurely as she followed up the feminine method of mastering a man, "it would be fun to see her run!"
"Is that all?" the Ramblin' Kid asked gently and with a peculiar emphasis.
"Isn't that enough?" the girl countered in a tone bordering close to the tender.