"Whew!" she exclaimed, "that was a strenuous party! I've danced till my feet ache! Do you think our little 'counterplot' was a success?"
"Entirely!" Carolyn June replied with an uncertain chuckle. "Uncle Josiah, Parker and Charley will dream dreams about you and fight duels in their sleep to-night!"
"I think the others—" the widow started to say, then pausing, finished: "Wasn't it queer the Ramblin' Kid decided to ride that outlaw horse to-night instead of coming to the house to dance?"
"Oh, I don't know," Carolyn June answered indifferently.
"I guess it's as Charley says," Ophelia remarked: "'You can't tell what th' Ramblin' Kid's liable to do'—"
"I suppose not," Carolyn June replied wearily as she went into her room.
"Good night!"
"Good night!" Ophelia echoed.
CHAPTER XII
YOU'LL GET YOUR WISH
It was a silent group that gathered in the bunk-house after the dance. Old Heck, Parker, Charley and the other cowboys had been unduly stimulated by the music, the laughter and the bright smiles of Carolyn June and Ophelia. When they stepped out of the house into the cool night these all were left behind. The cow-men quickly sobered down and by the time they reached their sleeping quarters on the faces of all were half-ashamed looks as if they had been playing at a game not quite dignified enough or proper for men of maturity and seriousness.