Dance-halls were running, fare layouts were operating, roulette wheels were spinning. For the time, with the consent of the sheriff and other reformed authorities, Eagle Butte tried hard to be as Eagle Butte was twenty—thirty—years ago.
The entire Quarter Circle KT crowd left the ranch early Tuesday morning'. Parker had surprised Old Heck, and filled his mind with misgivings, by calling him to one side after breakfast and stammering:
"I—I—reckon you'd just as well go ahead the rest of this week and—and—look after the widow by yourself—"
"What's the matter?" Old Heck asked suspiciously; "have you found out anything dangerous about that 'Movement' or whatever it is Ophelia's mixed up in?"
"No, it ain't that," Parker assured him, "I just thought I'd kind of—well, like to be free, to knock around at the Rodeo without being bothered with a woman or anything."
The truth was Parker was trying to hedge. When he had got away on the beef hunt and began to figure things out he had come to doubt the wisdom of his sudden infatuation for the widow. Thinking it over, out on the open range, he was appalled by his rash, headlong falling in love. He had never married, nor had he, until Ophelia came, been even near it. Someway, the moment Carolyn June and the widow arrived at the Quarter Circle KT some sort of devil seemed to possess him. He couldn't explain it. Maybe it had been just an impulse to get ahead of Old Heck. Whatever it was, Parker was worried. What would he do with a wife if he had one? All he wanted now was to let the thing blow over. Perhaps the widow would forget his impetuous proposal or fall in love with Old Heck.
Old Heck, his heart filled with a queer mixture of elation and uncertainty—with a sort of joy and sinking sensation all at once—agreed to Parker's suggestion.
Parker rode into Eagle Butte with the cowboys. Old Heck, Ophelia, Skinny and Carolyn June went in the Clagstone "Six." Chuck led Old Pie Face for Skinny to ride in the parade and Bert took Red John, Old Heck's most showy saddle horse—a long-legged, high-stepping, proud-headed, bay gelding—for Carolyn June to use, for she, too, had declared her intention of joining in the grand promenade with which the Rodeo would open.
The Ramblin' Kid left the Gold Dust maverick in the circular corral and rode Captain Jack to Eagle Butte. It would be necessary for him to register the filly, with the entry judges, on the first day of the Rodeo if she was to run in the two-mile sweepstakes.
The rules of the Rodeo required, also, that all who expected to participate in any of the events of the coming week must "show" in the grand march or parade. The animals that were to be used might also be paraded, but this was not compulsory.