Carolyn June smiles sweetly as ever at Skinny, spends much time riding alone over the valley and hills; in her eyes there has come a more thoughtful—often a wistful—expression.
Sabota did not die.
After the escape of the Ramblin' Kid the marshal reentered the pool-room and had the big Greek removed to the hotel. A doctor was called and set as well as possible the broken jaws, the crushed nose, picked out the fragments of bone and the loosened teeth, sewed up the terrible gashes on Sabota's face and left the bully groaning and profaning in half-conscious agony.
The night of the fight Skinny took Old Pie Face back to the barn.
The cowboy's heart was heavy with remorse. He blamed himself for all the trouble. Had he not wanted to make a fool of himself and get drunk the Ramblin' Kid would not have come to Eagle Butte, the fight would not have occurred, the friend he had ridden with through storm and sunshine—whom he had stood "night guard" and fought mad stampedes into "the mill"—would not now be an outcast sought by the hand of the law.
News of the beating the Ramblin' Kid gave Sabota traveled fast.
It was flashed over Eagle Butte that the Greek was dead.
"So th' Ramblin' Kid killed old Sabota, did he?" the hostler at the livery barn asked Skinny as he stepped out to care for the cowboy's horse. "What was it over? Sabota having th' Ramblin' Kid 'doped' the day of the sweepstakes?"
Skinny looked keenly, searchingly, at the stableman.
"What do you mean—'Sabota having th' Ramblin' Kid doped?'" he asked sharply.