So this was the Ramblin' Kid, Carolyn June thought. Someway she had pictured him a blue-eyed, yellow-haired sort of composite Skinny Rawlins, Chuck, Bert Lilly, Charley Saunders all in one and with the face of a boy in the teens!
He was different. She wondered, and almost laughed at the absurd thought, if he was bow-legged. A glance at the straight limbs stretched in repose on the ground dispelled the doubt.
The suddenness with which the Ramblin' Kid had spoken and the tone he used, Carolyn June thought, was utterly unfair. She felt as if she had been ambushed. How could she know he was sleeping under the shed? Why wasn't he in the bunk-house where he belonged? Her own embarrassment made her cross. She wanted to say "damn!" and stamp her foot or throw something at him, lying there so completely self-possessed! Instead, she looked steadily into the eyes of the Ramblin' Kid. Someway as she looked they seemed not so unkind, more sorrowful they were, on closer scrutiny, than cruel. She started to speak, her cheeks began to burn—
Without a word she turned and walked rapidly toward the house.
As she moved away Carolyn June felt something snap at her knee. She did not stop. Reaching down she gathered the soft folds of the loose gown about her and hurried away from the corral.
"God!" the Ramblin' Kid whispered as he straightened up, "she's built like th' Gold Dust maverick—an' just as game! They was made for each other."
He went to the corral and leaned against the fence, studying the filly thoughtfully, while Captain Jack with a friendly whinny came and nosed at the fingers thrust through the bars. After a time the mare cautiously moved up beside the roan stallion and stretched her own velvety muzzle toward the hand the Ramblin' Kid held out.
"You want to be loved, too, you little devil!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed gently, "—you thought I was mean last night, didn't you?"
For a while he fooled with the horses, then started toward the kitchen. A few steps from where Carolyn June had been standing he glanced down at a broad pink satin elastic band lying on the ground. It had been fastened with a silver butterfly clasp. The clasp was broken. The Ramblin' Kid stooped and picked it up.
"I'll be—!" he chuckled as he fingered, almost reverently, the dainty thing, "it's a—a—darned pretty little jigger!"