"Yes, I am. I ain't going to stop to ask for my time. I 'm going to-day, before the boss comes home."
"Well, then, what am I going to do? You 're not going off to leave me?"
Silence for the space of ten seconds.
"Jiminy! Tell you what, you come too!"
"I can't! Mamma wouldn't let me!"
"Don't ask her. Come right along with me! We 'll elope! That's more fun than anything! Girls that is anything always elopes!"
Then they wandered off to the alfalfa field, and soon I saw them throwing stones at the prairie dogs with which it was infested. So I concluded that what I had heard was merely some of the Kid's braggadocio, and, smiling at the sentimental turn he had taken, I went on with my book and thought no more of it.
But when lunch time came neither Madge nor Kid appeared for the meal. Much calling failed to bring a response. Then I remembered and gave account of the conversation I had heard. It was found that Dynamite was gone from the corral. Evidently the little scapegrace had meant what he said and had carried Madge off. Mrs. Williams ordered the cart and at once we started after the fugitives.
"He has most probably gone toward Deming," she said. "I will send Red Jack to Whitewater to stop them if they are there, but I think we had better drive toward Deming as fast as possible."
About ten miles out we caught sight of the runaways. They were mounted on Dynamite, Madge holding fast behind. Kid was urging the horse furiously back and forth among a flock of carrion crows, and practising with his lasso upon them as they rose and flapped about in short and heavy flight. They seemed to be having great sport, for Kid was shouting and yelling at the birds, and Madge screaming with laughter at their clumsy efforts to escape. So absorbed were they in their play that they did not see us until we were almost beside them. At first Kid made as if he would start Dynamite off on the gallop, but Mrs. Williams called to him sternly, and he turned and trotted back to us, smiling and looking amazingly innocent.