The Ramblin' Kid by Earl Wayland Bowman (free novel reading sites .TXT) 📕

drawl, "fight one with sour-dough biscuits at a hundred yards! That'd be sensible—then both of you'd be genuine heroes!"

"Gosh, th' Ramblin' Kid's awake!" Bert laughed. "How does it happen you ain't fell in love with Carolyn June?" he asked, turning toward the slender, dark-eyed, young cowboy. "So far you're the only one that's escaped. The rest of us are breaking our hearts—"

For an instant the Ramblin' Kid flashed on Bert a look of hot anger while a dull red glow spread over his sun-tanned cheeks.

"There's enough damned fools loose on th' Kiowa range without me bein' one, too!" he retorted slowly, getting up and going toward Captain Jack.

"Blamed if he'll stand a bit of joshing on that subject!" Bert muttered, his own face flushing from the look the Ramblin' Kid had given him.

"Not a darned bit," Chuck added, "but it is funny; the way he shys off from Carolyn June!"

"Th' Ramblin' Kid ain't interested in women," Charley said, as they pitched their plates to one side and the meal was finished. "He ain't the kind that bothers with females!"

When Chuck had idly suggested that Old Heck and Ophelia might be married before Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys returned to the ranch from the beef hunt, he did not know it, but the words he spoke in jest voiced the very thought at the same instant in the mind of Old Heck—miles away though he was. Perhaps it was mental telepathy, thought vibration, subconscious soul communication—or a mere coincident, that caused Chuck, far out on the open range, to speak the thing Old Heck, sitting at supper with Carolyn June, Ophelia and Skinny, at the Quarter Circle KT was thinking.

Ever since Parker had voluntarily surrendered during the Rodeo, his right to alternate, day and day about, with Old Heck in the widow's society, the owner of the Quarter Circle KT had been watching Ophelia, covertly and carefully, for any sign of "Movements" or an outbreak as a dreaded suffragette.

While he watched her the widow was becoming more and more a necessity in the life of Old Heck.

The night of the conversation between Parker and the cowboys, away over at Rock Creek, Old Heck sat at the supper table in the kitchen at the ranch and debated in his mind the future relationships of Parker, Ophelia and himself. In a few days Parker would return. Almost certainly the foreman would again wish to share, fifty-fifty, in the courtship of the widow. Old Heck felt that if such were so those odd days, when Parker was with Ophelia, would be little less than hell. Yet, he dreaded that suffragette business. If she would only break loose and let him see how bad she was liable to be he could easily make up his mind. He was almost ready to take a chance, to ask Ophelia to marry him and settle it all at once.

Throughout the meal he was moody. After supper he had little to say and the next few days he brooded constantly over the matter.

Tuesday Parker and the cowboys were expected to return with the beef cattle. Monday morning, at breakfast, the widow asked Old Heck if he would take her to Eagle Butte that day.

"I must see the minister's wife," she said, as Old Heck steered the
Clagstone "Six" up the grade that led out to the bench and to Eagle
Butte, "—it is very important"

Old Heck murmured assent and drove silently on. Probably she was going to start a "Movement" or something to-day! To-morrow, Parker would be back. It sure did put a man in a dickens of a fix!

Before they reached the long bridge across the Cimarron a mile from
Eagle Butte Old Heck's mind was made up.

"You want to stop at the preacher's house?" he asked.

"If you please," Ophelia replied, "for some little time. There are things to discuss—"

"Would you mind if I drove around to the court-house first?" Old Heck questioned again.

"Not at all," she answered sweetly.

A few moments later Old Heck stopped the Clagstone "Six" in front of the yellow sandstone county building. Leaving Ophelia in the car with the remark, "I'll be out in a minute!" he went inside and hurried along the dark corridor that led to the clerk's office.

CHAPTER XVIII A SHAME TO WASTE IT

In Old Heck's eyes was a set, determined look when he came out of the court-house and stepped up to the Clagstone "Six" in which he had left Ophelia a few moments before. The end of a long yellow envelope protruded from the side pocket of his coat. His face was flushed and his hand trembled slightly as he opened the door of the car and climbed into the front seat beside the widow. He pressed his foot on the "starter," threw the clutch into gear and turning the car about drove slowly toward the home of Reverend Hector R. Patterson, Eagle Butte's only resident clergyman.

He did not speak until the car stopped at the gate of the little unpainted parsonage beside the white, weather-boarded church.

"Wait a minute," he said as Ophelia started to get out of the Clagstone
"Six," "maybe I'll go in with you!"

"Splendid," the widow replied, settling again against the cushions. "I'd be delighted to have you come along and I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Patterson would be glad to see you!"

"Well, it—it"—Old Heck stammered, not knowing how to begin what he wanted to say—"it—it all depends on you! Here"—he said abruptly as a bright thought came to him—"read that and—and—tell me what you think about it!" at the same time pulling the yellow envelope from his pocket and handing it to Ophelia.

With a questioning lift of her eyebrows the widow drew the folded, official-looking document from the envelope.

"Why, it's a—it's a—" she started to say and stopped confused, her cheeks blazing crimson.

"It's a marriage license—" Old Heck said, coming to her rescue, "—made out for you and me. I—I—didn't know what to tell the clerk when he asked me how old you was—so I just guessed at it!"

The widow looked shyly down at the names written on the document.

The license granted "Ophelia Cobb, age twenty-three, of Hartville,
Connecticut, and Josiah Alonzo Heck, age forty-eight, of Kiowa County,
Texas," the right to marry.

Ophelia's actual years were thirty-nine!

From under drooping lashes she glanced up suspiciously into the earnest gray eyes beside her. She saw that Old Heck had been sincere in his "guess."

"But—but—"

"I know it's kind of unexpected," Old Heck interrupted nervously, "—perhaps I had ought to have said something about it first, but, well, I figured I'd go on and get the license and show that my intentions was good and—and—sort of risk the whole thing on one throw! It always seemed like there was something missing at the Quarter Circle KT," he went on, his voice grown softer and trembling a bit, "and—and when you came I—I—found out what it was—"

Ophelia sat silently with downcast eyes, her pulse racing, the license unfolded on her lap, while she bit uncertainly at the tip of the finger of her glove.

"I—I—know I ain't very good-looking or—or—anything," Old Heck continued, "but I thought maybe you—you—liked me a little—enough anyhow to get married—that is if you—. Oh-h—thunder, Ophelia!" he exclaimed in despair, feeling that he was hopelessly floundering, "I—I—love you! Please let's use that license! Let's use it right away —to-day—and get it over with!" he urged as the widow still hesitated.

"But—I—I'm not suitably dressed—" she stammered.

"I think that dress you've got on is the prettiest goods I ever saw in my life," he interrupted, looking adoringly at the clinging summer fabric caressing Ophelia's shapely form, "I always did think it would be awful appropriate for us to—to—get married in!" he finished pleadingly.

"But—Carolyn June and—and—Parker—" Ophelia murmured.

At the mention of Parker, Old Heck started while a look of anguish came into his eyes. So she loved Parker! That was why she was so backward, he thought. Well, the Quarter Circle KT foreman was a little better-looking, maybe, and some younger! He couldn't blame her.

His head dropped. For a moment Old Heck was silent, a dull, sickening hurt gripping his heart. A deep sigh escaped from his lips. He reached over and picked up the license.

"I—I—guess I made a mistake," he said numbly. "We'll just—just—tear this thing up and forget about it!"

Ophelia looked demurely up at him, her mouth twitching. One small gloved hand slipped over and rested on the strong brown fingers that held the license. Roses flamed over the full round throat and spread their blush to her cheeks. Her eyes were like pools of liquid blue:

"Don't tear it—it—up!" she whispered with a little laugh—a laugh that sent the blood leaping, like fire, through Old Heck's veins, "it—it would be a shame to waste it!"

For an instant Old Heck was dazed. He looked at her as if he could not believe he had heard aright. Suddenly a wave of undiluted happiness swept over him.

"Ophelia!" he cried huskily. "Oh, Ophelia!" and the minister's three small sons, pausing in their play in the grassless yard at the side of the house, while they watched the beautiful car standing in front of the parsonage gate, saw the owner of the Quarter Circle KT, in broad daylight, on the principal residence street of Eagle Butte, before the eyes of the whole world—if the whole world cared to look—throw his arms around the plump lady sitting beside him and press one long, rapturous kiss on her moist, unresisting lips!

A moment later Ophelia and Old Heck, both much embarrassed but tremulously happy, stepped inside the door of the parsonage.

They were driving away from the minister's house—going to the Occidental Hotel for a little all-by-their-ownselves "wedding luncheon"—before either thought of the matter concerning which Ophelia had desired to see the clergyman's wife.

"Gee whiz!" Old Heck exclaimed, "you forgot that consultation or whatever it was with Mrs. Patterson to start your woman's suffrage 'movement'—"

"To start my what?"

"Your 'woman's rights,' 'female voter's organization'—or whatever it is!" Old Heck explained, a new-born tolerance in his voice. "I didn't mean to interfere with your political activities—"

Ophelia threw back! her head, while a ripple of laughter trilled out above the purr of the Clagstone "Six."

"Why, my dear—dear—Old Boy!" she cried, "I am not engaged in 'political activities,' or 'suffragette movements!' Of course," she continued archly, "I believe women ought to be allowed to vote—if they haven't intelligence enough for that they haven't brains enough to be good 'pardners' with their husbands—"

"By gosh, you're right!" Old Heck agreed, "I never thought of it that way before!"

"And," she continued, "naturally I shall vote whenever the opportunity comes, but I'm not an 'Organizer' for anything of that kind. Mrs. Patterson and I are going to organize the wives, sisters and sweethearts, in Eagle Butte, into a club for the study of 'Scientific and Efficient Management of the Home!' We think we should be as proficient in those arts—and which we believe are peculiarly womanly functions—as the men are in the direction of the more strenuous business affairs in which they themselves are engaged."

"So that's what you're an 'Organizer' for?" Old Heck queried while a radiant contentment spread over his face.

"That is it," Ophelia said simply, adding with a most becoming heightening of color, "it is so we will be—will be—better wives!"

"My Gawd!" Old Heck breathed fervently. "My Gawd! The Lord has been good to me to-day!"

While Old Heck and Ophelia were in Eagle Butte getting married, Skinny and Carolyn June had been riding line on the upland pasture fence. They had just returned to the Quarter Circle KT, unsaddled their horses, turned them into the pasture, gone to the house and stopped a moment on the front porch to watch the glow in the west—the sun was dipping into a thundercap over the Costejo Mountains—when the Clagstone "Six" rolled down the grade and up to the string of poplars before the house.

"Gee, we thought you two had eloped!" Carolyn June laughed as the couple climbed out of the car and came, rather bashfully, in at the gate. Old Heck and Ophelia looked at each other guiltily.

"We did come darn near it!" Old Heck chuckled, plunging at once into the task of breaking the news. "We got married—I reckon you'd call that the next thing to eloping!"

"Got married?" Skinny and Carolyn June cried together.

"Who—who—got married?" Skinny repeated incredulously.

"Ophelia and me," Old Heck answered with a sheepish grin but proudly. "Who else did you think we meant? We