Skinny drew a hand across his eyes and looked at Carolyn June.
It was Monday morning, clear and cloudless, with a whiff of a breeze kissing the poplars along the front-yard fence at the Quarter Circle KT. On the sand-hills north of the Cimarron, Pedro was pushing the saddle cavallard toward Rock Creek, where the last half of the beef round-up was to begin. Parker and the cowboys were just splashing their bronchos into the water at the lower ford. Sing Pete, on the high seat of the grub-wagon, was once more clucking and cawing at Old Tom and Baldy as they drew the outfit along the lane and followed the others to the open range.
Old Heck, Skinny, Ophelia and Carolyn June again were alone at the Quarter Circle KT.
The Eagle Butte Rodeo had closed, with one last riotous carnival of wildness at midnight Saturday night.
Once more the straggling town, its pulse gradually beating back to normal, lay half-asleep at the foot of the sun-baked butte that stood silent and drowsy beyond the Sante Fe tracks.
Tom Poole, the lank marshal, loafed as usual about the Elite Amusement Parlor, over which hung a sullen quiet reflecting the morbid emotions of Mike Sabota, its brutish-built proprietor, resulting from his heavy losses on Thunderbolt in the two-mile sweepstakes when the Gold Dust maverick, ridden by the drug-crazed Ramblin' Kid, darted under the wire lengths ahead of the black Vermejo stallion.
Friday evening Old Heck had met Dorsey in the pool-room.
Judge Ivory handed over to the owner of the Quarter Circle KT the Y-Bar cattleman's check for ten thousand dollars and the bill of sale he had recklessly given and which transferred to Old Heck all the cattle the Vermejo rancher owned.
"You put it on me," he said to Old Heck "but the Ramblin' Kid won square and I'm not squealing!"
Old Heck turned the check slowly over in his hand and looked at it with a quizzical frown on his face:
"It's my exact balance," Dorsey replied; "I saw to that this morning."
For a long minute Old Heck studied the bill of sale that made him owner of every cow-brute burnt with the Y-Bar brand.
"My men will gather the cattle within fifteen days," Dorsey said dully, noting the half-questioning look on Old Heck's face, "or you can send your own crew, just as you please. I suppose you'll meet me half-way and receive the stock in Eagle Butte?"