Read Ebook: The Ramblin' Kid by Bowman Earl Wayland

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Ebook has 2069 lines and 72723 words, and 42 pages

"Aw, hell," the Ramblin' Kid rebuked, "him have a wife? Don't insult th' female population!"

"And I'd almost forgot I ever had one!" Old Heck continued talking as if to himself.

"What'd I tell you?" Chuck exulted.

"Shut up! He's confessin'--let him alone an' he'll get it out of his conscience sooner or later!"

"Had a what?" Parker urged sympathetically. "Maybe you didn't have one--maybe you only imagined you did!"

"Had a brother--anyhow a half a one--our mothers was the same but different fathers on account of mine dyin' when I was little and his marrying our mother again; we was playmates together in our innocent childhood and infancy until I run away and went to sea and finally anchored on the Kiowa and got to raisin' cattle--"

"Where does he come in at?" Parker questioned.

"He said it was a female, to start with," Skinny added.

"--and his name is Simeon Dixon on account of his father's being the same thing, and he went in the street railroad business in a place named Hartville in Connecticut, and he got married and had a wife--she was Zithia Forbes, and she's dead, and I knowed that, and he's rich I reckon and--"

"An' Amrak begat Meshak an' Meshak begat Zimri an' Zimri was th' founder of th' House of Old Heck," the Ramblin' Kid chanted. "What in thunder does details amount to, anyhow?"

"But you was mournin' about a she!" Parker insisted.

"Well, I reckon it ain't a wife--at least not the one I was thinking about," Chuck murmured disappointedly, "but I bet he's had one somewhere in his vari'gated career and is hiding out from her in fear an' tremblin'--"

"And there will not be the grand, the beautiful murder?" Pedro sighed, questioningly.

"Wait a minute," Skinny pleaded, "--give him air!"

"--and he's got a female daughter--and I didn't know that--and he's--oh, Gawd!--he's sending her out to the Quarter Circle KT!"

"How big is she?" Parker whispered.

"She's--she's twenty-two--"

"Inches around or what?" Charley gasped.

"--and Ophelia is coming with her--Ophelia Cobb--C-o-double-b it is--is coming with her for a chaperon--"

"Great guns!" Skinny breathed,"--two females!"

"Hold still and I'll read it--no, you do it, Parker--I'm too full of emotion--my voice'd quiver--"

Parker read:

"Josiah Heck, Eagle Butte, Texas:

"Am sending my daughter, Carolyn June, out to your ranch for a while. She needs a change. She has broke all the he-human hearts in Hartville--that is all of them old enough or young enough to be broke--and is what's called a love-stimulator and won't settle. She is twenty-two and it's time she was calmed. Hoping six months on the Kiowa range will gentle her quite a lot, I am sympathetically your 1/2 brother, Simeon.

"P.S.--Mrs. Ophelia Cobb, a lady widow, is coming with her for a chaperon. Beware of both of them. They will arrive at Eagle Butte the 21st.--S."

"Gee, it's a long one!" Chuck said admiringly.

"It's one of these 'Night Letters,'" Parker explained.

"I knowed it was bad news," Skinny exclaimed, "--poor old Heck!"

"Better say, 'Poor we all!'" Bert declared. "Farewell peace and joy on the Quarter Circle KT!"

"The Lord have mercy on Old Heck!" Charley cried with dramatic fervor.

A BLUFF CALLED

The Quarter Circle KT was a womanless ranch. Came now, like a bolt from the clear sky or the sudden clang of a fire-alarm bell, the threat of violation of this Eveless Eden by the intrusion of a pair of strange and unknown females. The arrival of the telegram telling of the coming of Carolyn June Dixon, Old Heck's niece, and Ophelia Cobb, her chaperon, filled with varying emotions the hearts of Old Heck, Parker and the cowboys.

To Old Heck their presence meant nothing less than calamity. Long years of he-man association had made him dread the petty restraints he imagined would be imposed by intimate contact with womankind. Good lord, a man wouldn't be able even to cuss freely, and without embarrassment, with a couple of women in the house and prowling around the ranch!

Skinny, Bert, Chuck, Pedro, Charley, the Ramblin' Kid, even the Chink cook and Parker, quivered with excitement and curiosity behind thinly veiled pretense of fear and horror. Secretly they rejoiced. It was marvelous news borne by the telegram Skinny brought. Here would be diversion ample, unusual, wholly worth while and filled with possibilities of romance as luring as the first glimpse of a strange new land shadowed with mystery and promise of thrilling adventure.

Sing Pete paddled back to the unfinished business of the kitchen, chattering excitedly. The cowboys stood mutely and stared at Old Heck and the fatal slip of yellow paper.

"What'll I do?" Old Heck asked the group despairingly. "They'll ruin everything."

"Can't you head 'em off, somehow?" Parker suggested.

"Can't be done. They're already on their way and probably somewhere this side of Kansas City by now."

"Find out which train they're on and let the Ramblin' Kid and me cut across to the Purgatory River bridge and wreck it," Skinny Rawlins, always tragic, darkly advised.

"I ain't particular about killin' females," the Ramblin' Kid objected, "besides, we ain't got no dynamite."

"Send them a telegram and say Old Heck's dead and not to come," Bert Lilly volunteered.

"Aw, you blamed idiot, they'd come anyhow then, just to attend the funeral--"

"I got an idea," Chuck Slithers exclaimed; it's a telegram too. Send them one C.O.D. in care of the train that will get to Eagle Butte the twenty-first and tell them we've all got the smallpox and we're sorry but everybody's dangerously sick and to please answer!"

"That might work," Parker said; "they'd be mighty near sure not to want to catch it."

"We'll try it," Old Heck agreed. "Chuck wants to ride over to Eagle Butte anyway and he can have the depot agent send it and wait for a reply."

"Go get your horse ready, Chuck," Parker said, "we'll write it while you're saddlin' up!"

Chuck hurried to the corral while Old Heck went into the house for pencil and writing-paper. Parker and the cowboys moved in a group to the shade of the porch in front of the house.

"What'll we tell them?" Old Heck asked, reappearing with writing materials. "Here, Parker, you write it."

"Dear niece Carolyn June Dixon and Chaperon: Sorry, but there's an epidemic of smallpox at the Quarter Circle KT and you can't come. Chuck is dying with it. Old Heck's plumb prostrated, Bert is already broke out, Pedro is starting to and Skinny Rawlins and the Ramblin' Kid are just barely able to be up. I love you too much to want you to catch it. Please go back to Hartville and give my regards to your pa and don't expose yourself. Answer by return telegram so I'll know your intentions. Affectionately and absolutely your Uncle Josiah Heck," Parker read after writing a few moments. "How's that?"

"Sounds all right."

"Got it ready?" Chuck called from the fence, while Silver Tip, the trim-built half-blood Hambletonian colt he was riding, reared and pranced, eager for the road and a run.

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