THE GREEDY SANDS
When the Ramblin' Kid, working the rope-conquered and leg-weary Gold
Dust maverick from the North Springs back to the Quarter Circle KT,
crossed the Cimarron at dawn Captain Jack and the filly swam a raging,
drift-burdened river. Less than twelve hours later Carolyn June and
Skinny, at the lower ford, rode into a stream that again was normal. Old
Blue and Pie Face splashed through water barely reaching the stirrup
leathers. Only the fresh rubbish flung out on the meadows by the flood's
quick anger or lodged in the willows, still bent by the pressure of the
torrent that had rushed over them and slimy with yellow sediment left on
their branches and leaves, told the story of the swift rise and fall of
the Cimarron the night before.
On the bluff north of the river Carolyn June and Skinny checked their
horses while the girl gazed down on the panorama of green fields, narrow
lanes, corrals and low buildings of the Quarter Circle KT. The sight
thrilled her. On all the Kiowa range there was no more entrancing view.
"It's kind of pretty, ain't it?" Skinny ventured.
"Beautiful!" she breathed.
"I'd--I'd like to stand here and look at it always--if you--if you'd
enjoy it!" he said and was instantly appalled by his own audacity.
Carolyn June flashed a quick look at him.
"We had better go on," she said, then added lightly: "Does it always
affect you so when you get this view of the valley?"
"No. But, well, somehow it's different this morning--maybe it's because
you are here!" he blurted out hurriedly.
"Please," she said, starting Old Blue toward the west along the crest of
the ridge, "don't be sentimental. I'm afraid--" she added, intending to
say it would spoil their ride.
"You needn't be, with me along!" Skinny interrupted hastily,
misinterpreting her meaning.
She laughed and without explaining urged her horse forward.
Skinny followed pensively on Old Pie Face.
The Ramblin' Kid, while going from barn to corral, glanced across the
valley and saw Carolyn June and Skinny as they rode along the ridge. It
was two miles from the ranch to the bluff on which they were riding, but
so clear was the rain-washed air that the horses and riders were easily
recognized. He watched them until they reached the corner of the upland
pasture. There the roads from the lower and upper fords came together.
The couple turned north along the fence and disappeared beyond the
ridge.
For a mile Carolyn June and Skinny rode without speaking. He felt
already a reaction from his over-boldness of a while ago and silently
swore at himself for his rashness. She was not eager to resume a
conversation that had threatened a painfully emotional turn. She was
quite content to enjoy the fresh air of the morning, the changing scenes
through which they passed and the easy motion of the horse on which she
was mounted.
The bronchos pricked forward their ears at the sound of galloping hoofs.
"Somebody's coming," Skinny spoke as Pedro, riding rapidly toward them,
rounded the point of a low hill a little distance ahead.
"What's wrong?" Skinny questioned, when the three met and stopped their
horses.
"The pasture fence is bu'sted," Pedro answered; "at the northeast corner
it is broke. The cattle are out. Ten--fifteen maybe--are dead--the
lightning strike them perhaps. The others all of them are gone. They go
pronto, stampede I think, toward the Purgatory. Chuck and me can not get
them alone--I go to tell Old Heck so the boys will come and help!"
It was plain to Skinny what had occurred. The cattle had drifted before
the storm until stopped by the wire. While crowded against it a bolt of
lightning had struck the fence, followed the metal strands, and killed
the animals touching or nearest to it. In the fright the others plunged
madly forward and had broken their way to freedom. Five hundred Diamond
Bar steers, recently bought by Old Heck and brought from the Purgatory
forty-five miles north of the Quarter Circle KT were out and rushing
back to their former range.
"You go help Chuck," Skinny said to Pedro. "Carolyn June and me will
turn around and take the news to Old Heck and send some of the boys to
help you. If them cattle ain't bunched before they hit the Purgatory and
get scattered over their old range it will take a month to gather them
and get them back again!"
"Why don't you yourself go with Pedro and Chuck?" Carolyn June asked
Skinny. "I can ride to the ranch alone and tell the others about it."
"I'm supposed to stay with--" he begun.
"With me, I presume," she interrupted. "Well, this is one time you
don't. Go on with the boys. You are needed after those steers a lot more
than you are to 'herd' me back to the ranch!"
Without waiting to argue she wheeled Old Blue toward the Quarter Circle
KT. Skinny watched her a moment, then started with Pedro in the other
direction. Suddenly checking his horse he swung around in the saddle.
"Go back the way we came!" he called after the girl. "Don't try the
upper ford!"
Carolyn June looked around and threw up her hand, motioning toward the
north. Thinking that she understood, Skinny touched Old Pie Face with
the spurs and soon overtook the Mexican.
He was mistaken. Carolyn June had not understood the warning. The
distance was too great for his words to reach her distinctly. She
thought he was merely protesting against her going alone. At the fork of
the road she saw that the trail that led to the upper ford was much the
nearer way to the ranch. Reining Old Blue into it she rode swiftly along
the ridge and down the slope toward the dangerous crossing.
* * * * *
The Ramblin' Kid spent the morning at the circular corral. He was
studying the moods and working to win the confidence of the Gold Dust
maverick. He was watching her and thinking always a little ahead of the
thought that was in the mind of the mare. His love for a horse and
understanding of the wonderfully intelligent animals was as natural as
were the brown eyes, the soft low voice, the gentle but strong touch, by
which it was expressed. He wooed the outlaw filly thoughtfully,
carefully, as a lover courts a sweetheart. The beautiful creature
reminded him of Carolyn June. "They was made for each other!" he
repeated softly as he worked with the mare. From the corral he could see
the road across the river where Skinny and the girl had gone. Often he
turned his eyes in that direction.
He was fingering the garter in his pocket and looking toward the river
when Carolyn June appeared on the ridge as she returned alone to the
ranch. He stood and watched her. The ugly words she had spoken at the
gate came into his mind and a bitter smile curled his lips. Still he
watched the girl, expecting Skinny would ride into view. She turned down
the ridge toward the upper ford.
"That's funny," he thought, "wonder where Skinny's at?" Then it flashed
through his mind that something must be wrong for the girl was riding
alone. "Hell!" he exclaimed aloud, "she's by herself an' headin'
straight for th' upper ford!" Only an instant he paused. "Jack!" he
cried sharply, running to the corral gate and swinging it partly open.
"Come--_quick_!"
The roan stallion started at a trot toward the gate, then, trained to
obey instantly the word of the master he loved better than life, leaped
nimbly through the opening. Slamming and fastening the gate the Ramblin'
Kid ran to the shed, the broncho at his side. He threw the blanket and
saddle on the little roan, cinched quickly but carefully the double
gear, slipped the bit into the waiting mouth of the horse and without
stopping to put on his chaps sprang on Captain Jack's back and whirled
him in a dead run around the corner of the shed and down the lane toward
the north. At the pasture corral below the barn he guided the broncho
close to the fence and scarcely checking him leaned over and lifted a
rope, coiled and hung on a post near the gate, from its place--the one
Chuck that morning had left because of the flaw.
"God!" he groaned, "--an' a bad rope!"
He glanced toward the ridge across the river. Carolyn June had
disappeared down the trail that led to the upper ford.
"Go, Little Man, go--for th' love of God, go!" the Ramblin' Kid
whispered as he leaned forward over the neck of the horse. Captain Jack
answered the agonized appeal as he would never have responded to the
cruel cut of spurs and leaped ahead in a desperate race to beat Old Blue
and his precious burden to the greedy sands of the Cimarron.
As he rode, the Ramblin' Kid slipped his hand around the coils of the
rope till his fingers found the broken strands that told of the weakness
that caused Chuck to leave it behind that morning. Bending over it,
while his horse ran, he worked frantically to weave a rawhide saddle
string into the fiber and so strengthen the dangerous spot.
* * * * *
Thinking only to reach the ranch as quickly as possible Carolyn June
guided Old Blue down the trail and through the thin patches of willows
and cottonwood trees that grew along the river. The stream looked
innocent enough and the crossing perfectly safe. Swift but apparently
shallow water flowed close to the northern bank. Beyond that was a
clean, pebble strewn bar and then a smaller, narrower prong of the
river. On the south side stretched a white, unbroken expanse of sand a
hundred feet or more wide and ending against the low slope of the meadow
land.
At the brink of the stream Old Blue stopped short and refused to go on.
"What's the matter," Carolyn June laughed lightly, "--afraid of getting
your 'little tootsies' wet?"
The horse reared backward when she tried to urge him ahead and wheeled
half around in an effort to get away from the water.
"Look here, Old Fellow," she spoke sharply, tightening the reins as she
touched his flank with her spur, "we haven't time for foolishness!
Generally, in fact always," accenting the last word, "horses--and
men--go in the direction I want them to go! Why, you're as
stubborn--as--as the Ramblin' Kid!" she finished with another laugh as
Old Blue, with a snort of fear, yet not daring to resist further the
firm hand and firmer will of his rider, stepped into the water.
"Gee, when you do start you go in a hurry, don't you?" Carolyn June said
as the broncho went rapidly forward as if eager to negotiate the
crossing, seeming to know that safety lay in the quickness and lightness
of his tread. As he lunged ahead the girl had the sensation that the
saddle was sinking from under her. Reaching the firmer footing of the
gravel bar in the center of the stream Old Blue tried again to turn
about.
"Go on!" Carolyn June cried impatiently yet with a feeling somehow of
impending danger she could not wholly define, "--you've got to do it, so
you had as well quit your nonsense and go ahead!" at the same time
raking the horse's sides sharply again with the spurs.
Crossing the shallow branch of the river the broncho reached the smooth,
firm appearing beach of sand.
With his head down, his muzzle almost touching the ground, as if
scenting, feeling, his way, he went forward stepping rapidly, easily, as
possible. At each step his foot slipped lower into the yielding,
quivering mass. Carolyn June felt him tremble and the sensation that the
horse was being pulled from under her grew more and more pronounced. She
noticed how he sank into the sand and observed also the sweat beginning
to darken the hair on the neck of her mount.
"Pretty soft, isn't it?" she said, speaking to the broncho kindly as
though to encourage him and perhaps at the same time to allay a bit the
queer sense of uneasiness she felt, for even yet she did not realize the
danger into which she had unknowingly ridden.
Half-way to the firm black soil of the southern bank of the stream Old
Blue's front feet seemed suddenly to give way beneath him. He began to
plunge desperately. Then it was the truth came to Carolyn June. Her
cheeks grew white.
"The quicksand!" she exclaimed aloud, at the same time trying to help
the horse with a lift of the reins. It was too late to turn back. Her
only salvation lay in reaching the solid ground such a few yards
ahead--and yet so fearfully far away. Old Blue struggled madly to go
forward, gaining a little but at each effort sinking deeper into the
sand. Carolyn June tried to encourage him with words:
"Come on, come on! Good Little Horse--you can make it! Keep
trying--that's it--now!--you're doing it! Brave Old Blue--don't give
up--don't give up, Boy!" she pleaded, pity for the horse causing her
almost to forget her own terrible peril.
It was useless.
Twenty-five feet from safety Old Blue's front quarters went down until
his breast was against the sand. The hind legs were buried to the
stifles. He wallowed and floundered helplessly. His hoofs touched
nothing solid on which to stand. He stretched his head forward,
straining-to lift himself away from that horrible, clinging suction. His
efforts only forced him down--down--always down!
Carolyn June's own feet were in the sand. She threw herself from the
saddle--as far to one side and ahead of the horse as she could. With her
weight removed perhaps Old Blue could get out. Anyway it was death to
stay on the horse. Perhaps alone she could escape--she was lighter--the
sand might hold her up--by moving rapidly surely she could go that short
twenty-five feet to the firm ground ahead of her. At the first step she
sank half-way to her thigh. She fell forward thinking to crawl on her
hands and knees. Her arms went into the mass to the shoulder.
Silently--without a word--but with horrible fear gripping her heart she
fought the sand. She sank deeper--slowly--steadily--surely. The hellish
stuff closed about her body to the waist. If she only had
something--anything--solid to hold to! She took off her hat, grasped the
edges of the brim, reached her arms out and tried to use the frail disk
of felt for a buoy. It held a moment then gradually settled below the
surface of the shifting, elusive substance. Again and again she lifted
the hat free from the sand and sought to place it so it would bear a
part at least of her weight. Her efforts were vain. The insidious mass
crept higher and higher on her body. She remembered reading that one
caught in the quicksand by his struggles only hastened his own
destruction. She tried to be perfectly still. In spite of all she was
sinking--sinking--the sand was engulfing her.
During all her struggles Carolyn June remained silent. She had not
thought to cry out. Somehow she could not realize that she was to die.
The sun was bright, the sky cloudless, the trees along the river-bank
barely swayed in a little breeze! How beautiful the world! How queer
that such a little distance away was the green grass of the meadow and
the firm black earth in which it was rooted and she--she was held fast
and helpless in the embrace of the deadly sand! Strange thoughts rushed
through her mind. She wondered what they would think at the ranch when
night came and she did not return. Would they know? Would they guess the
thing that had happened? Would the sand draw her down--down--until it
covered her so none would ever know where or how she died? She looked at
Old Blue. "Poor old fellow!" she whispered, "I am sorry--I didn't
know--it looked so white and firm and safe!" The sand was half-way up
the sides of the horse and he swayed his body in pathetic, futile
efforts to free himself.
A strange calm came over Carolyn June. So this was the end? She was to
die alone, horribly, in the treacherous sands of the Cimarron? Surely it
could not be--God would not let her die! She was so young! She had just
begun to live--She thought of Hartville, her father, the old friends.
How far away they seemed! How queer it was--she could not image in her
mind any of the familiar scenes, the face of her father or any of the
friends she had known so well! She tried to think of her Uncle Josiah,
Ophelia, Skinny Rawlins--poor fellow, how susceptible was his big,
innocent, boyish heart! She called each one up in a mental effort to
remember how they had looked, the sound of their voices--they were only
names--dim shadowy names! There was nothing in the whole world but Old
Blue--herself--and the sand--the sand--an eternity of sand pulling,
dragging, sucking her down! She closed her eyes tightly, thinking to
shut out the impression of utter loneliness. The face of the Ramblin'
Kid flashed into her mind! She could see him! She saw him lying under
the shed, as he had looked that morning, his head resting on the saddle,
his eyes gazing steadily into her own; she saw him again as he had
looked when she stung him with her harsh words at the gate. She seemed
to see the agonized humility in his expression and hear the low
tenseness of his voice as he repeated aloud the words she had used--"An
ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" She laughed almost hysterically. "Why
can I see him--just him--and not the others? Has he come to--to--haunt
me?" she finished with a gasp.
The sand had reached her breast. How long before it clutched at her
throat? Her mouth? Her eyes? Ah, would she hold up her arm as she went
down--down--and reach out her hand as if to wave the world a last, long
farewell? "I will--I will!" she cried, the pressure around her body
almost stopping her breath, "I--I--will--and--wiggle my fingers to the
end!" she added with a choking half-hysterical laugh, so tightly did she
cling to life. Her mood changed. "I--guess--I ought to pray!" she said,
"but--I--God--God knows anyhow!" her voice trailing away to a whisper as
if she had grown suddenly, utterly, tired. She stretched out her hands
once more with the hat, trying to use it to buoy her up. Under the
weight of her arms it sank in the sand. She tossed it to one side. "It
will--stay--on top by itself," she choked. "I--I--will leave it--maybe
they will find it--and know--" She felt her senses were leaving her.
Even yet she had not called for help. It had not occurred to her that
rescue was possible. As if it were an echo to her thoughts there came
the throbbing tattoo of hoofs pounding the earth. She listened intently.
Some one was riding down the lane toward the river from the ranch! The
horse was evidently running--running madly, desperately. Would he cross
at the upper or lower ford? Her heart pulsed with heavy dull throbs. The
sand was crushing her chest. A wave of weakness swept over her. She
almost fainted. At that instant Captain Jack, carrying the Ramblin' Kid,
leaped through an opening in the willows and stopped--his front feet
plowing the firm ground at the edge of the quivering beach of sand.
"Pure luck!" the Ramblin' Kid breathed fervently, his eye quickly
measuring the distance to the nearly exhausted girl; "she's close enough
I can reach her with th' rope! God, if it'll only hold!" Already the
coils were in his hand. With a single backward fling of the noose and
forward toss he dropped the loop over the head of Carolyn June.
"Pull it up--close--under your arms!" he commanded shortly, "an' hang on
with your hands to take th' strain off your body!"
The girt obeyed without a word.
He double half-hitched the rope to the horn of the saddle, swung
Captain Jack around. "Look out!" he called to the girl as he started
away from the brink of the sand. "Steady, Boy, be careful--" to the
broncho. The slack gradually tightened. The strain drew on Carolyn
June's arms till it seemed they would be pulled from the sockets. The
rope cut cruelly into her body under her shoulders. She wanted to
cry--to scream--to laugh. She did neither. She threw back her head and
clung with all her strength to the rough lariat, stretched taut as a
cable of steel.
The Ramblin' Kid leaned forward in the saddle, his body half turned,
eyes looking back along the straight line of the severely tested rope.
He swore softly, steadily, under his breath. "God--if it will only
hold--if it only don't break!"
Slowly, surely, the little stallion leaned his weight against the
tensely drawn riata and Carolyn June felt herself lifted, inch by inch,
out of the sand that engulfed her. At last she fell forward--her body
free. Without stopping the horse the Ramblin' Kid continued away from
the river-bank and dragged the girl across the yielding surface to the
solid earth and safety. The instant she was where he could reach her he
whirled Captain Jack and rode quickly back. Carolyn June was trying to
get to her feet when he sprang from the broncho and helped her to the
firm ground on which he stood. She was panting and exhausted.
"Get--get--Old Blue out!" she gasped and dropped limply down on the
grass, fingering at the rope to remove it from around her body.
"Danged if she ain't got more heart than I thought she had!" the
Ramblin' Kid said to himself as he lifted the loop from over her head.
"I'm goin' to," he said aloud, "if I can--but--I'm afraid he's gone.
I'll try anyhow--you lay there an' rest--" at the same time remounting
his horse.
The sand covered the rump of Old Blue. The saddle, Parker's it was, was
nearly submerged, only the horn and cantle showing above the slimy mass.
His head, neck and the top of his withers were yet exposed. He still
struggled, wallowing feebly, vainly resisting the downward pull of the
sand. Crouching, as if fascinated by the terrible scene, Carolyn June
watched as the Ramblin' Kid, waiting his opportunity, at the instant the
horse in the sand lifted his head deftly flung the rope over his neck.
With a short jerk of the wrist he tightened the noose till it closed
snugly about the throat of the broncho. Again turning Captain Jack away
from the bank he urged him slowly forward. The rope stiffened. The
little stallion bunched himself and desperately strained against the
dead weight of Old Blue, multiplied many times by the suction of the
sand. The Ramblin' Kid leaned far over the neck of Captain Jack to give
the horse the advantage of his own weight and looked back, watching the
supreme efforts of the mired broncho as he fought to climb out of the
sand. A moment it looked as if the little roan would drag him out.
Slowly he seemed to be raising and moving forward. There was a sharp
snap. Half-way down its length the lariat parted. At the weak spot the
strain was too great. Captain Jack plunged forward to his knees, his
nose rooting the earth, and the Ramblin' Kid barely saved himself from
pitching over the horse's head.
"That's what I was dreadin'--" he said as he turned and rode back to the
edge of the sand.
Carolyn June gazed, wide-eyed, speechless with horror, at the horse in
the sand. When the rope broke, Old Blue, with a groan almost human, sank
back and quickly settled down until only his head and part of his neck
were exposed to view. The Ramblin' Kid looked at the broken rope--the
end fastened around the throat of Old Blue had whipped back and was
lying far beyond the cowboy's reach. The piece half-hitched to the
saddle horn was too short for another throw. Old Blue was doomed.
Carolyn June saw him sinking gradually, surely, into the sand. It seemed
ages. His eyes appealed with dumb pathos to the group on the bank. They
could hear his breath coming in harsh, terrible gasps. The sand seemed
to be deliberately torturing him as though it were some hellish thing,
alive and of fiendish cunning, that grasped its victim and then paused
in his destruction to gloat over his hopeless agony.
The Ramblin' Kid sat Captain Jack and watched.
"Why did God ever want to make that stuff anyhow!" sprang hoarsely from
his lips. He was torn between blind unreasoning anger at the quicksand
and pity for the struggling horse. Suddenly he jerked the forty-four,
always on his saddle, from its holster. As the gun swung back and then
forward there was a crashing report and Old Blue's head dropped, with a
convulsive shudder, limp on the sand.
Carolyn June screamed and buried her face in her hands.
At the sound of the shot Captain Jack stiffened and stood rigid. The
Ramblin' Kid, his face white and drawn, sat and looked dry-eyed at the
red stream oozing from the round hole just below the brow-band of the
bridle on the head of the horse he had killed.
"I--I--would have wanted somebody to do it to me!" he said softly and
rode to the side of the girl huddled on the ground. He dismounted and
stood, without speaking, looking down at her shaking form. After a time
she looked up, through eyes drenched with tears, into his face. Then as
if drawn by an irresistible impulse--one she could not deny--she turned
her head and looked at the spot where Old Blue had fought his last
battle with the quicksands of the Cimarron. A crimson stain, already
darkening, on the white surface; a few square feet of disturbed and
broken sand, even now settling into the smooth, innocent-looking
tranquillity that hid the death lurking in its depths; a short length
of rope, one end drawn beneath the sand, the other lying in a sprawling
coil; her hat resting a little distance to one side, were all that
remained to tell the story of the grim tragedy of the morning. She
shuddered and looked once more into the pain-filled eyes of the Ramblin'
Kid.
"We'd better be goin'," he said quietly, "you're wet an' them clothes
must be uncomfortable. You can ride Captain Jack!"
She stood up weak and trembling.
"I--I--thought Captain Jack was an outlaw," she said with a faint
smile. "He won't let me ride him, will he?"
"He'll let you," the Ramblin' Kid answered dully, "no woman ever has
rode him--or any other man only me--but he'll let you!"
As she approached the stallion he raised his head and looked at her with
a queer mixture of curiosity and antagonism, curving his neck in a
challenging way.
"Jack!" the Ramblin' Kid spoke sharply but kindly to the horse, "be
careful! It's all right, Boy--you're goin' to carry double this one
time!"
The broncho stood passive while the Ramblin' Kid helped Carolyn June to
his back.
"You set behind," he said, "it'll be easier to hold on an' I can handle
th' horse better!"
She slipped back of the saddle and he swung up on to the little roan.
With one hand Carolyn June grasped the cantle of the saddle, the other
she reached up and laid on the arm of the Ramblin' Kid--the touch sent a
thrill through her body and the cowboy felt a response that made his
heart quiver as they turned and rode toward the Quarter Circle KT.
For a mile neither spoke.
"I--I--am sorry for what--I said this morning," Carolyn June whispered
at last haltingly, feeling intuitively that the cruel words--"an
ignorant, savage, stupid brute"--were repeating themselves in her
companion's mind.
"It's all right," he answered without looking around and in a voice
without emotion, "it was th' truth--" with a hopeless laugh. "I'm a
damn' fool besides!"