He raised his own weapon, half-turned in the saddle, dropped the muzzle
of the gun forward until it pointed at the flashes spitting from the
officer's revolver. His finger started to tighten on the trigger.
"Hell," he muttered, "what's the use? Tom's just doin' what he thinks he
has to do!" and the Ramblin' Kid slipped the gun, unfired, back into its
holster.
A moment later Captain Jack whirled to the right across the Santa Fe
tracks and bearing a little to the east, in the direction of Capaline,
the dead volcano that rises out of the lavas northwest of the Quarter
Circle KT, between the Purgatory and the Cimarron, disappeared in the
black starlit night.
CHAPTER XX
MOSTLY SKINNY
It is a week to the day since the fight in the Elite Amusement Parlor in
Eagle Butte. Since the Ramblin' Kid, followed by the wicked sing of the
bullets from the marshal's gun, disappeared in the darkness no word has
come from the fugitive cowboy, who beat to a pulp the burly Greek.
The Gold Dust maverick paces uneasily about in the circular corral and
the Quarter Circle KT has settled into the hum-drum routine of ranch
life.
Parker, Charley, Chuck and Bert are gone to Chicago with the train-load
of beef cattle.
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