"Where's Old Heck?" Skinny asked excitedly. "I brought the mail--here,
take it to him!"

The other, known on the Kiowa and the range of western Texas and Mexico
only as "the Ramblin' Kid," strolled leisurely out through the sagging,
weight-swung gate and up to the panting horse from which Skinny had not
yet dismounted.

"Asleep, I reckon," he replied in a voice peculiarly low and deliberate,
"--what's your spontaneousness about? You act like a special d'livery or
somethin'."

"Old Heck's got a letter," Skinny said, jerkily; "maybe's it's bad news
an' he ought to have it quick," as the Ramblin' Kid reached for a yellow
envelope held in the outstretched hand.

At that instant Old Heck, owner and boss of the Quarter Circle KT cow
outfit, stepped from the shadow of the open ranch-house door. He was
short and stocky, red-faced, somewhere near the fifties, and a
yellowish-gray mustache hung over tobacco blackened lips. Overalls, a
checked blue and white shirt, open at the throat, boots into which the
trousers legs were loosely jammed comprised his attire. He was
bareheaded and the sun glistened on a wrinkly forehead, topped by a thin
sprinkling of hair.

"What's the matter?" he asked drowsily, his small, gray-blue eyes
blinking in the yellow sun-glare and still sluggish from the nap
disturbed by the noise of Skinny's arrival.

"Nothin'. Skinny's just got a letter an' is excited about it," the