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Title: The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge
The Ranch Girls Series
Author: Margaret Vandercook
Illustrator: Hugh A. Bodine
Release Date: August 11, 2010 [EBook #33409]
Language: English
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THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge
BOOKS BY MARGARET VANDERCOOK
THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
THE RANCH GIRLS AT RAINBOW LODGE
THE RANCH GIRLS' POT OF GOLD
THE RANCH GIRLS AT BOARDING SCHOOL
THE RANCH GIRLS IN EUROPE
THE RANCH GIRLS AT HOME AGAIN
THE RANCH GIRLS AND THEIR GREAT ADVENTURE
THE RED CROSS GIRLS SERIES
THE RED CROSS GIRLS IN THE BRITISH TRENCHES
THE RED CROSS GIRLS ON THE FRENCH FIRING LINE
THE RED CROSS GIRLS IN BELGIUM
THE RED CROSS GIRLS WITH THE RUSSIAN ARMY
THE RED CROSS GIRLS WITH THE ITALIAN ARMY
THE RED CROSS GIRLS UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES
STORIES ABOUT CAMP FIRE GIRLS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AMID THE SNOWS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ACROSS THE SEA
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' CAREERS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN AFTER YEARS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE DESERT
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT THE END OF THE TRAIL
[Illustration: SHE WAVED HER WONDERFUL PAPER BEFORE HER FRIENDS]
THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
The Ranch Girls
AT
Rainbow Lodge
BY
MARGARET VANDERCOOK
ILLUSTRATED BY
HUGH A. BODINE
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright, 1911, by
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LOST TRAIL 9
II. IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANT'S FACE 27
III. FRIEDA AND THE OTHER GIRL 39
IV. THE RESCUE 54
V. SEEKING ADVICE 66
VI. THE ARRIVAL AT THE HOUSE PARTY 78
VII. A VISIT TO OLD LASKA 86
VIII. THE ESCAPE FROM THE DANCE 99
IX. JACQUELINE'S MISFORTUNE 108
X. BACK TO RAINBOW LODGE 122
XI. BREAKING THE NEWS 132
XII. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DIVIDE 147
XIII. THE WET BLANKET 160
XIV. AN UNFORTUNATE ARRIVAL 172
XV. ALL SAVE, JACK! 181
XVI. WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 193
XVII. THE ROUND-UP 202
XVIII. A RACE FOR LIFE 218
XIX. NO NEWS 227
XX. OLIVE 243
XXI. THE WAY OF ESCAPE 258
XXII. A VOICE IN THE NIGHT 266
XXIII. JACK IS HAPPY 275
XXIV. CHRISTMAS EVE 282
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SHE WAVED HER WONDERFUL PAPER BEFORE HER FRIENDS _Frontispiece_
PAGE
FRIEDA FLUNG HERSELF VALIANTLY IN THE PATH OF
THE INDIAN WOMAN 40
"CAN I DO ANYTHING FOR YOU, MA'AM?" 173
SOMEONE CREPT UP BEHIND HER WITH THE STEALTHINESS
POSSIBLE ONLY TO AN INDIAN 243
The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge.
CHAPTER I.
THE LOST TRAIL.
OVER the brown plain a shaggy broncho trotted slowly, with its head
drooping.
A girl stood up in her saddle with one hand to her lips. "Halloo!
Halloo!" she cried. "I wonder where on earth I am? I thought I knew
every inch of this country, yet here I am lost and I can't be but a few
miles from our ranch. I must have missed the trail somewhere. Jim! Jim
Colter! If there is anybody near, please answer me."
Jacqueline Ralston rode astride. Her eyes and cheeks were glowing and
her gold brown hair, deep grey eyes and brilliant color, formed an
unusually attractive picture.
She leaned over and gave her pony a penitent hug. "Poor little Hotspur,
you shall have a rest pretty soon, even if I have to spend the night out
of doors. But won't Jean and Frieda be frightened? Jim will scour the
prairies for me."
The pony was treading through a vast field of purple clover fading to
brown in the autumn sun. It was just before sunset. Away to the right,
Jacqueline could see a group of slow moving objects, which she knew to
be cattle. Half a mile on the opposite side was a sparse group of
evergreen trees and low bushes. But there was nothing else that broke
the vision of a long line of level country, until the snow-capped peaks
of the distant mountains shone like gold in the rays of the setting sun.
"We will try the trees, Hotspur," Jacqueline urged coaxingly. "Perhaps
we may find a trail over there. Anyhow I believe I would rather be a
solitary babe in the woods, than to wander around here in the alfalfa
fields until to-morrow morning."
The girl wore a short, brown corduroy jacket and skirt, leather leggings
and riding boots. Over the pommel of her saddle hung a bunch of silver
grouse and a smart little rifle was suspended at her side.
"I am desperately hungry," she announced aloud. "I do wish I had a match
so I could light a fire. Jolly good advice that of Jim's for a ranch
girl, 'never try to find your match, always carry it with you.'"
Jacqueline laughed. She was not willing to confess that she was tired,
although she had been riding since eight o'clock that morning. Against
the wishes of her sister Frieda, her cousin Jean, and the overseer of
their ranch, Jim Colter, she had gone off alone to inspect the corral
which had been recently built to protect their sheep for the winter.
Inside the woods the way was darker and there was no sign of a road.
Jacqueline let the reins slacken on her pony's neck. Really Hotspur
would have to find the right trail home, if they were to reach the ranch
house that night. She could hear the rabbits and squirrels scurrying
back into their retreats. They were not accustomed to being disturbed at
their supper time and at first there was no other sound.
"Who goes there?" suddenly a rough voice demanded, and a horse came
plunging through an opening in the trees.
Jacqueline's color paled. She recognized the rider, a boy of about
sixteen, nearly her own age. "I am Jacqueline Ralston," she answered
quietly. "I have lost the trail. Will you please show me the way to the
Rainbow Ranch?"
The young fellow laughed rudely. "Miss Ralston, is it?" he sneered.
"Don't tell me you are lost on our ranch. You have been over here spying
at our cattle. Just you trot along home as fast as you can. I shall
report to my father what I caught you doing." The boy's light blue eyes
blazed angrily.
Jacqueline had reined in her pony and waited. Her temper was not her
strong point, but she replied politely: "I am not spying, Dan Norton; I
wonder why you should think it necessary. I will leave your ranch as
soon as I can get away from it. Will you please show me the trail?"
Jacqueline held her head very high. "Won't you tell me?" she asked
again. "Because we happen to be enemies is no reason why you shouldn't
believe my word." The young girl's tones were gentle, but her face was
white with anger in the gathering dusk. Her firm red lips were pressed
tight together to keep her from saying the things she really felt.
Dan Norton rode closer toward her and for reply struck her pony sharply
with his short riding whip. Tired little Hotspur quivered with pain,
but stood still under his mistress' gentle words.
"Don't do that again, Dan," Jacqueline protested, feeling the hot blood
rush to her face and then leave her cold and still with anger. "There is
not another person in Wyoming who would be so rude to me. But there has
been trouble enough between you and us. I shall not speak of this, but I
shall never be able to forgive you to the longest day I live;" and
Jacqueline's grey eyes looked so proudly and so scornfully into the
boy's that his own dropped.
"Your way's to the left," he muttered. "If you ride quick, you will soon
be on the boundary of your own ranch. Hurry, there is some one else
coming this way."
Jacqueline did not stir. A few minutes before, she would have trotted
off gladly. Now nothing would have induced her to go. She would not run
away from her enemy. Indeed she preferred to explain her presence on his
ranch to Mr. Norton.
In the silence between the two young people another voice entered, but
it was not Mr. Norton's. Some one was singing.
Dan Norton rode hurriedly out of sight and Jacqueline lifted her rifle,
letting it rest in her arm.
"If a body meet a body,
Comin' through the rye;
If a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
Every lassie has her laddie,
Nane they say have--
"Oh!" the song stopped abruptly. The singer threw up both hands and
burst into a merry boyish laugh. "I surrender in the name of--in the
name of most anything, if you will only put down that gun," he declared.
"Who would have thought of meeting a girl in these woods? Whatever are
you doing here? Poaching? No, I believe you don't have game preserves in
this country, so poaching isn't against your law." The stranger laughed,
though he had taken off his hat and bowed courteously to his fellow
traveler. "Please tell me, are you Rosalind in the forest of Arden? You
look like her, although I never heard of her on horseback," he ended
merrily.
Jacqueline bit her lips. The young man was evidently a newcomer in the
neighborhood and at any other time Jacqueline would have liked him. He
must have been about seventeen and was tall and slender, with light
brown hair and clever brown eyes. His dress was that of a cowboy, but
Jacqueline saw with a feeling of instant disdain that his clothes were
too new and his face too white for him to have lived long in her
country. Besides he did not ride or talk like a Westerner.
"I am Frank Kent, at your service," he explained, puzzled by
Jacqueline's haughty silence. "I am an Englishman and I don't quite know
what I ought to do or say out in Wyoming. But may I be of any service to
you?"
Jacqueline's feeling of hurt and anger began to subside and she smiled
in a more friendly fashion. Frank Kent decided that he had never seen
such a pretty girl before in his life. Had she been a city girl, her
skin would have been fair, but from her outdoor life it had become
exquisitely darkened by the wind and sun of the prairies. Her hair was
like bronze and her color a deep rose.
"I ought not to be asking favors of you," Jacqueline replied in her
usual manner. "You are a stranger in a strange land, while I have lived
out West since I was a baby. But can you show me the trail to the
Rainbow Ranch? Anyhow tell me how to get off of this place. I have
never been on it before, and--" To save her life Jacqueline could not
keep her voice from trembling.
"Surely I can show you," Frank answered. He spoke with such a funny
English accent, that Jacqueline would have liked to have made fun of
him, if she had known him better.
"I have heard a lot about the girls who run Rainbow Ranch," he went on
quickly. "They sound like such an awfully good sort that I have made Dan
Norton tell me a lot about them. I am visiting him, surely you must know
him," the young fellow concluded eagerly.
What in the world had he said? Frank Kent was startled. The girl he had
just met seemed quite friendly a moment before. Now she stiffened up on
her pony, her cheeks turned scarlet and her eyes flashed.
"I won't trouble you any further," she announced. "I will find my own
way home from here." Without another word or a backward glance,
Jacqueline gave her pony a gentle cut and Hotspur galloped quickly away.
"Whew," Frank Kent whistled, "methinks some one told me that the people
one met out West were awfully friendly and informal. That girl was as
touchy as you find them. But I wonder who she is? I think I will ride
after her and show her the trail, even if she is so high and mighty."
Jacqueline pretended not to hear the young man trotting along behind
her, and did not turn her head. She rode faster and faster until a sound
like a stifled moan arrested her. Jacqueline paused and saw that the
young fellow who had been so polite to her a few minutes before was
ghastly white. He was swaying so in his saddle that he had not the
strength to stop his horse.
Jacqueline caught his bridle. "Rest a minute," she urged gently. "You
will soon be all right. You have ridden too far and you are not used to
it. People always do too much, when they first come to Wyoming. My name
is Jacqueline Ralston and I am one of the girls at the Rainbow Ranch. I
am sorry I was rude to you a little while ago, but the Nortons are not
our friends." Jacqueline was talking so that the young man could get his
breath. She could not help admiring the brave fight he made. He seemed
to be dreadfully ashamed of his own weakness.
"You will let me show you the right trail, won't you?" he asked. "I am
sorry you are not friendly with my hosts. I thought I heard you talking
to Dan, when I rode up to you, but that won't matter about me, will it?
I don't know anything about your quarrel and if we were properly
introduced, don't you think we could be friends? I can't tell you how
plucky I think it is for you three girls to be managing your own ranch.
Don't you think you might tell me a thing or two about it? It is pretty
lonely out here for a stranger."
The young fellow looked so nice, and so ill, in spite of his efforts to
hide it, that Jacqueline almost relented. Then the thought of Dan
Norton's rudeness and the long feud between them swept over her, and
Jacqueline shook her head firmly.
"I am sorry," she returned. "With any one else it would not matter, but
we can't be friendly with any guest of the Norton's." Jacqueline
hesitated, "I can't explain it to you, there isn't time. Good-bye. I
know the way home from here."
Frank Kent watched Jacqueline ride out of sight, sitting on her pony as
though she had been made on it, like a figure cut from bronze, all in
soft tones of gold and brown.
It was quite dark when Jacqueline at last spied the lights of her own
ranch house twinkling at her warmly through the open windows and doors.
The broncho hurried faster, forgetting his hard day and Jacqueline
talked low in his ear.
"Home and supper, Hotspur! See the lights of home ahead. Soon they will
hear us coming. Suppose I give our call and relieve the suspense." Three
times in rapid succession, Jacqueline touched her red lips with her
slender fingers and gave a shrill, clear whistle like an Indian's call.
Instantly figures moved about in the ranch house. A dark lantern was
swung off its place over the front door and a man and two girls hurried
down the drive. Jacqueline was lifted off her horse. Her sister, Frieda,
seized her by one arm, her cousin, Jean, by the other.
"What has kept you so long?" Frieda demanded anxiously.
"If you have had an adventure and wouldn't let me go with you to-day, I
shall never get over it," Jean insisted. "Come into the house this
minute. Do tell us where you have been. Jim telephoned over to the other
side of the ranch three hours back, but the sheep herders said you
started for home long ago. We have been frightened to death ever since."
Frieda pulled at her sister's jacket. Jean, although she kept up her
scolding, got a pair of soft, red felt slippers and placed them
invitingly in front of the big, living-room fire.
Rainbow Lodge was built of pine logs. The great sitting-room was forty
feet long and two-thirds as wide and it looked like a man's room, but
the three ranch girls did not know it. The floor was covered with
buffalo robes and beautiful bright Navajo blankets made by the Indians
in the nearby villages, and the head of an elk thrusting forth giant
antlers dominated the scene from above the stone fireplace. An Andrew
Jackson table made of hewn logs, with a smooth polished top, occupied
one side of the fireplace, holding a reading lamp and some half-opened
books.
In another corner the home-made book shelves were filled with much-read
novels and books of travel. There were low, comfortable chairs about
everywhere. It was an odd room to be occupied by three young girls, but
a very noble one. The ranch girls had kept it just as their father had
left it when he died, six months before.
Jacqueline gave a comfy sigh. "I _am_ glad to be at home," she murmured.
"I haven't had any special adventure. Jean, I know you will be disgusted
with me, but I got lost and wandered over on the Norton ranch. I met Dan
Norton and he was horrid to me. Oh, Frieda darling, hasn't Aunt Ellen
saved me anything to eat? I am simply starving," Jacqueline ended,
anxious to change the subject.
Aunt Ellen came in at this moment bearing a waiter. She was nearly six
feet tall, part Indian and part colored, and she had lived with the
Ralstons ever since Mr. and Mrs. Ralston came to Wyoming from the East,
bringing Jack, who was then only two years old.
The old woman was frowning and shaking her head, as she put down Jack's
supper. "Ought never to have ridden off across the ranch alone, ought
not to be coming back home way after dark. I am sure the master never
would have liked you chilluns living here and trying to run things for
yourself," she muttered.
Jack flushed, although she patted the old woman's hand affectionately
and said nothing. Jack knew she deserved the scolding and that she would
have another from Jim Colter, the manager of their ranch, in the
morning. To-night he had led Hotspur away without a word and retired to
his own quarters.
No one, excepting strangers, ever called Jacqueline Ralston anything but
Jack. She never thought of herself by her pretty French name, except
when she wished to appear very grown up and impressive. As for little
Frieda, she had been born at Rainbow Ranch house thirteen years before
on Christmas eve. She was such a fair little German-looking baby, with
her blue eyes and flaxen hair, that her mother gave her the pretty
German name of Frieda, which means peace. Mrs. Ralston died when Frieda
was only a few months old, but the little girl had fairly earned her
name all her life. Peace and War, Jean used to call the two sisters,
when she wanted to tease Jack, for Jacqueline was as high-tempered and
determined as Frieda was gentle and serene.
Jean was a slender, graceful maiden, with hair and eyes of the same nut
brown color. She had come to live at the ranch ten years before, when
her mother, Mr. Ralston's sister, died, and Mr. Ralston decided it would
be better to bring up three motherless girls than two. Jean had a
gentle, far-away expression, though Jack always asserted that Jean was
present when she wanted to be. She only dreamed dreams and wore her
aloof expression when people bored her, or when she felt sad and thought
she needed sympathy. Jack and Frieda knew no difference in their feeling
for Jean and for each other.
When Jacqueline finished supper, she curled herself in a big armchair in
front of the fire. Frieda sat on a low stool at her feet while Jean,
with an open book, was not far away. Jean was the reader of the three
girls, but to-night her book was neglected.
"Out with it, Jack," Jean insisted calmly. "You know perfectly well that
you haven't told us all that happened to you this afternoon. Fire away
and get it over with, I want to finish my book to-night."
After much urging, Jack told her story in full and Jean flung her book
down and danced about the room on her tip-toes, she was so angry, when
she heard how Dan Norton had treated her. But she had a different
feeling about the young English fellow.
"I really think you were rather horrid, Jacqueline Ralston," she
announced coolly. "Of course we can't be having visitors or making
friends with any one visiting those hateful Nortons, but I think you
might have told that young fellow we would be nice to him when we met
him other places. He is a far-off cousin of the Nortons, whose health
broke down while he was at college in England and his people sent him
over here to recover. His father is a Lord, or a Sir or something, I
can't remember which. But Mrs. Simpson says he is awfully nice and--"
Jack put both fingers in her ears. "For goodness sake, hush, Jean
Bruce," she protested. "You are such a snob. What difference can it make
to us, whether this Frank Kent is a lord or a prizefighter? We certainly
can't have anything to do with him. I shan't even speak to him again if
I can help it. For the life of me, Jean, I don't see how you happen to
find out the gossip in Wyoming with our ranches five miles apart."
Jean's brown eyes sparkled. She and Jack had many differences of
opinion, but to-night Jack was tired and her cousin decided not to
answer back.
"Have you gotten your lessons, Frieda?" Jack asked gently a moment
later, kissing her hand apologetically to Jean.
Frieda shook her head. She had two long blonde plaits, like a little
German girl, with a curl at the end of each one of them. Her cheeks were
a faint pink, and her nose tilted just enough to curl her lips up into a
smile.
"No," she replied calmly. "Jean offered to hear me recite, but I didn't
feel like it. You and Jean haven't studied your French for three
evenings. I don't see why I have to do all the studying, because I am
the youngest. When we planned to live by ourselves this winter, you and
Jean declared that you were going to study three or four hours every
day."
Jack pulled Frieda's hair and Jean had just picked up her French grammar
with a sigh when there came the noise of some one riding up to the ranch
house.
The three girls flew to the window. It was too dark to recognize the
figure on horseback. But a few moments later, Aunt Ellen brought in an
envelope addressed to "Miss Jacqueline Ralston."
It was a surly note of apology from Dan Norton for his rudeness to her
in the afternoon. The girls wondered what in the world had induced him
to write it.
Long after Jean and Frieda were asleep, Jacqueline lay awake. She was
the oldest and most responsible member of the ranch girl family of
three. Frieda was right, she and Jean had been neglecting their studies
shamefully. Now and then Jack could not help thinking that perhaps it
was not wise for them to live without a teacher or a chaperon. They did
not want to grow up perfect greenhorns, yet how they hated the idea of
introducing a stranger into their home at Rainbow Ranch. Jack was still
puzzling, when she fell asleep, with the familiar sound in her ears of
the far-off lowing of the wild cattle across the prairie and the distant
bark of the faithful sheep dogs.
CHAPTER II.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANT'S FACE.
FRIEDA walked ankle deep in purple violets. Her hands were full of them
and she carried a brimful basket on her arm.
"What a picture you are, Frieda," Jack called, as she came out on the
broad veranda of the ranch house at about eight o'clock the next
morning.
"I don't care if we don't make our everlasting fortunes with our violet
beds, they are just too sweet for anything! Jean is coming out to help
you pick the flowers in a minute; I have got to go down to the rancho to
make my peace with Jim."
Jack walked briskly along. It was a gentle October day with a bright sun
and warm wind. You seemed to be able to see half way across the world,
the horizon line stretched so far beyond you.
One of the ways in which Jean and Frieda had been trying to help to make
the ranch pay was by starting a violet farm. Nearly an acre of land near
the house had been irrigated and glistened with the dark green leaves
and purple stars of the young plants. The flowers were to be covered
with glass later on. Now the fresh morning air was fragrant with their
perfume. Of course the flowers had not yet had time to pay for the
expense of planting them, but Frieda was eagerly calculating how many
bunches she would have to send to the nearest town, when Jean joined
her.
"Don't you wish we could spend this whole day out of doors, Jean?"
Frieda suggested. "I forgot to say anything about it to Jack, but you
know how we have talked about riding over to the Giant's Cañon to have
our lunch. Aunt Ellen can pack our saddle bags, and we can join Jack at
the rancho."
After a ten minutes' walk, Jacqueline Ralston touched the brim of her
broad sombrero hat with a military salute and brought her heels sharply
together, when a tall figure came down the path toward her from the
rancho with his hands deep in his old leather trousers. She was near the
mess-house, where the men who worked the ranch had their quarters. The
girls called it "Jim's rancho," to distinguish it from their own home
half a mile away.
Jim Colter returned Jack's salute gravely. He was a handsome man of
about thirty, with black hair and skin almost as swarthy as a Mexican's.
The queer thing about his appearance was that his eyes were as blue and
as gentle as a baby's, except when he was angry and then there was no
harder man in Wyoming to deal with than the overseer of Rainbow Ranch.
Jack would not have dared to let him know how rude Dan Norton had been
to her.
Jim was a man of mystery. He came from goodness knows where; no one knew
anything of his past. One day, many years before, he rode up to the
ranch house nearly dead from fatigue and hunger. Mr. Ralston took him in
and he never went away again. But he would not say one word about
himself and no one dared to ask him many questions, because his blue
eyes would suddenly grow black and angry and he would look as though he
were recalling something he wanted to forget.
Jim was devoted to Jack and Jean, but Frieda was his special favorite.
She was only two years old when he came to live at Rainbow Ranch, but he
taught her to ride and to swim, when other babies were only just
learning to walk. He and Mr. Ralston used to ride all over the great
ranch, with Frieda tucked up in front of Jim's saddle and Jack perched
behind her father's when both little girls were almost babies. By the
time she was fourteen, Jacqueline Ralston, who was her father's shadow,
knew the trick of lassoing. There was not a cowboy on the ranch who
could ride faster, shoot straighter, or understood more about the
business of caring for the cattle and the sheep than she did, and since
Mr. Ralston's death, Jim had always consulted Jack about each new
business venture.
Jack made her report of yesterday's expedition, but without a word of
her meeting with Dan. Jim said nothing about the fright Jack had given
them, but Jack found herself blushing and feeling like a little girl,
instead of the head of a thousand acre ranch as he looked at her.
"It really wasn't my fault I was out late, yesterday, Jim," Jack
apologized. "But we girls have decided to turn over a new leaf. We have
made up our minds to stay at home and study, until we are regular blue
stockings."
Jim laughed and at this moment glanced up the road. Jean and Frieda were
riding calmly toward them. Jean was leading Hotspur and the three
girls' saddle bags were packed as though they were pioneers traveling
across the Deadwood trail to the gold regions of California.
Jim chuckled. "Looks like a party of bluestockings from Boston, Jack,
coming this way, 'specially that there fishing tackle Jean's carrying.
Where was you expecting to spend to-day?" he drawled in a funny Western
fashion.
Frieda tucked a small bunch of violets in the buttonhole of Jim's khaki
shirt. She wore a blue riding suit and a big Mexican hat like Jack's and
her face looked very young and babyish under it. "We are going to the
Giant's Cañon, Jim," she said apologetically. "It's such a dream of a
day, but Jack doesn't know. We have brought her sketch book and Jean's
along and I have my history, so we can get our lessons outdoors and then
we can make a fire and have lunch in my own little cave in the rocks."
"We will be back early, Jim," Jean added.
"All right," Jim agreed. His eyes twinkled at the vision of Jean and
Jack sketching under the shadow of the great stone peaks whose broken
outline looked like the profile of a giant's face. The Giant's Cañon was
five miles across the plains, but the ranch girls were in the habit of
riding over to it. Between the ridges of rock, nestling in the deep
gorge, were little lakes filled with shimmering trout. One of the rocky
caverns in the cañon, Frieda had adopted as her very own. The girls
always spoke of it as Frieda's cave.
Frieda's stone castle was really two stories high. A large flat rock
jutted out over a second one about eight feet below it while a flight of
natural stairs ran from the ground to the floor of the cave.
Frieda unpacked the saddle bags, while Jean and Jack tethered the ponies
to a great cottonwood tree not far from the edge of the gorge. The place
was entirely deserted, except for an eagle that swooped out of her eyrie
and floated above the newcomers' heads. Frieda slipped down the stairs
into her cave, spread out her pony's blanket and set to housekeeping,
humming as cheerfully as though she had been in her own private room at
the ranch. She was not in the least awed by the grandeur and loneliness
of the scenery about her. Indeed Frieda was so much at home in her
cavern that she kept an old frying pan hung from one of the sharp points
of the rock and some broken dishes stored away in a crevice which formed
a kind of natural pantry.
Jean and Jack made a fire, because no camper is really happy without
one. Then they religiously got out their sketch books and set to work to
make pictures of their three sturdy bronchos munching the buffalo grass
in their neighborhood.
Both girls worked patiently for about ten minutes and then Jean sighed
once or twice. She had used her eraser oftener than her drawing pencil.
Holding her drawing out, she gazed at it critically. Finally she tore it
into small bits and strolled over to Jack, to gaze over her shoulder.
"And what be those critturs you are picturing, Friend Ralston?" Jean
demanded, in a familiar, Western tone. "If they are native to this here
state of Wyoming, I ain't never seen 'em before. Be they mules or
buffaloes?"
Jack frowned and bit her pencil. "Don't be a goose, Jean," she answered,
"and please don't interrupt." Jack surveyed her masterpiece critically.
"The ponies do look a bit queer," she confessed. "One of them has three
legs and the other five, but then I haven't worked very long. Do go away
and see if you can do any better yourself. You know we solemnly vowed
that we were going to sketch an hour each day."
Jean departed to another ten minutes of labor. But the sun was shining
gloriously; the day was one long, sunlit delight. She could hear the
water trickling over the rocks in the gorge below, and Frieda moving
about at her housekeeping. Jean picked up her fishing rod, selected a
choice fly and slipped her sketch book into her knapsack.
"Au revoir, Jack dear," she announced cheerfully. "Stay here and look
after Frieda. I am going down to the pool to get some trout for lunch."
Jean flung some pine knots on their fire, kissed her hand to Frieda and
marched off, smiling wickedly at Jack, who was drawing as though her
life depended on it. She wished to be an object lesson of industry to
slothful Jean.
When Jean had entirely disappeared down the side of the ravine, Jack
stopped to gaze sadly at her morning's work. "I am afraid I am not a
natural-born artist," she declared aloud. "It may be all right for
geniuses to work from life, but I can't make any headway without a
teacher. I wish Cousin Ruth had not put French and drawing into her list
of what a young woman should know. They may be easy enough for girls to
learn in her beloved old Vermont, but they are pretty hard work out
here. I am afraid the ranch girls don't know any of the things they
should." Jack's red lips parted. "But it's lots of fun to know the
unnecessary things like fishing and riding. Gee whiz, I can't stand
working any longer."
Jack leaned over the ledge of rock. Her drawing fluttered down to her
sister. "Here Frieda, decorate your cave with that work of art. It looks
like a drawing made by the Indians in pre-historic days. You won't mind,
will you, if I go away for a while? I won't be out of calling distance
and I won't stay long. If you need me, just sing out."
Frieda smiled. Her blue eyes looked like a reflection of the clear sky
above them. She had so little idea of feeling any fear, that she did not
even trouble to answer Jack's question. There were no more wild animals
in the gorge. Besides, the ranch girls knew that few animals would
attack them, except in self-defense.
Frieda climbed down the rocky cliff to fill an old teakettle with water
from a spring not far below and then hung it over the fire on a crooked
stick. If the water boiled long before Jean and Jack returned, the
pleasant, sizzly sound would keep her company. Frieda's house was in
order, so she set out her luncheon dishes, arranging them around in a
circle on the floor of her cave. In the center, in a broken teacup, she
placed the bunch of violets she had worn in her trip across the plain.
Still the girls had not returned; Frieda might have studied, but she
decided that it would be more fun to enlarge the crevice in the rocks,
which formed the storehouse for her kitchen and dining-room utensils.
She struck the rock sharply with a large stone. A piece chipped off,
then another. It was red sandstone and not very hard and Frieda was
banging away with all her might, when she gave a quick exclamation of
surprise. A great crack appeared along one side of the stone wall, and a
big boulder crashed down at Frieda's feet. Before her, she beheld
another cavern in the rock, almost as large as the one in which she
played.
The little girl jumped back. At any moment she expected to see a pair of
wild eyes glaring at her from the rocky retreat, believing that she had
accidentally broken into the cave of some animal. But nothing happened;
there was no stir, no sound from the darkness inside.
Frieda's heart beat rapidly. Her face was pale from excitement. She
looked cautiously into the opening, thrust one small hand into it and
drew out a round dish of hard, baked clay, engraved with queer, Indian
characters. Frieda gave a shriek of delight, although she did not
realize that she had accidentally discovered an important collection of
Indian relics. But she was fascinated with the arrow heads and queer
Indian dolls that she dug out a second later.
In the midst of her search, Frieda heard a sound that made her heart
stand still. At the head of the gorge, about a quarter of a mile away,
there was a dense thicket of evergreens. From this direction came a cry
of pain and terror. Frieda flew up to the ground above.
"Jean, Jack!" she called. "What has happened? Is one of you hurt? Please
come to me." Frieda gave the call, that was always the signal between
the three ranch girls. "Oh-oo, Oh-ooo, Oh-oooo," ending in a shrill,
drawn-out note, as she touched her lips with her fingers, three times in
quick succession.
Then she listened, but neither Jean nor Jack answered her. The ranch
girls could hear sounds from afar off, as they had spent their lives in
the open country. As Frieda ran forward a few steps, she caught the echo
of light feet, flying along the ground. A girl came out of the woods,
rushing toward her blindly. But Frieda could not tell who it was or
guess what had happened. Was it Jean or Jack?
CHAPTER III.
FRIEDA AND THE OTHER GIRL.
THE apparition drew near enough for Frieda to see that it was a stranger
with straight black hair. She was barefoot and wore a short, ragged
skirt, a bright red jacket, and a red scarf twisted around her throat.
In her startled glance at the girl, Frieda beheld a pair of immense
black eyes, set in a thin, pointed face, with cheeks flushed crimson,
perhaps from the swiftness of her flight. Her breath came in short
gasps. Frieda thought of a fawn she had once seen pursued by some
hunters, with its great soft eyes transformed into staring pools of
terror and its soft sides quivering as though its heart were breaking in
its final effort to evade its pursuers.
"Oh, what is it?" Frieda cried, with quick sympathy.
The girl looked at her hopelessly and ran on. But Frieda now understood.
An old Indian woman armed with a stick, trotted out of the screen of the
trees. She was running more slowly but her face was terrifying. Her
small black eyes were red with anger and she waved a long arm at the
girl.
[Illustration: FRIEDA FLUNG HERSELF VALIANTLY IN THE PATH OF THE INDIAN
WOMAN.]
Frieda wanted to help, but what could she do? "Jean! Jack!" she called
again. She could see that the hunted girl had no chance of escaping. She
was nearly dropping with exhaustion. There was no place for her to hide,
for the plain stretched on, covered only with grass and low sage brush.
Frieda flung herself valiantly in the path of the Indian woman. She was
used to the Indians. Ever since she could remember she had been making
trips to their villages, and a number of half-breed Indian boys had
worked on their ranch. But the girl had never seen one of them so
furiously angry as this old squaw. She was frightened and at the same
time wanted to laugh. The woman was so fat and in such a temper, "that
she shook when she ran, like a bowlful of jelly," Frieda thought to
herself.
The squaw did not lift her beady, black eyes until she was within a few
feet of Frieda.
"Ugh," she grunted. "Git out."
She tried to push Frieda away with her stick, but Frieda stretched
out both arms and danced up and down in front of the old woman, until
she did not know which way to turn.
Old Laska had not run all this distance and gotten out of breath to be
stopped by a pale-face chit of a child. She struck Frieda with her
staff. Frieda gave a sudden, sharp cry and looked quickly around. She
saw that the Indian girl had fallen only a short distance beyond them
and was vainly struggling to get on her feet again. Frieda shut her
eyes; in another moment she knew that she would hear cruel blows being
rained down on the defenseless girl by the furious old woman.
At this moment, a golden brown head, wearing a soft, round Mexican hat,
appeared above an opening in the gorge. "Frieda, what's the matter?
Didn't we hear you call?" Jack's voice rang out unexpectedly. She jumped
lightly from the rocks to the ground and ran toward her sister, guessing
at once that the Indian woman had frightened Frieda.
"Stop," Jack ordered imperiously.
The woman hesitated. Something in Jack's commanding tone impressed her
and at the same instant Jean crawled slowly into sight above the
ravine, swinging a string of trout over her shoulder.
The Giant's Cañon seemed suddenly alive with girls.
Jean gazed at the scene in bewilderment. Jack's hands were clasped
behind her and her head was thrown back in a fashion she had when she
was angry. Frieda was in tears and between the two sisters stood a fat
squaw.
Jack and Jean looked so ready to do battle at a moment's notice, that
the Indian's manner changed.
"I want not to hurt the little Missie," she mumbled. "I try to catch my
own girl. She run away from her good home. She ver' bad." The old
woman's head with its straight black hair, plaited in small braids,
bobbed fiercely up and down and she shook her stick threateningly ahead
of her.
During the whole scene Jack and Jean had had their backs turned to the
hunted girl. Jack was blocking the way of the Indian woman. Only Frieda
had been able to see and through her tears she had discovered that the
girl, who had been lying helpless on the level ground only a few seconds
before, had now vanished completely.
Frieda smiled at Jack's and Jean's puzzled expressions. "Indian girl!
What did the old woman mean?" The two girls looked about. There was no
one in sight. Evidently the squaw had not intended to hurt Frieda and
Jack and Jean were anxious to get rid of her. The next instant the
Indian waddled on, though she, too, had lost sight of the fragile figure
she was pursuing.
Frieda walked over to the fire and stirred it into a blaze without a
word. She winked mysteriously at Jean and Jack, but neither of them had
the faintest idea of what she meant.
"Let's fry the fish, before we go down into the cave," Frieda whispered.
"I don't want the Indian to come along this way and find out where it
is."
Jean and Jack knew that Frieda wished to keep her playhouse a secret
from all the world, so they thought nothing of her odd manner.
Frieda was bending over the glowing ashes, humming softly, with her
cheeks rosy and her two long blonde plaits fairly trembling with
excitement when she noticed the Indian woman coming back toward them.
She was alone. Evidently she had gone on for half a mile or more before
she decided it was useless to hunt any longer.
Frieda never looked up. The woman sidled up to Jean and Jack with a
wheedling expression on her broad, stupid face.
Jack and Jean paid no attention to her. They were making a pile of shiny
fish scales into a silver hill at their feet, as it was their part to
clean the trout, while Frieda did the cooking.
The Indian eyed the two girls doubtfully. She firmly believed that one
of them had helped the truant to escape, yet they had not stirred from
before her eyes, in the time when the runaway girl threw her off the
scent.
"You know where my girl is, you hide her from me," the woman said
accusingly.
Jean glanced at her in a bored fashion. "Will you please go away?" she
demanded. "We are busy. We do not want to talk to you. I told you that
we had never seen any Indian girl."
Frieda did not move, but her rosy cheeks burned a deeper red from the
heat of the flames.
The squaw waddled slowly out of sight. What did it matter if she had
not caught Olilie? The girl would soon have to return to the hut. She
could not live long alone out on the plains and when she came back she
should be taught her place. Olilie was only a squaw in spite of the
nonsense she had learned at the white people's school. She should do the
work and be the slave of the man chief, like all Indian girls had from
the beginning.
"Jean, Jack," Frieda hissed softly. She came over toward her cousin and
sister with the fish still sizzling and popping in her frying pan.
"Oh, do be careful, Frieda," Jean begged. Some of the hot fat sputtered
out of the pan into Jean's lap and she slid backwards off the rock where
she was seated.
But Jack saw that something unusual was the matter with Frieda.
"What in the world has happened to you, child? Your eyes are as big as
saucers!" she exclaimed.
Frieda set down her pan and though the Indian woman was now well out of
sight, she whispered a few words that made both girls jump to their
feet.
"Then there was an Indian girl all the time?" Jean murmured.
Frieda nodded. "We must find her," she argued quietly. "She slipped over
the side of the gorge not far from here, when no one was looking at her
except me. She can't be very far away for she was too tired to have gone
much further."
"All right, Frieda," Jack agreed. "We will look for the Indian princess
as soon as we have had our lunch. We must eat the fish first, it is so
brown and delicious. Really we will have more strength to search if we
have some food," Jack pleaded, seeing Frieda's injured expression.
"She will get away, Jack," Frieda answered. "Then she may be lost on the
plains and starve and nobody will ever find her. She was so pretty and
so frightened that I am sure you would have been interested if you had
only seen her."
Jack heaved a deep sigh. "Come along, Jean," she insisted. "Frieda wants
us to look for the will-o-the-wisp, so look we must."
Frieda was not tempestuous like Jack and Jean, but, just the same, like
a great many other gentle people, she always had her way. "Little
Chinook," Jim used to call her, because "Chinook" is the Indian name for
a soft, west wind, that blows so quietly, so persistently, that it
carries everything before it. It even wafts all one's troubles away.
Jack, Jean and Frieda crawled down into the great cañon, among the giant
rocks, poking their noses into every opening, where they thought it
possible that anybody could be concealed. There was no sign of any one,
though Frieda called and called, assuring the runaway that the Indian
woman had gone back home.
"I am afraid she must have fallen and gotten hurt somehow, Jack," Frieda
suggested, when the three girls had explored for half an hour.
Jean turned resolutely upon the two sisters. "I am very sorry, Frieda
Ralston," she announced firmly, "but I decline to look for that tiresome
girl another minute. I will be fed. I don't see for the life of me, why
you are so worried over the fate of an unknown Indian maiden, when your
own devoted cousin is perishing before your eyes."
Frieda's cave was soon spread with the luncheon dishes and the girls sat
down Turkish fashion, with their long-delayed feast in front of them.
Frieda's face was half buried in a ham sandwich when Jean gave a sudden
exclamation of surprise. "Look, girls, there must have been an
earthquake or something around here. There is a hole in the rocks back
of Frieda's cave, nearly as large as this one. Funny we never noticed it
this morning!"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Frieda remarked indifferently. "I was
banging away there, trying to make my pantry larger, when a huge stone
fell out and rolled into the gorge. Lo and behold, there was another
cavern! I found some queer Indian relics in it. Come see."
Frieda led the way over to the new pit and dropped down on her knees in
front of it, with Jack and Jean on either side of her. "I was afraid to
go inside until you came," she said, "but it is quite empty,--look!"
Frieda's breath gave out. She stared and stared, clutching at her cousin
and her sister. The three girls were spellbound!
Gazing at them from out the black darkness, was what Frieda had feared
at the first moment of her discovery of the mysterious cavity, a pair of
burning, glowing eyes. They might belong to some wild animal, though
they were not fierce, only timid and pleading.
The ranch girls were not cowards, but not one of them wished to enter
the obscurity of that strange hiding place.
The figure stirred. The girls were now more used to the darkness.
"Why it's the Indian girl!" Frieda cried. "Do come out, please. We won't
hurt you and the Indian woman has been gone a long time."
But the girl seemed to be afraid to move. Frieda crawled fearlessly into
the hole and gave her little, white hand into the girl's thin, dark one.
As the Indian maid came out into the bright, invigorating air, she tried
to stand up, but she swayed in the wind, like a scarlet poppy that is
trying to oppose its frail strength to the blast of a storm.
Before Jack and Jean could get to her and in spite of Frieda's efforts,
the girl took a step forward, staggered and fell at their feet.
As they picked her up, they discovered that she was flushed with fever.
But while Jean washed her face with cool water and Jack held her in her
arms, she opened her mournful black eyes. "I am sorry to have troubled
you," she said, without a trace of an Indian accent. "I have run away
and I am tired. If you will please give me some water and let me stay
here for a few minutes I am sure I will be all right."
But she was not all right, even though the ranch girls persuaded her to
eat something, as well as to drink a cup of hot tea. She did not seem to
be able to move, but sat perfectly still with her lovely dark head
resting between her slender hands. She did not try to explain to them
why she had run away from home or when she expected to return.
Jack glanced anxiously upward. They had solemnly promised Jim to be back
at the ranch house before dark and the ranch girls could tell the time
of day from the position of the sun in the sky. This was one of the
things they knew instead of French or drawing. Unless they left the
cañon pretty soon, Jack knew they would never get home in time; yet what
could they do with Frieda's Indian girl? They could not leave her in the
gorge alone, and yet she did not seem to have the strength or the desire
to go.
Jack once had seen a copy of a wonderful picture of Ishmael in the
desert, whom Abraham had cast out with his mother, Hagar. Hagar had gone
to find some fuel and the child is alone. Around him is a great, grey
plain, with nothing else alive on it. There was something in this Indian
girl's position, her fragile grace, and dreadful loneliness, that
recalled this picture to Jacqueline Ralston's mind. She put her arm
gently over the other girl's shoulder.
The Indian maid looked up. Perhaps it was the difference in her
appearance and in Jacqueline's that made her eyes fill with tears.
Jack's proud, high-bred face was softened to pity. Her grey eyes were
tender and the usual proud curve to her lips was changed to an
expression that she seldom showed to any one but Frieda or Jean since
her father's death.
"We must go back to our home now," Jack explained kindly, "but we can't
leave you here alone. Tell us why you ran away? Don't you think you
could return; or is there anything we could do for you?"
The girl shook her head. She was as tall as Jean, but so thin that she
might be only an overgrown child. She seemed very young to Jacqueline;
almost as young as Frieda and as much in need of some one to take care
of her.
The three ranch girls were gazing intently at the stranger.
She flung her hands up over her face again. "I can't go back, I can't,"
she insisted. "You are to go away. I am not afraid. Only let me stay in
this ravine, until I can find some place that is further away, where no
one can find me. I shall not be hungry, I can hunt and fish. Only to-day
I am tired." She shook, as though she were having a chill.
Jacqueline dropped down on the ground by her side. Frieda and Jean were
trying not to cry.
"You poor little thing, you know we can't leave you here," Jack
declared. "Won't you? Can't you?" Jack looked appealingly at Jean and
Frieda. She was the oldest of the ranch girls, but she never decided
anything without their advice. Both of them nodded. "Don't you think you
could come home to the ranch with us, until you feel better and can tell
us what troubles you? You are ill now and worn out. Why you might even
die if you stayed here alone."
Jack did not wait for an answer. She almost lifted the Indian girl to
her feet and brought her out of Frieda's cave. She helped her upon her
own pony, and getting up behind Frieda, she led Hotspur and his new
rider to the beloved Rainbow Ranch house, whose doors opened to admit
not three girls, but four.
CHAPTER IV.
THE RESCUE.
WHEN Olilie, the Indian girl, came back to consciousness, after being
put to bed at the ranch house, three days had passed. She lay between
broad sheets smelling of violets and whiter than anything she had ever
seen, except the new snow on the prairies.
Over in the corner of a big empty room sat a strange little girl. She
was sewing on some small doll clothes and humming softly to herself. Two
braids like plaited silk of the corn hung over her face. Olilie did not
recall ever having seen her before and had not the faintest idea how she
happened to be in this wonderful place, instead of the dirty hut of
Laska the Indian woman and her son Josef.
Some one else tiptoed softly into the chamber. Olilie half closed her
eyes. She remembered this other face faintly, but where and when had she
seen it?
"Hasn't she spoken yet?" a voice asked in a disappointed tone. "I am so
sorry, but I simply have to ride over the range with Jim this morning.
Some of the cattle keep disappearing. If our patient wants to talk,
please don't let her tell you everything before I get back. She must be
kept pretty quiet."
Just for a second, Olilie felt that a face bent over hers. But she gave
no sign of being awake, although she now knew where she was and how she
happened to be there. It had flashed across her memory--her flight, her
hiding and the meeting with the ranch girls. She understood that she had
been ill but was going to get well again. The hot, uncomfortable feeling
had left her head, she had no pain, only she was very weak and she did
not think that she could bear to go away from this beautiful place. If
only she could have been ill a little longer!
Olilie's wistful, black eyes were wide open, when the bedroom door
unclosed the second time. She caught a glimpse of a tall, dark figure
and a wave of terror swept over her. Already had Laska come to take her
home?
But the woman walked quietly up to the bed, took one of Olilie's thin
hands and gazed at it earnestly, turning it over in her own brown palm.
She shook her head, smoothed up the covers and nodded to Olilie not to
try to talk.
"This girl has been brought up among white people, hasn't she, Frieda?"
Aunt Ellen inquired softly.
The blonde plaits moved slightly.
"I am sure I don't know," came a faint voice from between them. "We know
nothing about her, except what Jack told you. She did not talk like an
Indian, so I suppose she has been to school. Her mother, from whom she
was running away, was a full-blooded Indian but she don't look a bit
like her." Frieda lowered her voice still further. "Has the Indian woman
been here to inquire for her daughter? Jack was afraid she would find
out who we were and come over here."
Aunt Ellen gave her head a warning shake and said something to Frieda
that the sick girl on the bed could not hear. But Frieda jumped up and
her bits of doll dresses scattered about on the floor. "When will Jack
and Jim come back?" she demanded quickly. "If we had only known before
they went away!"
"Known what?" Olilie asked, as naturally as though she had been taking
part in the conversation all the time. "I am quite well now, thank you.
If you don't mind, I should like to get out of bed."
Frieda's face turned quite red and her blue eyes were round with
surprise. She ran to Olilie and threw her arms around her. "You are well
now, aren't you?" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad. Just wait until I run and
find Jean. She won't like it unless I tell her at once."
"Child," Aunt Ellen queried, as soon as Frieda went away, "is the
Arapaho woman who makes baskets and strings beads at the end of the Wind
Creek valley your mother and is the lad Josef her son?"
Olilie nodded. "I think so," she replied. "At least I know of no other
woman who is my mother. I have lived with her always."
"But you are not a full-blooded Indian girl," Aunt Ellen argued,
"although your hair is so black and straight and your skin is dark.
Look," Aunt Ellen picked up the girl's hand again. "See, your finger
nails are pink and that is not the case with the red or brown-skinned
people." Aunt Ellen opened the girl's gown, and where her skin was
untouched by the sun and wind, it was a beautiful olive color.
Aunt Ellen lifted her up, wrapped her in a blue dressing gown and sat
her in Frieda's vacant chair. "It's a hard time ahead of you, child,"
she murmured to herself. "Mixed blood don't never bring happiness, when
one of 'em runs dark."
Jean's and Frieda's faces both wore strange expressions when they came
back to their guest. But Olilie did not know them well enough to guess
that anything unusual was the matter.
She stretched out both hands humbly and took one of Jean's and one of
Frieda's in her own. "Won't you let me thank you for keeping me here and
let me tell you why I ran away?" she asked gratefully.
Jean shook her head nervously, her brown eyes fastened on the
tight-closed door, against which Aunt Ellen stood like a body-guard.
"No, please don't try to tell us anything now," Jean begged. "I am sure
you are not strong enough. And Jack, she is the oldest of us, she would
like you to wait until she comes back this afternoon."
The ranch house was built on one floor. A long hall led straight through
the centre of it. There were four bedrooms beside the living-room and
Aunt Ellen's room, which opened off the kitchen. Aunt Ellen and her
husband, Zack, slept on the place and the old man helped Frieda and Jean
with their violet beds. To-day he had ridden over to the nearest village
to see about the building of the new greenhouses.
A tramp of heavy feet echoed out in the passageway. Jean kept on
talking, as though she wished to drown the sound. The Indian girl did
not seem to be disturbed. She was too happy and too weak to care much
what was going on outside her room.
"Don't you think I might tell you my name at least?" she begged. "It is
Olilie, an Indian name. I don't know just what it means. I--"
There were no locks on the doors inside the big hospitable ranch house.
What need was there of locking people either out or in, in this great
open western land?
Yet Aunt Ellen kept her hand on the doorknob. "You are not to come in
here," she insisted fiercely. "I told you to leave our ranch."
The door burst rudely open. The squat ugly figure of Laska appeared
inside the room, followed by a young Indian boy, who looked sheepish and
ashamed.
"Ugh," grunted the old squaw. "Did you think we no find you? Come, git
up. You go with me." She pushed aside Frieda and Jean, who were trying
to guard the sick girl.
Olilie's face was so white that no one could have thought her an Indian.
She could not speak, she only clutched at the arms of her chair as
though nothing could part her from it.
Jean stamped her foot angrily. "Go out of this house at once," she
ordered angrily. "How dare you thrust your way in here? Your daughter is
too ill for you to move her. Besides, we are going to keep her here
until we find out whether you were cruel to her and why she won't live
with you."
"No, no, I shall not live with her again," Olilie burst out
passionately. "I do not mind the work or the blows, but I will not be a
squaw woman. I will not light the pipe, clean the gun, hew the wood and
fetch the water for her son. At the school they have taught me that a
girl is a boy's equal. I will not, because I am a girl, be a slave.
Please, please go." The Indian girl looked not at her mother, but at
Josef, the Indian boy. He kept his head down and mumbled something that
only Laska and Olilie could understand.
Laska pointed toward the girl. Then her eyes held her son. "Take her to
the tepee of her own people," she commanded. "I know the laws of the
white race are many and strange, but they take not the child from her
mother, while she is yet young."
Josef went toward Olilie, but Jean's body covered her and he did not
dare to thrust the white girl aside.
Frieda flung herself half way out the open window. In front of the ranch
was a grove of cottonwood trees, to one side ran a long, winding creek.
There was no one in sight, even their watch dog had followed Jack and
Jim across the range.
Jean was trying bribery and corruption. She had slipped her hand in her
pocket and brought out two bright silver dollars. She held one up before
the boy, the other before old Laska. "I will give you these if you will
leave the girl with us for a few days longer," she suggested.
The Indian boy did not lift his hand. He was gazing at the figure of his
sister in the chair. "I no take her, she sick," he said. "I no want her
to work for me. It is Laska who make her. She not like other Indian
girl. She different somehow. She read books. She talk like teachers at
school."
Laska seized the boy by the arm and shook him roughly. "You no talk
foolish," she declared. "You bring girl home. We take not white money.
Always you try to make the Indian sell big things for little."
"Oh, if somebody would only come to help us," Frieda thought
despairingly. She saw that Josef had picked Olilie up in his arms. She
felt like Sister Anne in the dreadful story of Bluebeard. If she could
see a little cloud of dust arising somewhere down the long road that led
through the trees from the far trail of the plains, she knew that help
would come to them! If only she could catch sight of one of the cowboys
returning to the ranch!
Frieda did spy a little dust along the trail on the upper side of the
creek. She seized a white scarf from the table near by and waved it
frantically out the window. "Help! Help! Jim! Jack! Somebody come quick!
We need you!" she cried.
The Indian boy and woman waited, puzzled and alarmed by the noise that
Frieda was making.
Frieda saw a rider catch sight of her signal, plunge down the trail and
through the muddy creek, straight to the ranch house door. She knew that
it was some one whom she had never seen before in her life, but it did
not make the least difference to her.
"Won't you come in here?" she begged. "The door is open. There are some
Indians trying to steal a girl away--" Frieda drew her blonde head back
inside the window, just in time to see the stranger stalk into their
room.
"Put the girl down," he commanded Josef in a tone of authority. Nothing
loath, the Indian boy returned Olilie to her chair. The newcomer then
spoke to the surly Indian woman. "You and your son leave this ranch at
once. It was fortunate that I learned that you were coming here this
morning. I rode over just in time."
The young man had brown hair and eyes. His face was quite pale. He did
not look in the least strong, but there was something in his quiet
manner that showed he was accustomed to being obeyed.
"We come back to get my girl, when she well," the Indian woman
threatened, as the door closed behind her.
There was an awkward silence when the Indians had gone. The young fellow
immediately lost his grown-up manner and seemed very uncertain and shy.
He colored and held his new cowboy hat in his hands.
"I am awfully glad I turned up in time to help you drive those people
out of the house," he declared. "I happened to hear that they were
coming over to your ranch to take the Indian girl away from you to-day.
If there had been anybody to send over to tell you, I wouldn't have come
myself," he ended. "Will you please tell the older Miss Ralston this. I
won't intrude on you any longer. Good-bye."
Jean laughed and held out her hand. "Please don't go quite yet," she
said. "At least stay until we thank you. I know who you are and Jack
will be just as grateful to you as Frieda and I are. You must not think
she is always so unfriendly. Aren't you Frank Kent, the English fellow
who is the guest of the Nortons? Jack told us about you But you see the
Nortons are--"
"Yes, I understand," Frank Kent answered quickly. "At least I have been
told what the trouble is between you, but I hope it may be a mistake. I
can't believe Mr. Norton and Dan--" Frank stopped. Jean's and Frieda's
cheeks were crimson. He realized that he had no right to talk about
their private affairs. Aunt Ellen was looking at him suspiciously.
Frank Kent bowed. "I think I had better go," he announced. Just as he
started out of the room, Jacqueline Ralston marched into it. Every bit
of color left her face and she stared at him in blank astonishment.
CHAPTER V.
SEEKING ADVICE.
JEAN giggled. Frank Kent and Jack were so funny. They both turned and
glared at her with reproachful eyes.
"I hope you don't think I have intruded," Frank protested hotly.
"Oh, no, certainly not," Jack answered with frozen politeness. "That is,
at least,--I don't understand."
The scene was enough to have bewildered almost anybody. The quiet room
where Jack had left the Indian girl half unconscious and guarded only by
tranquil Frieda, was now in a state of suppressed excitement.
Olilie lay back in her chair with the same expression on her face that
she had worn on the day she was discovered. Aunt Ellen had her eyes
rolled back so that only the whites were showing. Frieda was bouncing up
and down, she was so agitated, and Jean looked as though she had been
through the war. And in the midst of the family group stood the strange
young fellow whom Jacqueline had met on the Norton ranch and most
cordially requested not to make their acquaintance.
Frieda rushed into the breach. "Oh, Jack, the most awfullest thing
almost happened!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands and forgetting her
grammar in her hurry. "That dreadful old Indian woman and a boy came
here and tried to drag Olilie away. I hollered and hollered out the
window for Jim or you or anybody to come drive them off, and he came,"
Frieda bobbed her head at their visitor.
She was so excited that Jean and Jack laughed. But Frank Kent did not
smile the least bit. You see he was English and English people don't see
jokes quickly. Besides, he was angry at Jack's first suspicion of him.
He guessed by her high and mighty manner that she thought he had come to
the ranch against her wishes.
He looked so stiff and unfriendly that Jacqueline did not know what to
say first.
"Your cousin will tell you how I happened to be near," he said icily,
backing out the door.
Jack rushed after him, nearly tripping over the spurs on her riding
boots. "Please don't go quite yet," she begged. "At least let me thank
you for whatever you did." Jack had a way of smiling suddenly that
changed her whole expression, and made people forgive her almost
anything. "Won't you please come into the living-room and one of you
tell me calmly exactly what has happened, or I shall simply die of
curiosity."
Jack led the way into the big, sunlit room, followed by Jean and more
slowly by Frank Kent.
"O! dear here's a kettle of fish," Jack sighed, when Jean finished her
story. She didn't think of her slang till she saw Frank's puzzled
expression, then she blushed. "I am afraid we can't keep this little
Indian girl at the ranch, Jean, if her own people will have her," Jack
went on. "You see I had a long talk with Jim this morning. He says we
must not make the Indians in the neighborhood angry with us. They will
say we kidnapped the girl, or something horrid. And we have troubles
enough without that." A second after Jack was ashamed of having spoken
of their difficulties before a perfect stranger.
To tell the truth affairs were not going very well at Rainbow Ranch.
The big creek which ran along through Rainbow Valley for nearly a mile
and supplied their ranch with water was almost dry in the middle of
October. There might soon be nothing for the cattle and horses to drink
until the winter snows fell. Jim had confided to Jack that he suspected
some one was draining their creek by digging a channel for the water
lower down the valley. He could not find out, but if it were true, it
meant ruin for the ranch girls! There was another, even more serious
difficulty, that might be in store for them, but of this the girls would
not speak.
"Has anything happened, Jack?" Jean asked hurriedly.
Jack shook her head. "Nothing unusual," she replied. "Only I shall feel
dreadfully sorry if we have to send the Indian girl back to her people.
You and Frieda must not think I am hateful if we find we have to."
Frank Kent forgot his English shyness.
"You girls are just bully to be fighting this strange girl's battles,"
he broke in. "I wonder if you wouldn't let me help you! I believe there
is something queer about her parentage anyhow. Even an English duffer
like I am, can tell by looking at her that she isn't a full-blooded
Indian."
Frank's face turned red as a beet and he stammered hurriedly. "Of course
if you let me help you in this, we need not know each other afterwards."
Jacqueline was as fiery red as her guest and Jean giggled again.
"We couldn't be as horrid as all that," Jack declared in a
straightforward fashion, exactly like another boy would have done. "We
would not make use of you and then cut you afterwards. And please don't
be angry with us, if I tell you again, that we simply can't be anything
but just acquaintances with the Nortons' relatives or friends. You
understand, don't you?" Jack held out her hand as though she did not
know just what to do or say. Jean wouldn't utter a word to help her.
Frank Kent shook Jack's hand warmly and this time he did not seem
offended.
"All right," he answered sadly. "But if there is ever anything I can do
to help you, I am going to do it, whether we are friends or not."
And though Jack and Jean did not see how this strange fellow could ever
be mixed up in their affairs, they were comforted somehow by what he
promised.
"I am going over to Mrs. Simpson's this afternoon, Jean," Jack announced
a few minutes after their guest's departure. "I know people say that we
ranch girls never take anybody's advice, but just the same I am going to
ask Mrs. Simpson what we had better do about this Indian child. Will you
come along?"
Mrs. Simpson, the ranch girls' most intimate friend, and her husband
were the wealthiest ranch owners in that part of Wyoming. She was a
typical Western woman, with a big heart and a sharp tongue. She used to
lecture the girls and at the same time was awfully proud of their
courage and independence.
"I'm game, Jack," Jean agreed, "but I haven't any proper riding habit. I
wouldn't mind a bit if that wretched niece of Mrs. Simpson's wasn't
there. I wish you had seen how she stared at me the other day when I
called Mrs. Simpson, Aunt Sallie, as though we hadn't called her Aunt
all the days of our youth. Do you think Aunt Ellen could mend this for
me before we go?" Jean held up a green broadcloth riding habit very
much the worse for wear, with a long ugly rent in it.
"You need a new habit dreadfully, Jean," Jack declared. "I am afraid we
haven't any really proper clothes. The worst of it is, I don't know just
what we ought to have or where to get them. I wonder if we are too much
like boys?"
"What's the odds, Jack, so long as we are happy," Jean sang out
cheerfully. "Besides, Jim says that money hasn't been flowing in to
Rainbow Ranch any too plentifully lately. It takes pretty much all he
can get hold of to run things, so I thought I wouldn't trouble about
another habit. But the idea of that fashionable Miss Laura Post, from
Miss Beatty's school, New York City, staring at me with her china-blue
eyes does rattle me. She and her mother treat us exactly as though we
were a Wild West show. Besides it is my unpleasant impression that I had
this same tear in my skirt when I rode over to Aunt Sallie's the last
time."
"Jean, you are lazy; why didn't you mend it yourself?" Jack scolded.
"You know Aunt Ellen can't sew a bit. Isn't it dreadful that little
Frieda is the only one of us who ever touches a needle and she has no
one to show her how to sew, poor baby. Come along, I'll see what I can
do with your old skirt. Let's go in the Indian girl's room while I do my
worst, best, I mean."
Olilie had very little to tell her rescuers of her history. She could
not explain why Laska wanted her to live with her, because she had
always hated her and been unkind to her. Olilie had but one friend, a
teacher in the Indian school in the Indian village in Wind Creek valley.
The sick girl did not talk so freely before Jack, as she seemed a little
afraid of her, but she begged the girls to find her a home at one of the
ranch houses where she might earn her living, for she declared that she
would never go back to the "Crow's nest," as old Laska's hut was called.
Jack and Jean galloped swiftly over the ten miles that lay between their
ranch and the Simpson's. No one could grow tired, no matter how long the
ride, in this glorious October air in Wyoming, as clear and sparkling as
crystal. The girls forgot their difficulties, also they quite failed to
remember the languid young lady from the East who was Mrs. Simpson's
adored niece.
A mile from the Simpson ranch house, Jean stood up in her saddle and
waved a challenge to Jack. "Beat you to the veranda!" she called back,
loosening the reins on her pony's neck and giving him a light cut with
her quirt.
Jean was off like a shot before Jack could get a start. She reached the
porch several yards ahead of her cousin. But Jack was determined not to
be outclassed as a rider. Just in front of the house was a row of
hitching posts about five feet high. "Clear the track," Jack shouted.
She thrust her feet forward in their long, loose Western stirrups, threw
her body back and her pony rose in the air like a bird, straight over
the posts, and she landed at Jean's side with a small Indian war-whoop
of triumph.
A languid clap of hands from the front porch and a horrified
exclamation, made Jean's cheeks burn and Jack's grey eyes kindle.
"Buffalo Bill at his best! I congratulate you," a soft voice exclaimed.
"I wish you had more of an audience."
Jack laughed lightly. "Oh, we can do ever so much better than that, when
we try, Miss Post; perhaps if you stay out West for a while we may show
you how to ride. We would be glad to do anything for Aunt Sallie's
guest." Jack's tones were sweetly innocent, but Jean snickered.
Laura Post bit her lips angrily. "Teach Laura to ride?" her mother
protested indignantly. "Why my daughter has been trained in the best New
York riding academies. I am afraid they would not care for your Western
riding in Central Park."
Jean did not see how in the world Jacqueline could appear so undisturbed
by the vision of elegance which confronted them. Laura was dressed in a
soft cream flannel skirt and coat with a pale blue blouse and wore a big
felt hat with a blue pompon on it, to shade her delicate
peaches-and-cream skin. Jean felt Laura's eyes fasten on the long rent
in her riding skirt, which Jack had mended, with such an expression of
superior amusement that she wanted to pull her hair or to scratch her,
or to do something else that was violent.
Laura Post was a very pretty girl, all daintiness and fluffiness. She
had very light curly hair and blue eyes, and she looked as though she
had never done anything for herself in her life. Her mother was just
like her, only a more faded and dressed-up edition. Jean did not know
why they both made her feel so awkward, as though it were dreadfully
inelegant to have one's skin tanned and hair blown by a long, glorious
ride across the open country.
Mrs. Post and Laura would not go when Mrs. Simpson came out and sat down
by the ranch girls, holding Jean's hand in one of hers and Jack's in the
other, and wondering why Jean, who was her favorite of the three ranch
girls, looked so hot and uncomfortable.
"The first thing for you to do, Jacqueline Ralston, is to bring this
Indian girl over here for me to take a look at her," Mrs. Simpson
announced at the end of Jack's story. "I was going to send a note over
to you this very afternoon. I want you children to come over to spend a
few days with us. I would like Laura to have some real Western parties
and good times, and I think the best way is to have you stay right here
with us. There isn't any other way to manage with you young people so
far from one another, so bring your Indian girl to our house party. I
confess I am curious to see her."
"You are awfully good, Mrs. Simpson, but I am afraid we can't come,"
Jack answered gratefully. In spite of the fact that Laura and her
mother were both staring at her, Jack went on: "You see we have not the
right clothes to stay on a house party. I am afraid we don't even
understand just what we ought to have. Father did not know much about
girls' things and we have never had any one else to tell us, and besides
I don't think your niece would like to have an Indian girl for her
guest. Olilie is awfully shy, and I don't expect she would know how to
behave."
Mrs. Simpson gave Jack a little shake.
"Nonsense, Jacqueline Ralston, what perfect foolishness you are talking!
When did you begin to worry about clothes? You know that you and Jean
are belles wherever you are. As for Laura, I am sure she will be glad
enough to have the Indian girl and I'll look after the child. I want to
study her. If she is a regular Indian, she would probably be hard to
manage."
Laura shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Oh yes, please do bring the Indian
maiden with you," she remarked with an innocent, babyish expression that
fooled her Aunt but not her visitors. "I am sure the Indian can't be any
queerer than the other people one meets out West."
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARRIVAL AT THE HOUSE PARTY.
"I CAN'T call you Olilie, it is too long and too funny a name," Frieda
announced.
The four girls were being driven over to the Simpson ranch in a big
wagon, which was used in the spring as one of the mess-wagons at the
round-up, when the cowboys brought in the stock to be branded.
Jack sat on the driver's seat with Jim; Frieda, Jean and Olilie were on
piles of straw in the back. There was a big, rusty valise between them
which contained the entire wardrobe of the four members of the house
party from Rainbow Ranch.
Jean and Jack had even fewer costumes than usual, for they had divided
their belongings with the Indian girl, and the valise was the very same
one that Mr. Ralston had brought across the prairies with him fourteen
years before. It had never dawned on the girls that it was shabby and
old-fashioned looking, as they had never traveled more than a few miles
from the ranch and knew nothing of stylish suit cases and leather
hand-bags.
Jack screwed her head around at Frieda's words: "I wonder if you would
mind our calling you Olive, instead of Olilie," she suggested. "It is
ever so much easier to say, and I have always thought Olive a perfectly
beautiful name. Besides you seem like a wild olive, you are so pretty
and Spanish-looking." Jack spoke carelessly, not dreaming that the
young, captive girl had conceived the deepest devotion to her. Olilie
was grateful to Jean and Frieda for their kindness to her, but as long
as she lived she would remember that it was Jacqueline who had put her
arms about her and brought her to the ranch house on the day she had
decided that she could bear life with old Laska no longer. Olilie was
too shy to show what she felt, but Jack was to find it out some day in a
wonderful way.
"I shall be very glad to have you call me, Olive," she answered, in the
musical tones that surprised everybody acquainted with the guttural
sounds the Indians make in trying to speak English.
Jim turned to stare back of him. He was very much displeased with this
latest escapade of the ranch girls, and had no idea of giving his
consent to their keeping this girl. Already he had ridden over to tell
Laska and Josef that they could have her back in a few days. Frieda and
Jean were treating this Indian wench like a sister, and a stop had to be
put to their nonsense. Jim swallowed hard as he caught sight of Olilie
whom he had seen but a few times before to-day: "Kind of wish the girls
had never run across this one," he muttered to himself. "They have got
plenty to do to take care of themselves."
Olilie looked to-day as you would imagine a gypsy maiden appeared long
years ago in her own land of Romany. She had on a faded blue gown of
Jean's and a cape of Jack's; her hair was parted in the middle, like
Jack's and Frieda's and plaited in two braids, coming way down over her
low broad forehead. Her eyes were long and narrow, of a clear burning
black, her skin a dark olive and her color spread all over her cheeks
instead of centering in single, bright patches.
"Jack," Jim whispered, "don't you say too much at the Simpson's about
keeping this Indian girl at Rainbow Ranch and don't you be telling
anything at this house party about what is worrying us. What we want to
do is to keep mum and fight our own battles; if we get the Indians
against us, the cattle and horses will disappear faster than they are
going now."
There were at least a dozen young people, the sons and daughters of the
most prosperous ranchmen in that part of Wyoming, scattered all about
the front of the Simpson ranch house when the girls drove up in their
old wagon. An automobile stood in front of the door, for Mr. Simpson was
an up-to-date cattleman and rode around his vast place in a sixty
horse-power machine, instead of on the back of a shaggy broncho.
"Hurrah for the Ranch Girls of Rainbow Lodge!" some one shouted. Jack
and Jean and Frieda waved their hands, but Olive was too frightened to
stir.
The girls tumbled out of the wagon one over the other, trying to speak
to all their friends at once. People did not see each other every day
out West as they do in smaller places, and a house party like Mrs.
Simpson's was a notable event.
Frieda kept tight hold on Olive, knowing that she was feeling shy and
the little girl was glad to have a companion herself, as most of the
other young people were older.
Mrs. Simpson stared curiously at her unknown visitor. Then she patted
her kindly. "Laura does not see that you have come," she explained to
the little group.
Jack and Jean glanced up at one end of the long veranda. Laura could
plainly see their arrival. But she made no effort to welcome them. She
was talking to two boys.
"Children, perhaps I ought to have told you," Mrs. Simpson whispered, "I
simply had to invite Dan Norton and his guest to our house party, for
Laura likes Dan better than any one she has met in the neighborhood. And
I don't approve of you girls carrying on an old feud simply because your
father and Dan's were enemies."
Jack had her head in the air and her cheeks were scarlet. Jean openly
rebelled: "You ought to have told us, Aunt Sallie, you know we have a
perfect right to hate those Nortons," she murmured.
"Of course we will be as polite as we know how," Jacqueline agreed. But,
Mrs. Simpson frowned; she knew Jack's high temper and she feared there
would be a clash between her and Dan before the house party was over.
"How do you do, Miss Ralston, and Miss Bruce and Frieda," Laura Post
said frigidly, holding her hand so high up in the air to shake hands
that it almost touched her nose. "I suppose you know Mr. Norton and his
guest, Mr. Kent." Laura had not paid the least attention to the
existence of the Indian girl. Olilie might have been a wooden image.
Jack bowed coldly as though she were speaking to perfect strangers. But
Jean's brown eyes laughed and Frieda held out her hand innocently to
Frank Kent: "I am awfully glad to see you again," she said. "See, things
are quite all right so far. We still have our new friend with us."
Jack could not help flashing a grateful look at Frank Kent. He came over
at once and bowed in his best English fashion to Olive, and then stood
by her while the others were talking.
"There goes the latest addition to the wonderful maidens who are running
their own ranch," Laura breathed in an undertone to Dan Norton, as the
newcomers moved toward the door to go to their rooms.
Dan laughed. "Their ranch, did you say? We have a different idea over at
our place as to whom Rainbow Ranch belongs. Those girls are a bit too
sure of themselves; I expect to see their pride taken down a peg or two
some day."
"What do you mean?" Laura whispered excitedly, her cheeks getting pinker
and her eyes sparkling from curiosity.
Dan shrugged his shoulders and waited until he was sure that Frank could
not hear him. "Oh, we don't talk about it much out here; remember I am
telling you this in the strictest confidence," he went on. "But Rainbow
Ranch actually belongs to my father and me. You see, it is like this:
Father came to Wyoming before Mr. Ralston did. And father and some
friends laid claim to the best part of the Ralston ranch. Mr. Ralston
says he bought the ranch from father's friends and father says he had
already purchased their part. So you understand the mix-up. But the
bully thing is, that since Mr. Ralston's death the girls have never been
able to find his title to the property. They haven't a sign of a paper
to prove they are the owners of Rainbow Ranch. Court records did not
use, to be kept very well in Wyoming. We are not sure about it, but
father is working quietly. Some day we will bring suit and just take
possession of their place; won't it be corking? Rainbow Ranch is right
next ours, and when we get it we will have the biggest ranch in this
part of the state. If you stay out here long enough, you may see some
fun."
Laura nodded eagerly. She did not like the ranch girls, besides she was
one of the disagreeable persons who dearly love to see other people in
hot water. She did not mind how much it hurt them so long as it did not
affect her. "No, I will never tell anybody what you have told me," she
agreed confidentially. "Only if anything should develop, you will be
sure to tell me about it, won't you?" she begged.
CHAPTER VII.
A VISIT TO OLD LASKA.
"JACK, Aunt Sallie will take us over to the Indian village this
afternoon if you wish to go," Jean said next day.
Jean and Jack thought they were entirely alone. They did not realize
that the door of the little room next theirs, which Frieda and the
Indian girl occupied, was open.
"Why should we go to the village, Jean?" Jack inquired indifferently.
She had just discovered a thrilling novel and she wanted to be left in
peace to read it.
"Because something has to be done about Olive at once," Jean insisted
valiantly. "You know perfectly well, that it isn't fair for us to keep
her in suspense about what is to become of her and then maybe turn her
off and send her back to old Laska in the end. We must find out if there
is any chance of her not being Laska's real child and if not, what right
she has to her. Aunt Sallie says she will keep Olive here as a maid for
Laura if we don't want her at the ranch and we can get her away from
the Indians."
"Maid for Laura!" Jack bit her lips indignantly. Jean kept her face
turned away, so that Jack could not see her expression. She knew that
her cousin was very undecided about what they ought to do with their
protegée and was anxious to influence Jack for Olive's sake.
"I don't think that Olilie--I mean Olive--is very well suited for such a
distinguished position as maid to Miss Laura Post," Jack replied. "I
think if I were the Indian girl I should prefer to remain with the
Indians. Of course I will go over to the village with you and Aunt
Sallie whenever you like."
Jean put her arm around her cousin. "You won't be cross about something
if I tell you, will you?" she urged coaxingly.
Jack frowned. "I don't know, Jean Bruce, what is it now?" she demanded,
for she could guess by the half mischievous, half conciliatory
expression in Jean's brown eyes, that she had something to confide which
would not be to her liking.
"Aunt Sallie has asked Frank Kent to drive over to the Indian village
with us," Jean returned. "You see he has never seen an Indian village,
and being an Englishman, Aunt Sallie naturally thought he would be
curious about one. So after all he is going to help us to find out about
Olive, although you refused to allow him. Funny, isn't it?"
This was a very unwise fashion for Jean Bruce to have explained the
situation to Jack, for if there was one thing which Miss Jacqueline
Ralston did particularly like, it was to have her own way. Having said
that she desired no assistance from their new acquaintance in their
efforts for Olilie, she was not going to be forced into accepting it
against her will.
Jack quietly removed her big Mexican hat, sat down comfortably in her
chair and reopened her book. "Oh, very well," she remarked carelessly.
"Then I won't go with you at all. My presence won't be in the least
necessary. You and Aunt Sallie and Mr. Kent can make all the
investigations and decide what is best to do without any interference
from me."
Jack arched her level brows, dilated her nostrils and half closed her
eyes. Jean knew that particular obstinate expression of her cousin's
and said nothing more for a few moments, but put on her own coat and hat
and started to leave the room. At the door she turned to her cousin.
"Jacqueline Ralston," she inquired coolly, "has it ever occurred to you,
that you are a very hard-headed and selfish person?"
Jack's grey eyes grew steely. "Oh, do go on, Jean dear," she urged
politely. "Tell me any other nice things you know about me; one always
is appreciated by one's relatives."
Jean flushed. "Don't be so hateful, Jack," she pleaded. "Can't you see
that it is selfish of you to refuse to go with us to try to find out
about Olilie? You brought her home to the ranch, and you know you will
be able to stand up for her and find out more about her than either Aunt
Sallie or I can. Aunt Sallie means well, but goodness knows she isn't
tactful. And you know you are obstinate to stay at home simply because
Frank Kent is to go with us. Aunt Sallie did not know what you had said
to him, and simply wanted to show him one of our modern Indian
settlements. It is one of the things he came West to see."
"Oh, I don't blame Aunt Sallie," Jack replied, slightly appeased by
Jean's half-hearted apology.
"Well, you needn't blame Frank Kent, either," Jean retorted quickly.
"You can put every bit of the blame on me. Frank Kent told Aunt Sallie
that he did not think he would care to go with us and behaved so queer
and stiffish that she was offended with him. I knew he was thinking
about what you had said, so I just marched up to him and told him that
if he had refused Mrs. Simpson's invitation because he thought you would
not wish him to come along with us, he was entirely mistaken. You see I
thought you would not want him to give up the pleasure of the trip, just
on your account. He is a guest here with us and I can see no sense in
your being so uppish. It is perfectly foolish, Jack." This time Jean
opened the door. "Jacqueline Ralston, c-h-u-m-p spells chump. It is
exactly what you are."
Jack's bad tempers had a way of ending abruptly. "Wait a minute, please,
Jean," she called persuasively, "I expect you are right. I will come
along."
Jean gave Jack a hug as they went out of the room together, which was
intended to convey the idea that, though what she had just said to her
cousin was perfectly true, she was sorry to have been obliged to say it.
Jack had another shock as she was about to get into the Simpson motor
car. Seated on the comfortable rear seat and engaged in airy
conversation were Dan Norton and Laura Post with Mrs. Simpson beside
them. Jean and Jean's special friend, Harry Pryor occupied the centre
chairs. So Jack and Frank Kent, as the car only held seven people, were
compelled to crowd in front with the chauffeur.
"You are sure you don't mind my going over with you," said Frank Kent in
an apologetic tone and turning a deep red. "I can just as easily stay at
the ranch, if you prefer it."
No girl could be proof against such good manners as Frank Kent's,
certainly not Jacqueline Ralston.
The Indian village was not so very far from the Simpson ranch, in the
way that Western people count distances. Pretty soon the automobile
party saw circles of smoke arising in the air. On a rounded green slope
of the prairie near a little river was a collection of wigwams and
huts.
"I am jolly glad some of the Indians still live in tepees." Frank
confided to Jack. "I was dreadfully afraid that your up-to-date,
government-cared-for 'Injun,' was going to be just like everybody else
and wear store clothes and live in a regular American house, and then
what could I have to tell my people when I go back home to England?"
Frank was staring ahead of him and for the first time since his first
meeting with Jack, he had entirely gotten over his British shyness.
"Don't you worry," Jack answered gaily. "I am awfully glad you have come
with us. Now you'll see the real thing! Of course, some of our Indians
have been educated and civilized, but I am sure many of them are just
the same in their hearts as they used to be, and would lead the same
kind of lives if they had a chance. I can tell you they try to get their
revenge, if you make them angry!"
There were a number of lean horses grazing near the village. The streets
were dreadfully dirty and overflowing with thin, brown children rolling
in the sand and playing with wolfish, half-fed dogs. In front of the
rude huts or the cone-shaped tents with sheafs of poles extending
through their tops, were big Indian men, as solemn, silent and
terrifying as though they had been Indian war chiefs meditating on some
terrible massacre. Most of them wore fringed leather trousers and had
bright blankets wrapped about them. They were calmly smoking, and only
barely turned their narrow eyes to glance at the automobile, as it
passed by them.
Near most of the dwellings were outdoor fires, with pots boiling above
them, as few of the Indians can make up their minds to use kitchen
stoves instead of their familiar campfires. Old women sat near the
fires, stringing bright beads, or weaving mats. Some of them were making
Indian blankets on rude frames of logs, set upright some feet apart, and
strung with cords, like an old-fashioned wooden loom.
The chauffeur slowed down and the girls and boys could see that the
Indians were talking about their party, making queer sounds and signs to
one another. The women rushed out with trinkets to sell, the children
sat cross-legged in the dirt, the dogs barked and young women with
babies on their backs crept out of their doors. But among the whole
number, there was no sign of Laska or Josef.
Laura bought quantities of Indian bead-work and pottery. She would not
let her Aunt inquire for the Indian girl's people until she had seen
everything there was to be seen. Frank timidly offered Jack a string of
blue beads, when he saw that Jean had accepted a small gift from Harry
Pryor, and Jack received them very graciously, wishing to show that she
no longer resented Frank's having made the trip.
"Can you tell me where to find the home of Laska?" Mrs. Simpson inquired
of an Indian girl, who looked more intelligent than the others and spoke
very good English.
The girl shook her head. "Don't know," she replied stupidly. Mrs.
Simpson asked half a dozen other people. Some of them spoke, others only
grunted dully. "Crow's Nest," Laska's hut, had apparently never been
heard of.
"Let's don't waste time asking questions, Aunt Sallie," Jack called
back. "The Indians won't tell you about each other unless they know what
you want. Let's drive straight to the school; Olilie's teacher can best
tell us what to do."
In the midst of the Indian village were three well-built houses, the
trading store, a small church and the school. Mrs. Simpson and Jack went
into the schoolhouse together and were gone for half an hour. When they
came out, Jack's face was crimson with excitement and Mrs. Simpson
looked deeply interested. She entered the car after telling her
chauffeur exactly how to find old Laska's hut, but neither she nor Jack
gave any account to the others of what the teacher at the Indian school
had told them of Olilie.
Jean could not bear it. She gave Jack a little shake. "What are you so
mysterious about?" she questioned softly. "Olilie is not Laska's child,
is she? You have found out something about her and you don't dare tell."
Jack hesitated. "It is queerer than we thought," she confessed. "Mrs.
Merton, Olilie's teacher, does not think that Olilie is Laska's child,
but she has no way of proving it. The funny thing is, she says that
Laska gets money each month for taking care of Olilie and that is why
she does not wish to give her up. No one knows who sends her the money
nor where it comes from, Mrs. Merton says. But maybe if we tell Laska
that she can keep this money if she lets us have Olilie, she will give
her up to us. Mrs. Merton has tried to get Olilie away from Laska
herself and to find out more about her, but she has never learned the
least little thing."
Laska's hut was better than many of the other Indian houses, being made
of timber plastered with mud and with a dirt roof. The door was half
open, but it was impossible to tell whether any one inside saw the
approach of the automobile.
Jack and Jean ran up the path ahead, without waiting for Mrs. Simpson
and were almost at Laska's door when a low, savage growl stopped them.
Jean stepped back a moment and clutched at Jack's skirts, but Jack went
on without thinking of danger. She only half heard Jean's cry of warning
as she lifted her hand to knock on the door. In that second a great,
grey figure sprang up in front of her and Jack saw two rows of sharp
teeth on a level with her throat. She had lived all her life among the
wild animals of the prairies and of the ranch, and knew that if, in a
second of danger, she flinched or showed cowardice, she was lost. How
she was able to stand perfectly still for that second she did not know,
for a moment later, she gasped and turned white as a sheet, but Jean and
Mrs. Simpson caught her. Frank Kent had managed in some remarkable
fashion to get in front of Jack and strike down the huge brute with his
stick. A few minutes later Laska came to the door of her hut. She had
seen Jean and Jack approaching alone and had not known what friends they
had with them.
A long and useless conversation followed. Laska would give no
satisfaction about Olilie, insisting that the girl was her child, that
she knew nothing of any money that came for her care. Josef was away,
but they both wanted the girl to return home.
Mrs. Simpson grew weary of argument and pleading. "Look here, Laska,"
she said at last, "we are not going to allow the Indian girl to come
back to you. Any one could look at you both and see that she is not your
own child, and if you try to get her away from us or to molest her in
any way, I shall make it my business to find out who sends you money for
her and you shall have neither the money nor the girl."
Laska made no further objection, but neither Jean, nor Jack, nor Frank
Kent liked the expression of her face, as she watched them leave her
cabin. She made a sign of some kind in the air and mumbled a curious
Indian incantation that had a menacing sound.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ESCAPE FROM THE DANCE.
"IT is all settled, Laura dear," Mrs. Simpson announced comfortably as
the automobile drew up in front of her ranch-house door. "The Indian
girl is to stay with us and be your maid, as your mother says you are
accustomed to having some one to look after you, and Mrs. Merton tells
me she has taught this Olilie how to behave about a house. She seems to
have made quite a pet of her. I haven't talked it over with Jean and
Jack yet, but I am sure it would be most unwise for them to attempt to
keep the Indian girl at their ranch. They have Aunt Ellen and Zack to do
their work, and indeed they ought to have some one to look after them,
instead of undertaking to care for some one else." Mrs. Simpson nodded
emphatically. She was fond of giving advice, a little more fond than
Jean and Jack were of receiving it.
The ranch girls said nothing, but Frank broke in to the conversation,
unexpectedly. "Oh, I say, Mrs. Simpson," he remarked thoughtfully.
"Don't you know, this Olilie, or Olive as you sometimes call her, don't
strike me in the least as belonging to the servant class. Of course we
look at these things differently in England from what you do out West,
but this girl is so gentle and refined, it seems to me she ought to have
a real chance."
Jack smiled gratefully, with her head turned away. "I think so too," she
murmured to herself. "I only wish we knew how to manage it."
The house party was to have a dance at the ranch house that evening.
Jean and Jack and Frieda had never had any real dancing lessons, but the
two older girls were accustomed to going to the informal parties at the
other ranch houses. They knew how to dance the waltz, two-step and
quadrille, and it never occurred to them that Laura would try to
introduce the new style dances at their Western party. Of course some of
her guests had been to schools in the big Western cities and understood
the latest dances. Dan Norton had spent a year at the Leland Stanford
University, and, though he had not been able to pass his Sophomore
exams., he considered himself very superior to the boys and girls who
had never been away either to college or school.
The three ranch girls were not worried about their dancing, but they
were about their costumes. Mrs. Simpson had suggested that Olive would
feel shy, if she came to the party, and she was grateful to be left out.
If only Jean and Jack would tell her what they had found out at the
Indian village, and what they meant to do with her! But the girls did
not realize that the Indian girl knew anything of their trip of the
afternoon or that she was eating her heart out in silence rather than
ask them what had occurred.
Jean shook out her party dress anxiously; Jack surveyed hers with an
expression half of affection and half of disdain. The dresses were their
best last summer frocks and Jim had gone over to Laramie and brought
them home with him in triumph. They were not what the girls would have
chosen for themselves, but they had been proud of them until to-night.
"Do you think she will laugh at us, Jack?" Jean inquired, bravely. "I am
sure I don't care if she does."
At least poor Jim had had a good eye for color, if the materials he had
chosen for the girls' gowns were odd.
Jean's was a soft rose color, just the shade of the wild rose that
covers the western prairies in the early spring and the girl smiled
slightly as she looked at herself critically in the glass. The gown was
becoming to her nut-brown hair and eyes and her clear, colorless skin.
Jack was dressing Frieda in a corner. "You are pretty as a picture,
Jean!" she insisted. "Please don't care so much about what Laura Post
may think. Come and kiss Frieda, she is sweet enough to eat."
Frieda's costume was the prettiest of the three, although it was of
coarse white embroidery, such as only a man would buy. Her long blonde
hair was freshly braided and tied with pale blue ribbons, and around her
plump little waist was a blue sash which in color matched her eyes,
sparkling now from excitement at attending her first dance. Jean marched
Frieda over to a chair and held her in her lap, so that Jack could get
ready to go to the reception room with them.
Jacqueline Ralston thought little about her own appearance. She probably
knew she was pretty, most pretty people are aware of it, but Jack had
really had so much to do and so many things to think about, that she had
almost none of the vanities of most girls of sixteen. She coiled her
gold-brown braids around her head in simple fashion, though she usually
wore them down, as it was so difficult to keep her hair up when she was
on horseback. But to-night, in honor of the party, she wished to look
more grown up. Jack's hair waved from the roots to the ends and broke
out all over her forehead in wayward curls and was particularly becoming
to her, arranged in a simple coronet. In five minutes she had on her
blue cotton crêpe gown and the three went into Mrs. Simpson's big
living-room.
The room had a hardwood floor and had been charmingly decorated with
evergreens, which the men had brought in from the woods at the far end
of the Simpson Ranch.
"Oh, Jack, Jean, look!" Frieda suddenly gasped. A vision of fashionable
loveliness swept before their girlish eyes. Miss Laura Post was crossing
the room followed by her mother. Jack and Jean felt like creeping back
to their bedroom, not realizing how inappropriate Laura's and her
mother's costumes were for such a simple home party.
Laura was a picture and looked as if she had just stepped out of the
pages of a magazine. She wore a white lace gown over silk and chiffon,
trimmed in silver lace. Her hair was elaborately dressed in a
bewildering mass of small, blonde puffs and around her neck a string of
pearls shone softly. Mrs. Post was in violet satin, and wore a diamond
crescent, which made Frieda's round eyes open wider and wider. She had
never seen real diamonds, only their crystal imitations shining in the
great Wyoming rocks.
For a little while Jean and Jack felt as dowdy as old rag dolls, but
when the dancing began they forgot to care about their clothes. There
were a number of other guests besides the house party, who had driven
over to the dance, and most of them were friends of the ranch girls.
Frank did not ask Jack to dance nor did he make any effort to talk to
her. She had said she could not be friends with him and he did not mean
to take advantage of their being at the same house party together, to
thrust himself upon her, as his attentions seemed unwelcome.
After supper, Laura Post grew tired of the simple old-fashioned waltz
which had entertained her visitors the first of the evening, and
insisted that the Spanish waltz was the newest thing in her set, and
that she wanted to try it. She managed to get half a dozen young people
to attempt it with her while others sat around the wall.
Jean dearly loved to dance, and had no intention of being a wall flower,
so she and Harry Pryor slipped out on the big ranch veranda to talk. It
was a wonderful moonlight night, as clear and brilliant as the day, and
across the wide stretch of lowlands the moon shimmered and shone, as if
reflected on the still surface of the ocean.
Jacqueline Ralston saw Jean and Harry disappear; slowly she followed
them and stood for a moment drinking in the wonderful beauty of the
Western night, then crossed to Jean and Harry.
"Jean, Harry, wouldn't it be a glorious night for a ride?" she asked
breathlessly. "Do you think it would be wrong if we should go for a
little run across the prairies? We could easily find the trail, for it
is as bright as daytime."
Jean clapped her hands softly. "Bully!" Harry announced quietly. "It is
not ten o'clock yet and we can be back long before the dance breaks up.
I'll go saddle the ponies while you girls slip into your riding togs."
"Be sure to get Hotspur and Frisk, Jean's pony," Jack entreated. "Jim
sent over our own ponies from the ranch, and I simply hate to ride any
horse but dear little Hotspur."
Just as Jean and Jack slipped into the front hall to go to their room,
Frank Kent stepped out on the porch. He was looking pale and ill, for
the heat of the room and the effort of dancing had brought the old
weakness back on him that he had felt only a few times since his coming
to Wyoming.
Jack felt a sudden wave of sympathy and friendliness. She touched Frank
lightly on the arm: "My cousin and I and Harry Pryor are going to steal
away from the dance for a little horseback ride. Would you care to come
with us?" she asked.
Frank's face lost most of its pallor. He immediately insisted that the
one thing in the world he most wished to do was to take a moonlight ride
across the prairies.
Ten minutes later the two girls and two boys cantered away from the
Simpson ranch. They had no thought of staying out long, and had left
word with Mrs. Simpson's maid that they would be back in about an hour.
Aunt Sallie was too busy with her other guests to be interrupted, and it
never dawned on the girls that they should not have gone for a ride at
night, for they were just like a couple of careless boys.
CHAPTER IX.
JACQUELINE'S MISFORTUNE.
TO one side of Mr. Simpson's big ranch lay a new orchard. The ranch
people in Wyoming were just beginning to discover what wonderful fruit
could be grown in certain portions of their cattle country and Jean and
Jack were dreadfully envious of their neighbor's five acres of pears,
plums, apples and cherries. Their own poor orchard had been set out only
two years before and the trees appeared like a collection of feeble
switches.
"Let's ride through the orchard and fill our pockets with apples before
we start on our way," Harry suggested. The moonlight was so clear and
radiant that the boys could distinguish the color of the few late apples
that still hung on the trees. The road back of the orchard led to a
trail across the prairies, which neither the ranch girls nor Harry knew.
It seemed to travel to the land of nowhere across a shining path of
light.
Jacqueline took the lead, followed by Frank Kent, Jean and Harry. The
ponies had been all day in the corrals and some of the witchery of the
October night had gotten into them as well as their riders. They
galloped swiftly, their shaggy manes shaking and their long tails
arched, and soon left the level lands of their host's ranch far behind.
"I never had such a wonderful ride in my life!" Frank Kent exclaimed.
"How utterly still the night is!"
Jack's hands hardly touched her reins and she laughed joyously. "Oh,
that is because we are out on the prairie and going too swiftly for you
to hear. Over there where we see a line of shadow, I believe we will
find some water and a grove of trees. Then you will hear the noises of
the night, which are part of our Western life."
Jack and Frank slowed down. Jean and Harry were a short distance behind
them. They had ridden to the edge of a ravine, and across the gorge was
a solitary butte or low mountain. On this side the moonlight fell on a
stretch of evergreen forest, whose tall trees rose black between the
splashes of light.
"Listen," Jack whispered softly.
First came the mournful call of the wildcats from the depth of the
ravine, then, near the entrance to the woods, the whimper and squeak of
the owls.
Frank caught a sound which the last few weeks in Wyoming had taught him
to understand, the long melancholy wail of the coyotes, the wolf dogs of
the prairies. But to-night the howl was deeper and more prolonged.
"What was that?" Frank asked quickly.
"Wolves, I suppose," Jack answered with perfect calmness. "There may be
a few of them prowling about. They often come out at night at some
distance from the ranches."
Jean and Harry cantered up. "Hasn't the ride been just too beautiful?"
Jean sighed. "I can't bear to think we must turn back to go home."
"Home? Why it's not late," Harry argued, but Jean shook her head.
"We have got to try the forest trail for just a little bit of the way,
Jean," Jack pleaded recklessly. "We won't go far in. It will be like
fairyland in there to-night. See how plain the trail is, there must be
water somewhere and the trail was made by the deer and antelope on the
way to the pool to drink. To-night I shan't believe that anybody knows
of these woods but us."
Jack did not wait for an answer. She would not listen to Jean's
remonstrance, for all the willfulness in her was aroused and she thought
only of her own desire.
She turned Hotspur's head into the woods. There was no chance to ride
beside her, as the way was too narrow, so the rest of the party followed
in single file.
"You ought to have let me go on ahead, Jack," Harry declared in a
worried tone. "You know nothing of this trail and you may come to
grief!"
Jacqueline laughed teasingly. "Don't be preachy, Harry. You know Hotspur
and I are used to looking after ourselves." Jack whistled like a naughty
boy:
"On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flying fishes play,"--
and waved her hand to the others to follow her at a sharper pace.
"Jack's awfully silly to-night," Jean remarked to Frank Kent. "I hope
Aunt Sallie won't mind, but there is nothing for us to do but to keep up
with her. We won't get back to the ranch until awfully late."
Frank hesitated. "Look here, Miss Bruce, I know I am a tenderfoot, but
do you think we ought to go into these woods at night? Don't think,
please, that I am afraid for myself. But Miss Ralston just told me that
there might be wolves about. I am not armed, though I believe that Harry
has his pistol. I should hate to have you get in trouble."
Jean understood Frank Kent better than Jacqueline did. To tell the
truth, he seemed a bit slow to Jack, she liked people with more get up
and go, more fire and energy in them. But Jean guessed that Frank had
plenty of strength and courage beneath his quiet manner, and Jean was
right.
"Wolves don't attack parties, not once in a thousand times," Jean
explained simply. "And we are making entirely too much noise to be in
any danger. It is the solitary individual the wolves like to get after.
They are such mean cowardly wretches."
Frank Kent smiled grimly. The ranch girls were a puzzle to him, they
talked about wolves and bears and wild cattle as calmly as most girls
spoke of dogs and cats and canary birds, and Frank could see that they
were not putting on airs. They would not have gone deliberately into
danger any more than a sensible fellow would have done; but Jean and
Jack had grown up in a country where men had lived by the killing of
wild game. Their house was filled with the skins of wild animals, shot
by their father and the cowboys from their place. While they were still
little children they had been taught the use of a gun. Jack often had
been on hunting trips with her father in the northern parts of the State
and was perfectly able to bring down a lynx or a cougar with a
well-trained shot between its eyes. She had never been able to shoot a
deer, for in spite of being brought up like a boy, her heart failed her
at the thought of destroying anything that did not live by preying on
other animals.
Jack gave a cry of pleasure. "See!" she called back. "I haven't brought
you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I have led you to
a pool of silver." She had brought Hotspur to a standstill in front of a
little silver lake, where the ravine extended in a circle into the
woods.
For a moment the four riders were breathless with admiration, then a big
brown form lumbered out of a clump of low bushes. Hotspur reared and
the indistinct mass rolled by Jacqueline and made for a thicket.
"It's a bear!" Jack shouted triumphantly. "Who would have thought we
could have had such luck? Let's go after old Bruin and see what becomes
of him; he won't eat us up."
Jack was only joking. She had no real idea of following the bear; she
wasn't even sure what beast had trundled by them, but was only in a wild
humor and wondered how far the others would follow her. She gave Hotspur
a little cut with her whip.
"Come back, Miss Ralston," Frank called sharply. He had ridden near
enough to her to reach out for her bridle.
Jack grew more reckless. She sprang aside but did not notice that the
ground opened in front of her in a narrow, broken crevice, until
Hotspur's fore feet went down the incline and Jack pitched headlong over
him, falling with a crash in the brushwood beyond.
In the medley of cries and confusion that followed, Jacqueline did not
know whether she had been unconscious a second or an age when she was
aroused by a peculiar noise which she was familiar with. It was a
horse's terrible cry of pain. She tried to sit up. Jean and Frank Kent
had dismounted hurriedly and come over to her, while Harry Pryor was
trying to get Hotspur out of the gully.
"I am afraid you will have to help me, Frank, if Miss Ralston isn't
hurt; I am afraid Hotspur has broken his leg."
Jacqueline gave a little cry and Jean covered her cousin's eyes with her
hands. There was a pain in Jack's shoulder that was wrenching and
tearing at her, but it was nothing to the feeling that Harry's words
created.
"It can't be true," she sobbed. "I couldn't have hurt my pony like
that."
But it was true, for Harry and Frank had Hotspur on the level ground and
the little pony lay moaning and neighing pitifully. There was only
moonlight to show what had happened, but Jack flung herself down beside
him and her tears fell in his shaggy mane. "What can we do?" she begged.
"Doesn't any one know how to set a pony's leg?"
Harry shook his head. "You know it's hopeless, Jack. There is but one
thing to do for Hotspur. I can ride back to the ranch for help, but it
would only prolong his pain."
"You mean you must shoot him, don't you, Harry?" Jack asked.
Jean and Frank both turned away their heads. Even in the moonlight, they
could see that Jack's face was ghastly white and her lips almost blue.
Only Jean knew how much Jacqueline cared for her pony; he had been her
father's gift and for the past three years Jack had hardly ever ridden
any other horse, unless Hotspur were too weary to carry her. The thought
that her own heedlessness and obstinacy had brought the disaster only
made it the harder to bear.
Harry nodded. "It's the only way, Jack, you know."
"All right," Jack answered briefly. "Be quick."
Jean's tears were blinding her but Jack looked straight ahead.
"Take the girls toward home with you, Frank," Harry suggested. "I'll
come afterwards."
"I would rather wait until it is over," Jack begged. "It is my fault
that this has happened and I won't go away like a coward, Hotspur would
like to hear my voice until the end." Jack felt her eyes burn and her
throat swell as now and then she patted the quivering broncho.
Jean led her cousin a short distance off, but Jack's eyes never left her
pony. She saw Harry get out his pistol, load it and point straight at
Hotspur. A single shot rang out, a long tremor ran through the horse's
body, a single sound like a sigh shook it and Jack's best beloved friend
and servant was gone forever.
"Take me back to the ranch, please," she whispered hoarsely, all her
courage gone. Harry lifted her on his broncho and for a time walked
beside her. Then Frank changed places and Harry rode. For a part of the
time, Jack cried silently. She had not mentioned the pain in her arm,
although it grew stiffer each moment, but now and then she winced.
"You are hurt, aren't you, Miss Ralston?" Frank questioned. "I was
afraid you were all along." But Jack shook her head; she could think of
nothing but Hotspur.
Jean, however, was thinking of something else. She remembered that it
was after midnight and they were not yet back at the Simpson ranch.
What would Aunt Sallie and Mr. Simpson say? And what would Laura and
Mrs. Post think of them? Jean shivered, for now that the excitement of
their trip with its sad ending was over, she realised that she and Jack
ought never to have gone off riding alone. Poor Jean's cheeks were hot
with blushes, in spite of her shivers. She and Jack had not meant to do
anything wrong, still they ought to have known better. Was it because
they had no mother that neither of them had thought?
Just before they reached the ranch, Jack turned a white face toward the
other truants. "Remember, please, that whatever blame we receive for
to-night's ride, the fault is all mine; I proposed the ride, I would go
farther when Jean asked me to turn back. Don't anybody say anything
different, for you know it is true."
Frank Kent listened silently. He made no reply, but it was hardly his
idea that a man should allow a girl to shoulder all the blame for any
mistake.
Mrs. Simpson and her husband rushed down from the veranda, and were
followed by a few of Jean's, Jack's and Harry's most intimate friends.
Dan Norton was waiting for Frank, with an unpleasant grin on his face.
Laura and most of the company had gone to bed, but Laura's mother
surveyed the two ranch girls with an expression they had never seen in
their free happy girlhood.
"I shall never forgive you children as long as I live," Aunt Sallie
exclaimed angrily. "Where in the world have you been? I knew you had
been left to your own devices, Jean and Jack, but I did think you had
more judgment than to ride across the country at this time of the
night."
"It was all my fault," Jack repeated humbly. "We meant to go for just a
short ride and I didn't think you would care, but we went farther and
farther and Hotspur broke his leg, so we had to come back with just the
three horses. Jean did want to turn back sooner, Aunt Sallie," Jack
whispered. They were now inside the ranch house, under the lights of the
lamps. "Please don't scold her. I know I did very wrong and I'm sorry;
won't you please let me explain better in the morning?"
And then Jack saw everything slipping away from her and the place grew
horribly dark. Big Mr. Simpson caught her in his arms.
"There, Sallie, don't scold any more to-night," he ordered. "The child
is worn out. She did wrong, of course, but I expect she has been
punished enough by losing her pony. It's the boys who are most to blame,
I'll warrant you. Of course they led the girls on this wild goose
chase."
Harry and Frank Kent eagerly bowed their heads. "I didn't think you
would believe any such nonsense as Miss Ralston has been telling you,"
Frank avowed. "Of course Mr. Pryor and I are responsible for the ride
and everything that occurred," he ended, with more gallantry than truth.
Aunt Sallie might have kept up her scolding all night, for she was a
good-hearted woman with a very high temper, adored by her successful
husband and accustomed to having her own way, but she saw that Jack was
in pain. There was something in the girl's white face with the dark
circles under her eyes and the look of penitence and pain instead of her
usual almost haughty expression, that touched her.
"Come to bed, child," she said suddenly. She caught Jack's arm. For the
first time, the girl gave a cry of pain at her own hurt. "I think I have
sprained my shoulder a little, Aunt Sallie," she explained quietly. "I
will be all right in the morning."
It was another hour before Mrs. Simpson got Jack's shoulder properly
bandaged and had her stored away in bed. Fortunately, the shoulder was
only sprained, not broken. Yet Jack could not sleep; it was not alone
the pain that kept her awake, but the realization that she and Jean were
no longer little girls and could not do what they liked without a
thought. It was she who had led Jean into mischief, yet try as she
might, she could not bear the whole burden of the wrongdoing, and she
wished to-night, that the ranch girls had some one to look after them,
some older woman.
CHAPTER X.
BACK TO RAINBOW LODGE.
"AUNT SALLIE, if you don't mind," said Jacqueline next day, "I think we
had better go back to Rainbow Lodge."
Jack's arm and shoulder were swathed in white cotton and she had none of
her usual color, but she was out on the veranda and insisted that she
was not suffering in the least.
"Nonsense, Jack," Mrs Simpson returned kindly. "You are not angry at the
scolding I gave you last night, are you? You know you deserved it, but
of course you and Jean were only thoughtless. We have forgotten all
about it to-day."
Jack looked away. "Everybody hasn't forgotten, Aunt Sallie, but I am not
running away because of that. I had a note from Jim this morning and I
think he needs me at the ranch."
Mrs. Simpson flushed. "I know you are referring to my niece and sister,
Jack, but you must remember that Mrs. Post and Laura have lived always
in the East. Laura has been very carefully brought up and they are not
accustomed to our Western ways of looking at things. But I am sure that
if you show them you are sorry, they will forgive you in course of
time."
Jack's face was no longer pale, she was crimson with anger. If there was
one thing in the world which she had no intention of doing, it was to
show penitence for her conduct to Laura Post or her mother. It seemed to
Jack that to treat a guest in the fashion that Miss Post had treated her
and Jean and to be malicious and vain and small-minded, was a good deal
worse than to have committed the thoughtless act that she and Jean had
been guilty of. But for the sake of Mrs. Simpson, Jacqueline for the
moment held her peace. She hoped she would be able to hold it until she
got away from the Simpson ranch, but was by no means sure.
Olive and Frieda were out in the yard walking quietly up and down.
Frieda was chattering like a magpie, but the Indian girl was silent and
rarely lifted her eyes. Frieda waved to Jack and the two girls started
toward her and Mrs. Simpson, but at this moment, Laura Post and Dan
came out of the front door of the ranch house.
Jack saw Laura stop and say something to the Indian girl. Olive turned
quickly and with her head drooping went directly into the house.
Sturdy little Frieda stood stock still and then raised a pair of
indignant blue eyes to Laura. "I don't believe you!" she exclaimed
hotly, "I am going to ask Jack."
Frieda rushed across the porch, her eyes streaming with tears and flung
herself into Jacqueline's arms, Dan Norton and Laura following her more
slowly.
Neither Olive nor Frieda had been told anything of Mrs. Simpson's plan
to keep Olive at her ranch as a maid for her niece. There had not been
time to discuss it and Mrs. Simpson had been too busy that morning to
talk to the Indian girl, but regarded the matter as having been entirely
settled with the ranch girls.
"Oh, please, Jack," Frieda cried, her voice trembling, "Laura Post just
told Olive to go into the house at once. She said that as long as Olive
was to be her maid, she did not wish her to be out in the front with her
guests. It wasn't true, was it? She is coming back home with us, isn't
she?"
Jack made no reply. She only looked at Laura Post with a pair of clear,
wide open, grey eyes that held more than a touch of scorn in them.
For once, Mrs. Simpson appeared slightly displeased with her adored
niece. "Laura," she remarked disapprovingly, "I am sorry you spoke in
that way to the Indian girl. Remember I asked her here as your guest. I
have not had time to explain to her that she is to remain as your maid."
"What on earth is all this pow-wow about?" Jean demanded, appearing
suddenly on the scene, swinging a tennis racquet and followed by Harry,
who was usually her shadow. "You look as tragic as the tale of Solomon
Grundy. 'Died on Saturday, buried on Sunday, this was the end of Solomon
Grundy,'" Jean chanted in mournful tones. "Who are you trying to get rid
of, at present?"
"No one, Jean," Mrs. Simpson replied. "I was only speaking to Laura of
the Indian girl's remaining here as her maid. I will go now and tell the
girl about it myself."
Jean caught hold of Aunt Sallie's ample skirts. "Not so quickly,
please, Aunt Sallie," she urged, while she looked pleadingly at Jack.
"We are not sure that we can give up Olive to you. You must not be
angry, for you know we did find her first and we have the first right to
her."
"But I have got to have some one to wait on me," Laura broke in
pettishly. "I can't button my own shoes and comb my hair, and Auntie
promised me this girl for my maid."
"Never mind, dear," Mrs. Simpson returned soothingly. "It is all
settled, Jean and Jack can't possibly be so foolish as to attempt to
keep this girl at Rainbow Lodge."
"Oh, yes, we can, Aunt Sallie," Jack answered, sweetly but firmly. "I
have been wanting to talk to you alone, but I haven't had a chance. I
have thought things all over and though we do not wish Olive for a
servant at Rainbow Lodge, we do want her for another ranch girl!" You
could have heard a pin drop as Jacqueline went on. "You see we have
plenty of room in our home and I am sure that four girls ought to be
even happier together than just three. If Olive will trust herself with
us, we shall try to do the best that we can for her. I hope some day,
for her sake, we may find out who she really is, but if not, why
perhaps she may be willing to be known as one of us."
Jack looked so proud and at the same time so generous and fine that
Frank Kent, who was standing near enough to overhear her, wanted to
shout with delight, but managed to appear perfectly indifferent, though
Laura did think she heard him say "Ripping!" under his breath.
Mrs. Simpson was crimson with vexation. "Very well, Jack Ralston, do as
you like," she replied coldly. "Understand I wash my hands of the whole
affair. You will live to regret this piece of Quixotic foolishness and
when this Indian girl gets you into trouble, don't come to me."
"We won't, Aunt Sallie," Jacqueline returned gently. "And I hope you
won't think we are ungrateful to you. We saw lots of real Indian girls
at the village yesterday, perhaps Miss Post will have one of them as her
maid. I'll ask Olive to recommend one."
Jack walked quietly away from the group on the veranda, holding Frieda
by the hand while Jean murmured more apologies to Aunt Sallie, being as
careful as possible not to look that lady in the face. Miss Bruce
hardly wished Mrs. Simpson to see how her brown eyes were dancing with
pleasure and pride, but when Aunt Sallie had gone away, Jean made no
effort to conceal her satisfaction from Laura Post and Dan Norton.
Jacqueline marched straight in to find Olive. She was not in her room.
She was not in the maids' room, nor in the big kitchen. Hong Su, Mrs.
Simpson's Chinese cook, explained that the 'Lil Mlissie' had gone out in
the back yard.
To one side and behind the Simpson ranch house was a large kitchen
garden, at only a short distance from the house itself.
Jack and Frieda could not find Olive at once. There was nothing to hide
her and she could not have gone down to the stables that were some
distance away, yet she was nowhere in sight.
Half an acre of Indian corn was ripening and yellowing in the sun. It
rustled and its long dried leaves crackled and swayed, and they soon saw
the Indian girl walking through it with her head bent and tears falling
fast. Straightway Jacqueline thought of the Song of Hiawatha and the
Indian legend of the corn. Poor little Olive was the Minnehaha, after
her laughter had been stilled! Frieda ran straight to her friend and
threw her arms around her. "Oh, Olive, it isn't true," she cried. "You
are to come home with us to Rainbow Lodge."
But Olive shook her head. She could not understand.
Jacqueline took the girl's slender, brown hand. "Olive," she asked
gently, "do you think you could be happy if you came to live with us at
the ranch? I am dreadfully cross sometimes and you may not like me, but
Frieda and Jean are dears. We are only girls like you and perhaps we may
make mistakes, but you won't mind, if we all do our best together."
Jacqueline was frightened at the expression of the Indian girl's face.
"You want me to live with you like one of you?" she gasped. "Oh, it
can't, it can't be true."
"But it can be true, Olilie," Jack answered lightly, using the girl's
pretty Indian name. "And there is nothing so remarkable in our wanting
to have you. Suppose when mother and father came out here to Wyoming
from the East, something had happened to them and they had left me
somewhere for a stranger to find me. Then the same thing might have
happened to me that has happened to you, and I am sure you would have
come along and rescued me if you could."
"Then you don't think I am an Indian girl?" Olive questioned eagerly.
Jack hesitated. "I don't know, Olive, I'm sure," she returned. "Of
course I was only talking. Come, let's pack up our things, I think we
will go home to-morrow."
"But if Laska and Josef come back for me?" Olive pleaded, unable to
believe in her wonderful good fortune.
Jacqueline's face sobered. She was thinking of what Jim Colter would say
when he learned of their adoption of Olive. She knew that Jim was
troubled about something; had the ranch girls any right to offer a home
to any one when their own future was so uncertain?
But Jack's lips closed firmly. "Never mind, Olive," she answered. "We
won't worry over things until they happen, when they do we will face
them the best we can."
Rainbow Lodge had never looked more dear and homelike than it did when
the four ranch girls arrived before its open front door. Jim had sent
one of the cowboys to drive them home and Jack wondered why he had not
come himself. But she forgot to ask what had kept him, when she saw Aunt
Ellen's smiling face and smelt the odor of ginger cookies coming from
the kitchen back of her.
"Isn't it great to be at home, children?" Jack exclaimed triumphantly.
But Frieda had flown to look after her chickens and Jean was shaking
hands with old Zack, who was building the frames over her violet beds.
"This bandage is cutting my arm off, Olive," Jack went on, noticing
Olive's wistful face as Jack said the word "home." "Won't you come in
and fix it for me, please? I am going to make you and Jean and Frieda
wait on me all I can, now we are away from Aunt Sallie's. Of course I
had to pretend my arm didn't hurt over there, because I knew that that
abominable Laura Post and Dan Norton would say 'serves her right,' every
time I had a twinge of pain."
Jack was talking nonsense to keep Olive from thinking and as the two
girls passed under the arch of the door, Jack kissed her lightly. "Good
luck to Ranch Girl Number Four. May you live long and prosper at Rainbow
Lodge," she whispered.
CHAPTER XI.
BREAKING THE NEWS.
JEAN and Jack came down the wide sunlit hall with their two heads close
together. It was three days since their return from the house party to
their own home.
Outside a half-opened door they stopped. "Listen, Jack," Jean whispered,
swallowing a giggle. "They have been doing it every single day."
"If three fifths of a number is fifteen, what is the number?" Frieda's
voice read slowly and solemnly. She paused fora long moment. "The number
is fifteen, isn't it Olive? The sum said so."
Jean would not have swallowed her giggle this time, except that Jack
pinched her on the arm. "Do be quiet, Jean," she entreated. "You will
hurt their feelings."
"No, Frieda," Olive explained patiently. "You see one fifth of fifteen
is five--"
Jack knocked lightly on the door. "May we interrupt the school a minute,
please?" she begged. "I have to go away in a little while with Jim and
I do want to see what is going on. I think it is perfectly sweet of you,
Olive, to be trying to teach Frieda. It makes Jean and me awfully
ashamed."
Olive laughed shyly: "Oh, I am not teaching," she answered, "Frieda and
I are just studying together. There are such a lot of things I ought to
know so you won't be ashamed of me, and I am trying to learn the few
that I can. Frieda likes to study too."
Frieda was chewing the end of her stubby pencil and making queer figures
on a crumpled piece of paper. Her little round face wore such a virtuous
and studious expression that Jack laughed. Jean went over and pulling
Frieda's hair said: "Since when, Frieda Ralston, have you developed into
a student? Far be it from you ever to get your lessons for _me_ without
a fuss; something must have come over the spirit of your dreams."
Frieda shook her head impatiently. She was a very matter-of-fact person
at all times. "No such thing, Jean, dreams haven't anything to do with
it, it is only that Olive really takes an interest herself and is
awfully patient and does not laugh--"
But Jean had put her fingers in her ears and slipped out the bedroom
door.
Olive and Frieda were in their own room at a small table drawn up near
the window, and looking out, Jack saw Jim Colter come up the drive to
the door on horseback, leading a horse for her. Jean ran out in the yard
and stood for a moment talking to him.
Jim had been away from Rainbow Ranch since the day of the girls' return,
and Jack could see that he looked tired and serious, not like his usual
self.
Jack kissed Frieda. "Perhaps Jim and I won't be back until late, little
sister, don't worry. You know we are going to ride along the side of
Rainbow Creek to see about some of the cattle and horses. Maybe the poor
ponies and calves haven't any water to drink in some parts of the ranch.
Don't study until your pigtails turn grey."
Frieda laughed, but the Indian girl looked at Jacqueline closely. There
was something odd in Jack's manner, as though she were trying to hide a
secret that she was not sure whether or not she wished to tell.
"Good-bye, Olive," Jack called lightly, "don't talk about our being
ashamed of you, child. If you knew all I do not know, you would be
quite the wisest person in the world. Maybe Jean and I will have news
for you to-night. You have got to think it is good news, for Jean and I
hope it is. Anyhow, you two good, industrious children have made me make
up my feeble mind. _Auf wiedersehen._ That being about all the German I
know, I will translate it for you: 'Till we meet again.'"
Jack stamped out on the porch to Jean and Jim.
"Morning, overseer," she said brightly.
Jim lifted his Mexican hat. "Morning, boss," he returned gravely. "How
is the wounded member?"
Jack shrugged her sprained shoulder the least little bit. "It's not
first class yet, pard," she stammered, mimicking one of the cowboys on
the ranch. "But I think I can get over a good piece of ground by
catching hold on the reins with this here one good arm, if it's the same
to you. Is that the horse you mean me to use now, Jim?" Jack asked, her
voice and manner changing.
"Best I can do at present," Jim replied soberly. "Tricks ain't up to
Hotspur and you may have to watch him a bit."
"Jean," Jack whispered, just before she mounted her horse. "We have made
up our minds to it, haven't we? Do you think we will be able to endure
it?"
Jean cast her brown eyes up to heaven. "Bear it?" she groaned. "Well I
suppose if we must, we must. Only tell Jim, maybe he will say we must
not, then think of the relief!" Jean sighed, half in fun and half in
earnest, and watched Jim and Jack scamper out of sight.
"Wonder what old Jim and Jack are up to?" she murmured. "If they only
were going to see how nearly dry Rainbow Creek is, they would have taken
one of the cowboys with them. They are sure to have to pull a cow or a
calf out of a mud hole, before they are through. Jim looks as sober as a
judge. I hope he hasn't heard anything about the--" Jean broke off her
musing, with a stamp of her foot. "Of course not, I am a goose to think
of it," she told herself sternly.
Jim Colter and Jack galloped on in silence, Jim riding high in his
saddle, standing nearly erect, with his feet well out in the Western
cowboy fashion. He wore a pair of fringed trousers, with a cartridge
belt around his waist and two big Colt's revolvers were stuck in the
holsters on either side. A forty-foot rope was coiled and hung at the
pommel of his saddle. Jim's Irish blue eyes were black with anger this
morning and his lips set in a firm, hard line.
The two riders had followed the bed of Rainbow Creek for two miles
through the ranch before either one of them spoke.
Jim wheeled and looked Jack straight in the eyes. "You have a piece of
news for me, haven't you, Jack?" he asked.
Jack nodded. "My news will keep. What is it you have to tell me? I know
it is important."
"Can you bear it, girl?" Jim asked abruptly. "It's pretty bad."
Jack lifted her eyes without speaking. A moment later they filled with
tears and her lips trembled. "It isn't true though, Jim, is it?" she
entreated. "He can't prove what isn't true."
Jim squared his shoulders. "That is just the point, Miss Jack, and what
we have got to fight. Daniel Norton says he can prove that he is the
rightful owner of Rainbow Ranch. He has papers to show it and we haven't
a sign of anything. What we have got to establish is that his claim is
a lie and that Rainbow Ranch don't belong to nobody on this earth but
John Ralston's daughters."
"But how, Jim?" Jack asked. "You know we have lost the title to the
estate. We have never been able to find a sign of a paper to show that
the ranch is our property. I have looked through every one of father's
papers a thousand times. The deed is gone!"
"Then it will have to return before January first," Jim answered coolly,
snapping his fingers in the wind. "That is the date Mr. Norton means to
bring suit. Remember the game we used to play with a bit of paper, when
you were a little girl, Jack, 'Fly away Peter, Come back Paul'? Paul
used to come back, so don't you be frightened. Daniel Norton hasn't
gotten our ranch from us yet, and before he does, he will see some
pretty tall scrapping. But I am afraid we have got to find our deed. I
was one of the witnesses when your father's title to this ranch was
drawn up. The other witness was a fellow from the East, who just
happened to be passing through the country. He stayed with us a few days
and then goodness only knows what became of him. He may be living in
New York or New Mexico for all I know."
"But you can advertise for him, can't you, Jim?" Jack pleaded, her face
looking white and drawn. "Maybe if he would swear that father bought our
ranch and that Mr. Norton couldn't have any right to it, it might do
some good. What was his name?"
"Will Corbin," Jim answered shortly. "But don't build your hopes on that
idea. I have been advertising for the fellow for months. Not a word from
him."
"But the court records," Jack continued. "Of course I don't know
anything about law or business, Jim, but I am sure that I have heard
that if a person buys or sells a piece of property, some kind of record
of it is kept in a big book. Can't you get hold of that?" Jack begged
faintly. "If Mr. Norton brings suit and makes us leave our ranch in
January, what can we do? Where will we go? It will be so hard for Frieda
and Jean." Jack choked and could not go on for a moment.
Jim was looking in every direction except at his companion and cleared
his throat once or twice. Jack was gazing out over the sweep of low
country bordered by the distant hills. To one side was an open field,
where a herd of wild horses was munching the dried buffalo grass; on the
wooded slope of the ravine on the further bank of the creek, cattle were
leading their calves to drink. It was all their own, hers and Jean's and
Frieda's; their beloved Rainbow Ranch! Jack could recall no fairer
picture than the scene before her. Her eyes had looked out only on the
western lands since she could remember. "Well, Jim, don't you think it
would be a good scheme for us to look up this court record?" Jack
inquired more hopefully. "Mr. Norton couldn't say it was false."
"Look here, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim answered more gruffly than he had
ever spoken to her before. "Do you think that you are the only member of
Rainbow Ranch who has any business head? What have I been doing these
last few days but looking up that very record of the sale of Rainbow
Ranch to John Ralston, Esq.? But I have wasted my time. It wasn't any
use. The court record is gone, same as our own deed."
"But that isn't possible, Jim," Jack argued faintly, feeling the world
begin to spin round faster and faster, so she could hardly sit on her
horse. "I thought nobody ever dared touch anything that belonged to a
court of law."
"Jack," Jim demanded severely, "will you kindly remember that we are
living in the State of Wyoming and that we haven't been a State but a
powerful few years? When your father first came to Wyoming, this country
was pretty well filled up with wild beasts, wild Indians and some pretty
wild white men. There weren't but a few towns and they weren't slow
towns either. Things used to go on in them that a girl don't need to
know about. One of the tricks the bad men used to play was to change the
county seat over night, just for their own convenience. A band of men
would ride up to the courthouse, gather up the court records, the law
books and anything else that came in handy, and carry them off to a new
town. Next morning when folks woke up, they would find the county seat
moved and maybe a new judge and a new sheriff. In one of these here
little midnight excursions, they must have carried off the court records
which showed your father bought our old ranch fair and true. The book
must have been lost, for the record has disappeared, same as our own
title to the place. You can kind of see that old man Norton has got us
in a tight place, can't you, Jack?" Jim ended gloomily.
"We don't have to tell Jean and Frieda yet, do we, Jim?" Jack pleaded
wistfully. "It won't do any good to make them miserable so long as we
can keep the news from them."
Jim shook his head. "No sense in your bearing the whole burden alone,
Jack. You ain't much older than Jean, you know. Besides, maybe little
Frieda will be the very one of us to find our lost title to the old
ranch. Ain't things often revealed unto babes that are hid from the rest
of us?" Jim quoted reverently, not remembering exactly the great words
of the text, but sure enough of its meaning.
"Wait here a minute for me, please, Jack," Jim remarked suddenly, "there
is one of our calves stuck in the mud in the creek bottom. Funny how the
farther we get away from the Lodge the slower our creek runs! It didn't
used to be that way. Ought to be five or six feet of water along here
and there's only about one, and that silly calf has sunk to her knees in
mud and slime."
Jim rode away from Jack, a few feet into the creek, feeling his way
cautiously for fear of quicksands. The calf bleated and struggled, but
with a skillful swing of his lasso, Jim caught the mired animal securely
and dragged her back safe to dry land. When he joined Jack again, the
worried expression had disappeared entirely from his face.
"Cheer up, pard," he resumed affectionately. "You have got the best head
on your shoulders of any girl on this side the great divide. We will
straighten things out some way and have one of the jolliest Christmases
that ever took place at Rainbow Lodge, as a celebration. But didn't you
and Jean have something on your minds that you meant to ask me about?
Out with it! We don't want to do any talking when we get along toward
the end of our creek. Sure as fate, some way the water is being drained
from our creek and I have got to find out how it's done."
"Oh, my news doesn't amount to anything now, Jim," Jacqueline announced.
"After what you have just told me, there wouldn't be any point in trying
to carry out our plan. Indeed it is entirely out of the question."
"Tell me the plan just the same, Jack," Jim insisted, anxious to get
Jack's mind off the subject of their troubles.
"You will be awfully surprised, Jim," Jack declared, her face
crimsoning, "but Jean and I had just about decided that we ought to have
a chaperon to come to live with us at Rainbow Lodge."
Jim gave a long drawn out whistle. He gazed meditatively up at the blue
sky. "Good thing it ain't night," he replied slowly, "because if it had
been, the stars would have fallen at that remark of yours. You and Jean
think you ought to have a chaperon! Well, my word!"
"Don't be silly, Jim," Jack remonstrated. "You know we have talked over
our having a chaperon at the Lodge dozens of times since father died.
And even when I haven't talked, I have been thinking. We did hate the
idea of one and I am afraid I do still. But since our visit to Aunt
Sallie," Jack's beautiful straightforward face colored hotly, "Jean and
I believe we ought to have an older woman to live with us. You see it is
this way, Jim; we don't want to do things that even look wrong, just
because we don't know any better; and then we don't want to grow up
into perfect dunces. Jean and I don't seem to study at all with no one
to teach us, and Olive and Frieda are so anxious to learn that they make
us ashamed." Jack sighed. "What's the use of telling you all this? Of
course we can't think of sending for a chaperon now when we do not know
how long we will have a home to live in ourselves."
Jack had been crying a little, but now she threw her head back with a
familiar gesture and winked bravely. "Let's don't talk about our
troubles any more, Jim. Mr. Norton hasn't taken possession of Rainbow
Ranch yet by any means. Who knows what may happen in two months?"
"Shall I go to Laramie to-morrow and order out a chaperon, Miss
Ralston?" Jim queried calmly. "Suppose I put an ad in the paper.
'Wanted: a long-suffering lady, who knows everything, to chaperon and
instruct four young ladies who know nothing, but have difficult and
unmanageable tempers, particularly the eldest.' Sounds an attractive
advertisement. Ought to get a lot of answers."
Jack gazed inquiringly at their devoted friend and counsellor.
"You mean, Jim, that you think we had better go on and have a chaperon,
just as we planned, as though there was no danger of our losing the
ranch?"
Jim nodded silently. He placed a cautious finger on his lips. He was
leaning forward in his saddle, intent on something ahead.
Jack did not notice. "We don't want to have any one to live with us whom
we know nothing about," she went on, "so I expect we had better send for
mother's cousin, Ruth Drew. She is a fussy New England old maid, and
terribly prim, but she wrote she would come out to us, and if she can
stand for us, why,--what was that, Jim?" Jack finished breathlessly.
"Shsh!" Jim whispered softly. "Keep perfectly still until we know."
CHAPTER XII.
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DIVIDE.
JIM COLTER and Jack had ridden to the lower end of Rainbow Creek, where
it widened into a kind of natural reservoir. Some yards beyond it, a
line of upright rails divided the Ralston ranch from that of the
Nortons. The earth dipped slightly on the farther side and a thicket of
low sage brush covered the rise in the land beyond.
Jim and Jack saw nothing moving in the sage brush or beyond it and there
was no one in sight. Their impression must have been a mistake, for the
only living thing in view was a flock of wild geese which flew over
their heads uttering their shrill clamor. Jim sat erect, silent and
watchful as an Indian, on the back of his equally motionless pony, his
hand shading his eyes.
Jack waited on her horse gazing at the quiet waters of Rainbow Creek.
Suddenly there came a low rumble inside the earth, like a note of
warning, and then the land began to rise in sandy billows as though wave
on wave were seeking some distant shore. The two horses with their
silent riders shook as with the ague; the face of Rainbow Lake shivered,
then her waters lashed the shores as though they had been parted
asunder, and a moment later receded and began to disappear. It was as if
old Father Neptune had deserted his home at the bottom of the sea to
play his mighty games in the shallow waters of Rainbow Creek. It seemed
as though he had blown a great blast through his sacred horn and caused
the water to spurt upward, then had drawn it slowly back into his horn
again.
The noise and the movement died away.
"Was it an earthquake, Jim?" Jacqueline managed to murmur, as soon as
she could get her breath. She had slipped quietly off her pony and was
patting it softly, for the broncho was terribly frightened at the
strangeness of his experience.
Jim nodded solemnly. "A human earthquake, I guess. Don't be alarmed, it
won't occur again, but get to cover quickly."
Jacqueline Ralston knew as well as though she had been a pioneer woman
trained to warfare with the Indians in the early days in the West, what
Jim's mysterious words, "get to cover," meant. She and Jim used to
play, long years before, that they were travelers across the plains,
being hunted down by bands of roving Indians. This was when Jack was a
small, bronze-haired tomboy, riding bare-back over the prairies,
swimming with her father in the clear, cold mountain streams, afraid of
nothing and of no one, the pride of every cowboy on Rainbow Ranch. Later
she had learned the value of hiding in ambush in stalking wild game.
But, even if Jack had not understood the importance of Jim's advice, she
had been trained to obey instantly the word of a superior officer in the
moment of action.
It was not an easy matter to seek shelter with a broncho fourteen and a
half hands high in the particular part of the ranch where Jack and Jim
happened to be at this moment. There were no trees, no underbush of any
kind. The trees that are usually found near the beds of streams in the
western country, were on the far side of Rainbow Creek. There was no
time to wade across. Jack dropped her reins, hoping her pony would
wander quietly away. She bent forward and ran as swiftly and silently as
possible toward the straggling rail fence. Then she lay down in the
short brown grass, as motionless as a frightened partridge who tries to
make the hunter believe he is a part of the still landscape. Jim Colter
crawled after Jack, bringing with him his long rope.
A few minutes later a man's figure rose up from the screen of sage
bushes on the Norton ranch and the sun glinted on a bright red head. The
boy swung his hat in the air once, twice, three times. Then he repeated
the signal.
Jim crept through the fence like an eel. Without making the least sound
that could be heard by the fellow, whose back was turned to him, Jim got
within thirty feet of his enemy.
Jack wondered what on the face of the earth Jim intended to do. Then her
eyes widened with surprise and with laughter. There was a swish, a
streak through the air, as Jim's lariat uncoiled. Hearing the noise the
boy turned and the rope caught him around the waist, pinning his arms
securely to his side. He was lassoed as safely as any wild pony.
Jim then calmly started to walk back toward the rail fence that divided
the two ranches. He seemed blissfully indifferent to the fact that he
dragged an angry and sputtering young man at the end of his rope. Dan
Norton, Jr., was a heavy, stocky fellow, with a good deal of brute
strength, but Jim Colter was long and lean, with muscles of steel.
Besides, as Dan threw his resisting strength against that of his
opponent, the rope tightened about him and cut more deeply into his
flesh. He kicked viciously like an unruly colt, but Jim did not
condescend to look behind him; his victim was kicking nothing but air,
as Jim was ten yards in front.
"What are you doing? Where are you going?" Dan shouted, almost choking
with rage.
Jack rose up from behind the shield of the fence. The sight of Jim and
his prize was too beautiful, and Jack felt that she was being repaid for
many of the cruel tricks that Dan and his father had played on her since
she was a little girl. She recalled the time that Dan had nearly put out
her eyes, when she was only four years old. She had been playing with
him and when she lifted her face to his in answer to some question, he
had thrown a great box of sand straight into her wide-open eyes. It was
curious how well Jack remembered the deed at this moment.
"Let me go, I'll have you in jail for this. What do you mean by
trespassing on my land?" Dan yelled.
Jim laughed and drew Dan closer to him. "Don't get so upset, sonnie, I
am not going to trespass on your land," he urged quietly. "This rope is
just a little scheme of mine to make you cross the great divide between
your ranch and ours, while we talk a few things over." Jim hauled Dan
through an opening in the fence.
Jack dared not look straight at them. She did feel it would be too
hateful of her to laugh out loud, yet how could she help it? Dan was so
desperately angry that it made him fume and fuss and jump about like an
excited rooster, and his red head did suggest a rooster's comb.
"Look out, Jim," Jack sang out. "Here come the men Dan was signaling."
Across one of the Norton fields, with their gaze centered on the clump
of sage where they expected to find their young master, marched three
cowboys from the Norton ranch.
"Come here," Dan shouted, trying in vain to loosen one of his hands to
wave to his men.
Jim slipped one of his Colts out of its holster and passed it over to
Jack. "Just keep this for me, will you, Miss Ralston?" he asked
politely. "There won't be any use for it, but there is no harm in having
it handy."
Jim spoke to the puzzled ranchmen and greeted them calmly. "Come as far
as you like on your own side of the fence," he said, "but kindly stop
right there. I have a few questions I would like to ask Mr. Daniel
Norton, Jr., and I wouldn't object to some witnesses. Needn't be afraid,
the earthquake is all over. Mr. Norton and I are going to talk quite
neighborly and friendly like, as soon as he cools off a bit."
Jim Colter spoke so quietly that the men who watched him knew he meant
business. You see Jim's reputation was that he was one of the most
dangerous men in the country when he was aroused, and there was no doubt
of his present feeling.
The three men nodded respectfully. They did not wish to have a fight,
for if they attacked Jim and tried to get Dan Norton away from him, he
would undoubtedly use his pistol, and then there was Jacqueline.
The cowboys jerked their heads at Jack in a greeting intended to be
exceedingly polite. Jack understood and returned the men's bows with her
best smile. She did not desire to let Jim make the affair with Dan too
serious if she could help it, but she had rarely seen their overseer so
deeply angry in her life.
An Eastern girl and most Western ones would have been horrified at
Jacqueline Ralston's present position. She was standing, a quiet and
attentive listener, in a group of five uncultured men. One of the
cowboys was Josef, the Indian Laska's son, the other a Mexican, and but
one of the three an American. They were all angry and lawless and only
one of the five her friend, yet Jacqueline did not think of her position
as unusual. She was far too much interested in what was about to take
place to think of herself at all and knew that not one of the cowboys
would touch her and she was not in the least in fear of Dan. Jacqueline
Ralston was not like a girl with a father and mother to care for her.
She had been brought up with the ideas of a pioneer woman and was trying
to run a ranch and to make a living for herself, her cousin and sister,
and if there was any danger that threatened their property or them, she
must know what it was and must do what she could to prevent it. Jack
was leaning on a rail of the fence. Her hat had fallen on the ground and
her face was white, yet it held a look of quiet power and strength
remarkable in a girl so young.
Jim was aggravatingly slow. He was facing Dan Norton while the cowboys
hung over the pickets. Dan had ceased to struggle, but still refused to
look either at Jim or Jack.
"Our little talk ain't going to take but a few minutes, sonnie, if you
will answer my questions straight from the shoulder," Jim drawled. "Did
any of you feel a bit of a shock, say like an earthquake, a few minutes
back? It 'peared like the ground near Rainbow Creek had gotten tired of
not being heard from for some time past and had suddenly swelled up and
bust."
Jim pointed toward the lake only a few yards from them. Jack was
startled to see how much lower the water was. Could it have fallen an
inch in such a little while?
Dan shook his head scornfully. "Earthquake! No, you are off your base,"
he sputtered. "That is, at least I did feel a slight motion, but it
didn't amount to much. I don't see how you can hold me responsible for
an earthquake. Say fellers, Jim Colter is pretty far gone isn't he, if
he thinks I am powerful enough to move the earth." Dan grinned,
delighted with his own wit, but his cowboys only continued to stare at
him solemnly.
"Glad you felt a little motion, though you was pretty safe out of the
way," Jim went on in the same quiet fashion. "Seems like I could shut my
eyes and tell you just how that earthquake happened. You ought to have
seen the waters of Rainbow Creek dash up in the air and then begin to
slide plum out of sight. It was most like a miracle."
Dan faced Jim impudently. "Well, go on, tell us how your miracle
happened?" he invited scornfully.
Jacqueline was puzzled. She had no idea how Jim would be able to explain
the peculiar phenomenon which they had just seen.
"Oh, a charge of dynamite caused our little earthquake," Jim explained
briefly.
"You see, Mr. Norton, you have been trying to drain the water from our
creek to your ranch for some time back, but digging a lower channel was
pretty slow work. That little bunch of dynamite just between your land
and our lake has made a pretty nice passage for our water to flow
through. I suppose you made your entrance underground somewhere near
that clump of sage brush, so it would be hard for us to discover."
Dan shrugged his heavy shoulders, "What rotten nonsense," he returned
sullenly.
Jacqueline's eyes were fairly starting with surprise and she opened her
lips to ask a question but closed them quickly. She couldn't expect to
comprehend Jim's accusation. What girl ever has understood anything
about engineering?
Jim laughed, straightened up and glanced toward the three cowboys, who
were grouped picturesquely on the opposite side of the divide. "Oh, you
don't have to take my word for it," he remarked casually, "I will have
one of the State engineers over to prove it to you. You see if there is
one thing we are strict about in Wyoming, it is our water rights.
"You and your father shall pay us a tidy sum of money in damages for
this work." Jim slowly let go the tight knot which had held Dan Norton.
"Now get along home when you like, young man," he concluded. "I am
through with you for to-day."
Dan flung the lasso to the ground and glared angrily at Jim and then at
Jack. But his eyes fell before Jacqueline Ralston's. Jack was looking at
him steadily with the scornful, slightly haughty expression he so hated.
Dan smiled. His light blue eyes were almost green with temper and
narrowed into two fine lines. "Oh, it don't matter about your old creek,
at present," he jeered. "You can keep the water on Rainbow Ranch for
another few months, when father and I take possession of the ranch, we
can drain the water over here if we like. So long!" and he glanced
contemptuously at Jack, as he marched by her.
Jack had her riding whip in her left hand. For a second she longed to
strike at Dan Norton with it. How dared he speak in that calm and
self-assured fashion of some day taking possession of their own beloved
Rainbow Ranch? Jack's heart was like lead, but not a muscle of her
lovely face moved, her eyelashes did not even tremble.
Jim watched Dan sneak across the divide and he and Jack waited until the
four men started on foot across the plain. Then Jim smiled a slow smile
which meant many things. "Don't you worry quite so much about our losing
our ranch, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim announced. "If old Daniel Norton had
felt so sure he was going to succeed in getting our place away from us,
he would never have tried to steal our water at this stage of the game."
The two horses were grazing near by and Jim lifted Jack into her saddle.
They turned their faces toward Rainbow Lodge.
Once or twice, Jim rubbed his chin. "Pretty good day's work for us,
boss?" he asked finally.
Jack's eyes danced and a deep rose color glowed in her cheeks. She did
not look in the least like the girl who had received in tears the news
of the possible loss of her home.
Jack laughed softly, under her breath. "It sure was a good day's work,
overseer, and we'll fight till the hat drops," she answered, in the tone
of another cowboy. Then Jack flicked her pony with her whip. "Do let's
hurry, Jim," she called gaily. "I never saw anything in my life so
delicious as the picture you made lassoing Dan. I am just dying to get
home to tell the other girls."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WET BLANKET.
"JACK, how are we ever going to quit using slang?" Jean groaned.
"Oh, we do worse things, Jean Bruce," Jack answered unfeelingly. "Little
we know how many crimes we do commit! Just wait until a straight-laced
old maid gets hold of us! And what will Cousin Ruth say about Jim's
grammar? You know she is a B.A. from some woman's college. Do you know
Jean, I often wonder if Jim talks in the careless way he does simply
because he has lived so long out here with the cowboys. He must have had
some education when he was young, he seems to have read a great many
books."
"Jim Colter is a clam," Jean remarked impatiently, forgetting her
resolution to speak only "English, pure and undefiled." "He would rather
die than to let us learn anything of his past. I do declare, Jack, that
if he were anybody in the world except Jim, I should think he had
something in his life he wished to conceal. I wonder if he ever had a
tragic love affair?"
"Oh, Jean, you are a romantic goose," Jack exclaimed. "What was it you
had to show me?"
Jean and Jack were giving a thorough cleaning to the living-room; Aunt
Ellen had shaken the rugs and polished the pine floor, but the two girls
were dusting vigorously in every crack and corner and rubbing the brass
candlesticks with an unaccustomed ardor.
Through the entire Lodge there rioted a sense of preparation, as before
the approach of some great event.
Jean flung down her dust cloth, seized Jack by the hand and marched her
over to the corner lined with their book shelves.
Jack discovered an entirely unknown row of books. "Why, Jean Bruce!"
Jack exclaimed in amazement. "Where did you ever find these old things
and what do we want with them anyhow?"
Jack was staring at Congressional reports, a few ancient law books and a
treatise on medicine. But there also were eight volumes of Gibbon's
"Rome," Greene's "History of The English People," and several other
valuable old histories, arranged in a conspicuous place on the book
shelves. Jean's most cherished novels had been stuck out of sight.
Jean smiled a superior smile. "I found the books upstairs in Uncle's
trunk, of course, and I brought them down here to impress our new
chaperon or governess, which ever you choose to call her. I was
determined she should not think we were perfect dunces when she arrived
at Rainbow Lodge."
Jack appeared to reflect. "I don't see how it will do much good," she
argued, half laughing. "Cousin Ruth will soon find out that we don't
know anything in the books worth mentioning."
But Jean was not in the least discouraged. "First impressions are always
the most important, Jacqueline Ralston," she announced calmly. "My
advice to this family is to let Cousin Ruth get her shocks from our wild
behavior by degrees so that she will have time to rally in between."
"Do you think she is going to find us so very dreadful?" Jack inquired
quite seriously, without the trace of a smile. She was climbing up on a
ladder to try to straighten a beautiful golden lynx skin, which was
slipping off the wall.
"Worse than wild Indians," Jean replied, unmoved, "just you mark my
words, Miss Ralston. For instance, Miss Drew is going to announce that
it is a perfect shame for any one to shoot a poor dear wildcat. Uncle
ought to have reasoned with that cat when it jumped at him. She is going
to hate us and all our ways forever and want to go back to her blessed
New England in a week."
Jack sighed, "you are a Job's comforter, Jean. But you don't have to
worry, I know Cousin Ruth will hold me responsible for our wicked ways.
You see I wrote her that we did not want her to come out to us when she
first said she would. Then I had to eat humble pie and say we did. But
even if she does not like you or me, Jean, she can't help caring for
Olive and Frieda. Olive is the prettiest, shyest girl in the world."
Jean nodded. "Jack," she asked more sympathetically, "is Cousin Ruth
horribly old?"
"She is twenty-eight and a dreadful old maid," Jack confessed sadly.
"Jean, you have simply got to ride over to the station with Jim to meet
her this afternoon."
Jean shook her head and dropped languidly into a large reclining chair.
"I am not at all well, Jack," she answered, "I forgot to tell you this
morning, but I feel a bad cold coming on. If I should take a long ride I
am sure I should be quite ill."
Jack stared at her cousin searchingly. "You don't show the least sign of
a cold, Jean," she argued.
"That is because appearances are deceiving, sweet coz," Jean murmured.
"How is our dear lady cousin going to get over to the ranch?"
"Oh, Jim is going to lead a horse over for her to ride back on," Jack
announced quite unconscious of breakers ahead. "You see the train gets
in so late that we couldn't get home until after dark, if we drove over,
and I thought it would be kind of nice to have Cousin Ruth arrive at
Rainbow Lodge just at twilight. You didn't think to look among father's
books for a stray paper, did you, Jean?" Jack asked, trying to appear
indifferent.
"Yes, I did, Jack," Jean returned quickly. "There wasn't anything. Let's
don't talk about it. I promise to have everything at the Lodge to-night
in ship-shape order, when you arrive. We have cleaned up the whole house
and we will put on our best clothes and stand out on the veranda to meet
you; we might even sing, 'Hail, the conquering hero comes,' if you think
it would be appreciated."
"Do you suppose Jim could meet Cousin Ruth without me?" Jack queried, as
a forlorn hope.
Jean shook her head decidedly. "Most certainly not, Jack; never in the
world! The lady would think Jim was trying to kidnap her and he would be
scared to death." Jean kissed Jack apologetically. "I know I am horrid,
Jack, to put all the hard things off on you because you are a little bit
the oldest, but really, if I had to meet Cousin Ruth at the station, I'd
shiver and shake until I fell off my horse. I will do the next hard
thing that has to be done on this place, I will honestly, cross my heart
and body," Jean argued penitently.
Three weeks had passed since Jim Colter's and Jack's eventful ride
across the ranch. It was late October, but unusually mild and warm.
Cousin Ruth had been written to on the very evening of the decision, so
that there could be no chance for a change of purpose on the part of
the ranch girls, for they felt that they were in for it and were
determined to do their best.
Miss Ruth Drew was entirely alone in the world except for one
good-for-nothing brother and had just enough money to eke out a bare
existence in a dull little Vermont town. She wanted an object in life
and believed that the ranch girls needed her. So soon as Jack's letter
arrived, she had telegraphed that she would come to them at once. Since
then, the days at Rainbow Lodge had slipped by like magic until the
fated day arrived. Jim Colter and Jack, with many inward misgivings,
mounted their ponies and leading an extra one for Miss Drew, rode to the
station.
The express from the East would be due in an hour.
Jack and Jim paced restlessly up and down the station platform, with
their arms locked. Jim looking even more wretched and unhappy than Jack.
He wondered how in the world he was to treat the old lady cousin when
she came out to them, and whether she would shut off from caring for his
adored ranch girls.
Jim had not the remotest idea of Miss Ruth Drew's age. The name had an
elderly sound to it and Jack had described her as an old maid;
consequently Jim's mental picture showed a small, grey-haired woman with
corkscrew curls, somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty, with thin lips
and a penetrating eye. She would probably reduce him to powder with a
single glance, but he meant to be as polite to her as he humanly could
and to speak to her only when it was absolutely necessary.
"Jim," Jack suggested finally, "you have sighed like a human bellows
three times in the past five minutes. If you meet Cousin Ruth with that
expression, she'll think we are sorry she has come. Please go over into
the town and buy yourself some tobacco or something to cheer you. I'll
get on Tricks and ride up and down near the track for a while, and then
we will both be in a better humor when the train finally does get in."
Miss Ruth Drew sighed. She was sitting in the Pullman car with her eyes
closed and an expression of supreme fatigue on her sallow but not
unattractive face.
It seemed to her that she had been traveling ever since she could
remember. Were there people in the world idiotic enough to think there
was beauty in the western prairies? For days she had looked out on bare
stretches of endless brown plains rising and falling in one monotonous
chain. The sand was in her eyes, in her ears, in her mouth; worst of
all, it had piled up in a great mass of homesickness on her heart.
How could she have turned her back on dear New England villages, with
their sleepy, green and white homesteads and trim gardens, for this vast
desert? "Of course, she was doing her duty in coming to look after four
motherless girls," Ruth remembered, with a pang, but her duty at the
present moment did not appear cheerful.
When the conductor announced that the next station was hers, Ruth sat up
and arranged her hat and veil neatly. She adjusted her glasses on her
thin nose and put back the single lock of hair that had strayed from its
place. Her heart began to flutter a little faster. Was she actually
arriving in the neighborhood of Rainbow Ranch? It didn't seem possible!
If you can imagine a very prim, grey mouse kind of girl, who looked a
good deal older than she was, with ash brown hair and eyes and a neat
tailor-made suit to match, you will get a very good impression of Miss
Ruth Drew. Her figure was very good and her mouth might have been
pretty, except that it looked as though she disapproved of a great many
things, and that is never becoming. But she was tired and homesick and
it was not a fair time to judge her.
It would be another fifteen minutes before she would get into Wolfville,
and Ruth closed her eyes again. There was nothing to see out of her
window that was in the least interesting and she preferred to think
about the ranch girls. She wondered if they would be very hard to get on
with, if they were very wild and reckless. It made her shudder: the idea
of her cousin's children growing up with only a common cowboy for their
friend and adviser.
There was a little stir in the car, the engine had slowed down. Ruth
opened her eyes; what had made her traveling companions' faces brighten
with interest? Three or four of them rushed across the aisle and pressed
their noses up against the window panes on her side of the coach. One
man threw up the car window, leaned out and shouted: "Hurrah!" A woman
waved her handkerchief.
Ruth's curiosity was aroused and she gazed languidly out her window.
Flying along the road that followed the line of the track, was a Western
pony. The horse was running like a streak, his nostrils quivering with
excitement, his feet pounding along the hard sand.
"Beat it! beat it!" cried the excited stranger. "Did anybody ever see
such riding before?" The man addressed the entire car.
Ruth could see that there was someone on the horse, running a race with
the express train. The rider was in brown and Ruth could not observe
very distinctly. She supposed that it was an Indian boy.
"That girl is a wonder!" the man exclaimed, who had been traveling next
the prim young woman from the East for four days without daring to look
straight at her. He leaned over his seat and smiled.
"Girl!" Miss Drew repeated in surprise. "Was the figure on horseback a
girl?" Ruth was quite willing to admit that she had never seen such
horsemanship in her life. The girl was perfectly graceful and at times
she leaned over to urge her pony on, or bent sideways as though she
swayed with the motion of the wind. She seemed to rest on her horse so
lightly that she added no burden to him but was like the spirit of
motion carrying him on.
The engine ahead whistled three times. The train was moving slowly,
still it was remarkable how the rider kept up with the passenger coach.
Just as the car rolled into the station, the girl on horseback flashed a
smile at the people watching her from the car windows, and Ruth had a
brief glimpse of a shaft of sunlight caught in a mass of bright, bronze
hair and a pair of radiant cheeks and eyes. Then she seized her suit
case and umbrella, slipped into her overshoes and hurried out of the
train. She had read that it rarely rained in Wyoming, except in the
spring, but she wished to run no risk of taking cold.
CHAPTER XIV.
AN UNFORTUNATE ARRIVAL.
THERE was no one on the platform when Ruth dismounted, but a tall man,
who was not looking for her. He was oddly handsome in spite of his queer
Western clothes, and Ruth wished for an instant that he might be Mr.
Colter. Evidently he was not. He stared at her curiously for a few
seconds, then searched anxiously along every other exit of the train.
Cousin Ruth could discover no one else. The madcap girl, who had run her
wild race with the train, was a little distance off. She was holding
three ponies by their bridles, and as one of them was dancing with
nervousness on account of the noise of the engine, the girl had her
hands full.
Ruth Drew's heart sank to ten degrees below zero. Had she traveled
across the continent to a wild Western town to find no one to meet her?
The ranch girls could not be so rude; and Ruth determined to ask the
good-looking man with the worried expression, what she ought to do.
[Illustration: "CAN I DO ANYTHING FOR YOU, MA'AM?"]
Jim was gazing sadly after the departing coaches. You see he was looking
for a white-haired woman of about fifty, and supposed that the old lady
hadn't known enough to get off the train at the right station, and had
gone on to the next stop. How in the world would he be able to connect
with her?
Jim saw the young woman on the platform, but she wasn't as large and
didn't seem to him to be much older than Jack. He supposed she had come
to visit some of their ranch neighbors, yet she looked unhappy, as
though she wanted to cry. Jim's heart was touched.
He took off his broad Mexican hat, and Ruth thought with a sudden gasp
that she had never seen such blue eyes and such black hair before.
"Can I do anything for you, ma'am?" Jim inquired politely. "It 'pears
like your folks haven't come to meet you."
Ruth shook her head. She was too full of tears to trust herself to speak
for a moment. "I am afraid not," she answered finally. "Will you be good
enough to tell me how I can get over to the Rainbow Ranch? I have come
to live with the Ralston girls. I am their cousin--"
"Not Ruth?" Jim exclaimed, forgetting his shyness in his surprise. "You
can't be Cousin Ruth, because the girls told me she was an old maid."
Jim stopped abruptly, conscious that he had put his foot in it with his
first remark to their new visitor.
Cousin Ruth drew herself up a little stiffly. She did not like to be
called "an old maid," perhaps because she knew she often acted and
looked like one, but she was too tired to care much about anything at
present. She only longed with all her heart to be driven home to Rainbow
Lodge.
"I am Cousin Ruth just the same," she answered feebly, trying to smile.
Jim grabbed her suit case, carried her umbrella like a shot gun, and
marched her toward the girl who was holding the three horses, the same
girl who had shocked and entertained her from the car window.
Jacqueline slid off her pony and passed the three bridles to Jim. She
did not know whether she ought to kiss her cousin or only to shake hands
with her, for there was something in Ruth's expression that froze Jack's
first affectionate intention. Ruth was truly horrified at Jack's
behavior. She didn't see how a girl could be so reckless of
appearances.
Jack held out a slim, cool hand. "I am awfully glad to see you, Cousin
Ruth. It was very good of you to come out to us. I hope you are not
tired," Jack remarked, as though she had learned her greeting out of an
etiquette book. She was as stiff as a wooden Indian, because she felt so
abominably shy.
Ruth's feelings were hurt. She did not think of her own manners, merely
of Jack's. "Yes, I am tired," she replied coldly. "Is the carriage
waiting for us in the town?"
Jack's face reddened. Jim gave a hasty glance of embarrassment toward
the two women. There was an awkward silence.
Jack found her voice first. "We didn't bring a wagon over for you,
Cousin Ruth. We don't own a carriage," Jack explained. "It is so late
that we didn't think we would get to the ranch before night, if we
drove. We brought a horse for you to ride."
Ruth Drew sank limply on the ground. "A horse to ride!" she exclaimed
faintly. "I have never been on a horse in my life. How far is it to the
ranch?"
"Ten miles," Jack acknowledged shame-facedly. Ten miles did sound like
a great distance to a stranger, although the ranch girls had always
thought that they lived very close to town; but the idea of a
full-grown, able-bodied woman not knowing how to ride horseback had
never entered Jacqueline Ralston's head. What on the face of the green
earth were they to do? "You had better go over into the town and see if
you can get a carriage, Jim," Jack advised. "I never thought of Cousin
Ruth's not liking to ride. I can lead the two horses home, if you will
drive her over."
Jack was really miserably embarrassed at her own failure as a hostess.
She knew that they were making a dreadful first impression on Cousin
Ruth, and Jean had warned her that first impressions were most
important. But Ruth Drew thought she caught something in Jack's tone
that sounded supercilious. There was nothing so extraordinary in Ruth's
being ignorant of horses, she had never been rich enough to own one; yet
it was quite impossible for the Eastern girl and the Western one to
understand each other's points of view.
Jim Colter came back utterly crestfallen; there was no carriage to be
had in the town.
With the courage of despair, Ruth let herself be swung up on the homely
broncho. She was horribly frightened, although Jack assured her that she
was riding the gentlest pony on the ranch, one that belonged to little
Frieda. It made no difference, Ruth slipped and slid. She clutched the
pony's mane in her hands and let Jim lead her, yet every time the pony
went out of a walk, Ruth wanted to shriek with fear. She had traveled
hundreds and hundreds of miles from Vermont to Wyoming, but the distance
was as nothing to her ten-mile horseback ride to Rainbow Lodge.
Every muscle in Ruth's body ached; she had a horrid stitch in her side
and swayed uncertainly in the saddle. Each moment she expected to fall
off.
The ride home seemed almost as long to Jack and Jim as it did to their
guest. They were so ashamed of themselves, and Jack's cheeks were hot
with blushes every time she looked at her new cousin.
After about an hour of slow traveling, Jack caught sight of Ruth. Her
face was grey with pain and fatigue.
"Stop, Jim," Jack called sharply. "Cousin Ruth is going to faint."
Ruth had a dim recollection of being lifted off her horse and for the
rest of her journey she felt herself being held up by a strong arm. Now
and then a man's voice spoke to her, as if she were a little girl and he
were trying to comfort her. He was a haven of refuge and Ruth did not
think or care who or what he was, and finally he brought her safely to
Rainbow Lodge.
Jack thought she had never seen her home so lovely. There was a golden
glow behind the house and the wind stirred through the quivering yellow
leaves of the cottonwood trees. Rainbow Creek lay on one side of them
and on the other the broad sweep of the plains. Jack gazed wistfully at
Ruth who was riding in front of Jim; surely their new cousin would show
some interest in her new home!
Jean, Frieda and Olive ran out in the yard to meet the cavalcade. Jack
waved her hand, but Cousin Ruth did not open her eyes.
"We are about home, now, Miss Drew," Jim found courage to say.
"Heaven be praised!" Ruth sighed. She could barely speak.
Aunt Ellen was waiting on the porch in a starched white apron, and took
in the situation with quick sympathy. She saw her girls' disappointed,
embarrassed faces and their cousin's worn one.
Aunt Ellen gathered Ruth in her arms. "Leave her alone, honies, she is
just tired out," she explained to the ranch girls. And without the least
effort from Ruth, Aunt Ellen got her in bed, fed her some broth and told
her to go to sleep and not to worry.
In the big living-room with its splendid pine fire, Jack, Jean, Frieda
and Olive ate their feast of welcome alone.
It was hardly worth while to have taken so much trouble to get ready for
a guest who looked neither at you nor your house when she came in to it.
Jack was plainly cast down. Jean, Frieda and Olive were almost as
discouraged.
"I think Cousin Ruth is tiresome," Jean exclaimed petulantly. "I don't
see why she couldn't have spoken to us."
Frieda's blue eyes filled with tears. "I don't believe she is going to
like us very much," she added disconsolately.
"I am dreadfully afraid of her already," Olive sighed. "Are you sure,
Jack, that you explained to her about me? She not like my living with
you at the ranch."
Jack put her arm about Olive and drew her toward the fire. "Of course
Cousin Ruth will care for you as much as she does for any one of us,
Olive; she has to," Jack insisted. "Remember that while you haven't any
name of your own, you are Olive Ralston. Isn't it splendid that old
Laska and Josef have left us in peace? I wonder if they do intend to
give you up to us without any more fuss!"
Olive shivered a little in Jack's grasp. "I hope so," she answered
fervently. "Laska and the old Indian life seem hundreds of years away.
Yet I have been at the ranch only a little less than a month."
"Don't worry, Olive," Jack returned thoughtfully. "Let us just be glad
to-night that we have one more evening alone;" which shows how Jack felt
about the arrival of the new chaperon.
The girls sat up quite late. Frieda went to sleep with her head in
Jack's lap, Jean fell to nodding, but Olive and Jack were wide awake.
Olive was older than the ranch girls had thought her at first. She must
have come next to Jack, although old Laska had never told Olive her
exact birthday.
CHAPTER XV.
ALL SAVE JACK!
IT was nearly noon next day when the latest comer to Rainbow Lodge
awoke. She still felt sore and stiff from her long journeyings, but she
could never remember such a blissful sleep in her life.
Out her bedroom window, Ruth thought she caught the sound of the girls'
voices and dipping into her wrapper, threw up her window blind. The sun
flooded her room with a curious radiance. Ruth felt she had never known
what real sunlight was before. It certainly cleared away the mists from
her heart and brain.
Ruth gazed around her room. It was a joy to her in its wide sunlit
emptiness. The girls had hung white muslin curtains at the windows, the
little pinewood table, chair and bureau were painted white and the bed
was white iron. A little fire burned in the low grate, for Aunt Ellen
had stolen in and laid it, without wakening their guest. There was no
color in the room except the soft brown stain on the walls and floor,
and one bright, red and black Indian blanket.
Ruth understood that the girls had made the place lovely for her. She
began to feel that perhaps they did want her with them after all.
Unconsciously she yielded to the cheerful spirit of Rainbow Lodge and
hurrying into her clothes, found Aunt Ellen ready with her toast and
coffee.
Aunt Ellen explained that the ranch girls had disappeared somewhere
about the ranch. They had waited for their visitor, but when it seemed
that she was going to sleep all day, they vanished.
"You mustn't mind, Miss," Aunt Ellen murmured apologetically, "but they
can't somehow stay indoors, so long as the good weather holds."
Cousin Ruth went shyly out on the ranch-house veranda. She was thinking
regretfully of what a bad impression she had made on her cousins the
night before, because she, too, had planned a very different kind of
meeting. No recollection remained of any one of the girls, except Jack,
whom she would always remember as the young Centaur she saw racing
across the plains.
Ruth strolled slowly down the path through the cottonwood trees. She was
beginning to feel lonely, and hoped one of the girls would turn up soon.
Above her head the yellow leaves rustled softly and the brown landscape
no longer looked uninteresting. It was all new and strange, she thought,
but some day she might learn to care for it.
If Miss Drew had not been so deep in her reflections, she would not have
been so terrified a moment later. For suddenly in her way there loomed a
big shaggy animal and a pair of huge paws clung to her shoulders.
Ruth screamed.
"Down! Shep, down!" cried a merry voice. "I am so sorry, Cousin Ruth.
Shep is our watchdog. He never realizes that visitors don't understand
his friendly intentions."
Jean slipped through an opening in the trees, carrying a tin bucket on
her arm. "I have been for some milk," she explained. "The cows Jim keeps
for our use have their stable near Jim's house and Aunt Ellen wanted
some extra milk and sent me for it. I hope you feel quite rested."
Jean sometimes tilted her head, with its mass of heavy brown hair, a bit
to one side, when she was deeply interested. She surveyed their new
chaperon with such a merry, friendly sparkle in her wide-open brown eyes
that Ruth was charmed with her at once. She couldn't have guessed that
Miss Jean Bruce was making a rapid inventory of Miss Ruth Drew's
character, inside and out.
"Manner, stiff and old maidy; complexion, bad; hair pretty, if she fixed
it differently; mouth looks like she has eaten something acid, except
when she smiles, then mouth and eyes quite nice; figure small, but
distinctly good."
Ruth was patting old Shep, for as usual Jean was talking in a steady
stream. "Hope you didn't mind our going off and leaving you," she
apologized. "You see we have a good many small duties about the ranch.
Jack probably won't be back until luncheon, but I am sure we will soon
find Frieda and Olive."
Ruth leaned over. "Won't you kiss me, Jean?" she asked unexpectedly. "I
have an idea you and I may be good friends." She guessed that Jean was
mischievous and full of fun, but not nearly so hard to influence as
headstrong Jack.
Jean's manner softened. She put down her milk pail and gave the
much-discussed cousin an affectionate hug. "I hope you are going to be
happy with us at Rainbow Lodge," she exclaimed. "You know we are used to
doing pretty much what we like, but remember, if things go wrong, you
are going to tell us how to behave," and she ended her advice with such
a funny expression that Cousin Ruth laughed and slipped her hand through
Jean's arm.
"Just let me get through with playing 'Molly the Milkmaid,' Cousin Ruth,
and we will go find the other girls," Jean suggested when they got back
to the ranch house. A minute later Jean reported that Aunt Ellen thought
Olive and Frieda were somewhere near the creek. Olive had suggested that
she would try to catch some fresh fish for Cousin Ruth's luncheon.
The waters of Rainbow Creek were no longer in danger of flowing into the
Norton ranch. Jim and his men had built a dam at the end of Rainbow
Lake, where the dynamite explosion had taken place. The Ralston Ranch
had filed suit for damages against Mr. Norton, but the claim had not yet
been settled.
Ruth and Jean crossed some stepping-stones to the wooded side of the
stream and had walked only a short distance beyond, when Ruth spied a
gleam of color a little farther on. It was Frieda, who wore a red Tam, a
red sweater and her long blonde plaits tied with red ribbons. She was
sitting on the stump of an old tree sewing some bits of ribbon together
as calmly as though she had been in a little rocking-chair by the fire.
She looked so like a little German mädchen, though she was so far away
from the _Vaterland_, that Ruth wanted to laugh aloud.
"Frieda!" called an unfamiliar voice.
Frieda glanced quickly up. She was making a pincushion for their new
cousin and had not had time to finish, but hoped to be through with it
before Olive landed her fish.
The bits of silk ribbon fluttered to the ground as Frieda caught sight
of a stranger not much larger than Jean. She had her arms outstretched
and such an eager look in her nearsighted eyes that Frieda flew straight
to her.
"I am awfully glad to see you, I am really," Frieda announced, giving
her new cousin an old-fashioned hug. "There are such a lot of things I
want you to show me that Jack and Jean and Olive don't know a single
thing about. And I am sure I shall like you in spite of what--" But a
warning look from Jean cut short Frieda's confidences.
"Where is Olive?" Jean asked quickly.
"She is not very far away," Frieda answered, "but you must walk softly
or you will frighten the fish."
Cousin Ruth tiptoed as softly as Frieda could wish. She was curious to
see this new ranch girl whom Jack had written her about, and she would
have been sorry to have missed her first vision of Olive.
Olive hung out over the water, where the creek deepened into a small
pool, under the branches of a scrub pine tree. One slender arm clung to
a limb of the young tree as she looked down into the muddy water in the
shadow of the evergreen boughs. Ruth had a quick and vivid impression of
her glossy black hair; her delicate figure, with its peculiar woodland
grace, clothed in an old green dress the color of the autumn grass, and
caught her breath in wonder. The girl looked like a dryad who had stolen
out of the heart of a tree to catch an image of herself in the water.
"Olive, don't fall in the creek," Jean called out gaily. "Come and be
introduced to Cousin Ruth; she would rather see you than have fish for
her luncheon."
Olive gave a startled cry and Jean made a dive for her. But Olive did
not tumble into the water. She gave a quick jerk to her fishing line,
hooked and drew in a good-sized trout. Then Olive slipped up the bank to
the others. Ruth looked curiously at the dark, rich coloring of her
face; she did not seem like an Indian, and yet she certainly bore no
resemblance to an American girl. Cousin Ruth felt that she would be an
interesting study, although Olive was too shy to say more than a dozen
words of greeting.
"Come on, let's walk a little farther along the creek, Jack won't be
home for a while yet," Jean declared. "Jack thinks the ranch would go to
rack and ruin unless she were around to boss things."
"Don't you think maybe it would?" Olive questioned gently.
Jean laughed. "Oh, I expect so, Olive; but how you do take up for Jack!
Cousin Ruth, you will have to protect Frieda and me. Olive thinks Jack
is perfection and agrees to anything she says."
"Look, look! Oh, please don't talk," Frieda cried in excitement,
pointing up in the sky above the bed of the creek.
A weird troop of birds was flying toward them, uttering a queer,
guttural noise. They were some distance off, but their short wings
seemed to clack like Spanish castanets and their long legs looked like
dangling bits of string.
"What on earth are those creatures?" Ruth asked helplessly. She was
surely seeing interesting sights in what she had thought a barren and
desert land.
"They are sand cranes," Olive whispered softly. "Let's be quite still.
They are flying so low, I think they mean to alight. They must have
mistaken the creek for a river."
Frieda snickered and put her hand to her mouth.
"Shsh, Frieda," Olive cautioned. "These funny birds are as shy as deer.
If they do alight, they will probably come down in the cleared field."
The birds swept slowly down nearer the earth in a half circle, still
uttering their curious cries. It was as Olive said, they were moving
toward an open field.
The four girls crept breathlessly through the trees and bushes, until
they could find peepholes.
The cranes dipped down. One of them touched the ground, then another
descended, and the third joined them; the birds stood each with a long
thin leg drawn up out of sight, until the whole flock had landed in a
circle on the ground. The leader must have squawked: "Bow to your
partners, swing your corners," for the birds immediately started a
stately dance. They flapped their wings, they twisted their long necks,
they fanned their short tails and made strange signs to one another.
They hopped together to a given spot and then hopped back again, never
for a single moment losing their solemn dignity.
Ruth held in as long as she could. But really this dance of the
sand-hill cranes was the funniest sight she had ever seen in her life!
She laughed silently, until the tears ran down her cheeks, her glasses
slid off her nose and she forgot she had ever thought of being
homesick. Frieda chuckled softly at first. But finally Jean and Olive
joined in, and the secret audience burst into a roar.
The leader of the cranes cast a shocked, horrified glance behind him,
clacked a signal to his followers and the birds rose together in flight.
Olive ran out into the field and a long, light brown feather fluttering
downward from the last bird in the flock, rested for a second in her
black hair. Frieda skipped toward her. "Give the feather to me, Olive,"
Frieda begged. "It is exactly what I want to trim my doll's hat."
But Olive made no answer, and when she joined Ruth and Jean she looked a
little pale.
"What's the trouble, Olive?" Jean asked. "You look so funny, just like
you were frightened over something."
Olive shook her head. "Oh, I know I am silly," she explained, "and I
don't really believe in it. But there is an old Indian legend, that when
a bird drops a feather at your feet, it is to give you a warning of
approaching danger. There is an Indian story of a young chief who was on
his way to war. Three times an eagle cast down a feather before him.
The chief knew what the signal meant, but he went on into battle just
the same. Of course he and his men were killed!"
Jack was waiting at the ranch house when the girls returned. She tried
to stifle the pang of jealousy she felt when Frieda clung to her new
cousin, instead of racing to her in her usual fashion.
Jack and Ruth shook hands politely. Each one of them tried to be as
friendly as possible to the other. But to save their lives they could
not get rid of their first feeling of antagonism.
CHAPTER XVI.
WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK.
"THERE is not the least harm in it, Cousin Ruth. It is only that you
don't understand our Western customs," Jack announced sweetly.
She was standing in front of the living-room fire with her hands clasped
behind her. Her head was up in the air, showing the firm line of her
chin and the mutinous expression of her eyes, which were half closed.
It was after tea at Rainbow Lodge and, except for Jack and Cousin Ruth,
the scene would have been a peaceful and beautiful one.
Jean was playing softly on a new piano which had lately been installed
at the Lodge, for among other things the new governess was giving the
ranch girls music lessons. Jean, who had studied before and had a good
deal of talent, was rarely away from the piano when she was in the
house. Frieda leaned against her cousin, watching her play, while Olive
had a book in her lap, pretending to read. Cousin Ruth sat by the
library table with a basket of mending beside her and a very
uncompromising expression on her face. She was pale to-night, although
she looked in better health and younger than she had when she first
arrived at Rainbow Ranch three weeks before.
"I am sorry to differ with you, Jack," Ruth returned firmly. "But it
would be very difficult to convince me that a round-up is any place for
a young girl. If it is a western custom for girls to attend them, then I
think the custom is shocking. In any case I am certainly not willing for
you to go."
Jack's eyes flashed defiantly. For three weeks there had been a kind of
armed neutrality between Jacqueline Ralston and her new cousin. Jack
considered that she had been very patient with Cousin Ruth's bossing.
Ruth believed that she had been very forbearing with Jack's pride. Jack
had given up her beloved custom of riding over the ranch every morning,
to spend three poky hours in the schoolroom with the other girls, but
she did not intend to be interfered with any further in her plans for
running their ranch.
"I am sorry, Cousin Ruth," Jack argued, still keeping her temper under
control. "In anything else I should be quite willing to give up to your
judgment, but you see I happen to know about our Wyoming round-ups and
you don't. They are not nearly so wild and bloodthirsty as you imagine.
I shall not go near the place where they are herding the cattle, though
lots of times women drive over to the round-ups and stay on the
outskirts of things just to see the cowboys and horses pass by. It's
simply great!" For a moment Jack's eyes sparkled, but then she tried to
appear more serious. "Besides, Cousin Ruth, it happens to be a matter of
business for me to attend the round-up this fall. This is the last one
until spring and, as I told you, it will be only a small one, but lots
of our cattle have been disappearing for months and I want to consult
with some of our neighboring ranchmen about it. Jean Bruce, do please
stop making that noise," Jack demanded, her bad humor flashing out at
Jean.
Jean brought her music to an end with a loud crash, and then came over
and sat down cross-legged on a rug by the fire in front of Ruth.
"Don't waste your time arguing with Jack, Cousin Ruth," Jean advised.
"When she says she ought to do a thing, she means she intends to do it.
It is perfectly absurd for Jack to insist that she has any business at
the round-up, for she knows perfectly well that Jim can attend to
everything. It is nobody in the world but old Dan Norton who is stealing
our cattle and it seems to me we had better not have any more trouble
with him, until more important affairs are settled."
"I entirely agree with you, Jean," said Cousin Ruth severely. "Jack, you
are not old enough to decide such matters for yourself."
Jack did not answer. She directed a single angry glance at Jean, but
Jean was hard to quarrel with. She made the most irritating speeches and
then looked as innocent as a lamb. Frieda had stolen up to Jack and
slipped her hand in her sister's. It frightened Frieda terribly when
people quarreled, and Jack saw that her little sister's eyes were full
of tears.
Jack walked over and sat down in a big chair, drawing little Frieda up
in her lap and there was an uncomfortable silence in the room until
feet sounded along the hall and a knock came at the living-room door.
"Why it's Jim!" Jean exclaimed in surprise, scrambling to her feet. "I
wonder what brings him up to the ranch house to-night? We have seen
hardly anything of him since Cousin Ruth arrived!"
Ruth bent her head lower over her work. It was true. She need not have
feared Mr. Colter's influence with the ranch girls, for he had not been
to the Lodge, except on business, since she undertook to chaperon them.
He was very polite to her, but he seemed afraid to speak in her
presence. Ruth wondered if she seemed as much of an old maid to him as
he had thought her at first.
"Jim, what's up? You are a swell to-night," Jean teased. "Did you think
we were giving a party?"
Jim did look different. He wore a stiff white shirt instead of a soft
flannel one and could hardly turn his head in his starched linen collar.
Frieda flew to him with a little cry of welcome.
"What's the matter, baby?" Jim demanded, noticing Frieda's flushed
cheeks. As he gazed slowly around the family group, he noticed Miss
Jacqueline Ralston's haughty expression and Miss Ruth Drew's severe one;
saw Olive's troubled face and Jean's mischievous one. "I guess I had
better be going," Jim suggested, backing toward the door.
"Oh, no, Jim," Jack insisted carelessly. "There is nothing the matter,
only Cousin Ruth does not wish me to go to the round-up with you in the
morning. Will you please tell her that cowboys aren't all villains!"
Jim frowned. "If your Cousin don't want you to go, Jack, seems like you
had better stay at home," he declared quietly.
A little flush of triumph spread over Ruth's face. This was her first
trouble with any one of the ranch girls and their friend had sided with
her. She gave him a grateful glance, then closed her lips more firmly
than ever. With any one of the four girls save Jack, she would have
tried persuasion instead of command. But it seemed to her perfectly
useless to attempt to influence Jack.
Jack shrugged her shoulders. "I don't agree with you, Jim," she declared
obstinately.
Jim brought his lips together with a snap and stared straight at the
elder Miss Ralston. "Look here, Jack," he said, "wasn't it you who
asked your cousin to come out here to live with you, so as to have some
one to tell you what was right? Now it seems to me that you only want
her to tell you what you happen to want to do. I wasn't at all certain
that you ought to ride over to the round-up with me, but I've been
treating you like a boy so long, I can't somehow remember you're a girl.
Stay at home and keep out of mischief." Jim laughed.
Ruth smiled, thinking the battle was won, but Jack got up calmly and
marched out of the room and they heard her bedroom door close.
"I am afraid Jack is kind of hard-headed, but you mustn't mind," Jim
murmured apologetically. "You see she has always had things pretty much
her own way."
"Oh, let's don't talk about Jack," Jean expostulated. "Jim, I have been
telling Cousin Ruth that it is perfectly absurd for her not to learn how
to ride horseback and that she might as well be buried alive as not to
know how to ride out here on the ranch. The very idea, we can't go to
return Mrs. Simpson's and the lovely Laura's call without hitching up
our old mess-wagon. For goodness sake, won't you teach Cousin Ruth to
ride? She won't be so scared with you."
"Sure Mike," Jim exclaimed heartily and then turned a dark mahogany from
embarrassment. He had intended to use only copy-book language in his
conversation with the new governess.
Ruth was surprised. Jim was a puzzle to her, but there was no doubt that
he was very kind and very good-looking.
"I shall be horribly stupid and nervous, Mr. Colter," Ruth protested,
"but if you are sure you won't mind the trouble?"
Jim did not leave the ranch house until ten o'clock that evening. He
managed to have five minutes alone with Ruth, after the girls said
good-night.
"Miss Drew," he whispered, "will you be good enough not to let Olive go
away from the ranch alone? I came up to the Lodge to-night not knowing
whether or not I should tell the girls, but I have received threatening
notices from the Indians lately. They say they are going to have the
girl back with them at any cost. I don't believe they have any right to
her. She is old enough to be a free agent, but the Indians are a queer,
revengeful lot. They can bide their time and strike when you least
expect it."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE ROUND-UP.
JUST after dawn, Olive stole softly into Jack's and Jean's bedrooms.
Jean was asleep. But Jack's place was empty. On her pillow was a sheet
of paper addressed to "Miss Ruth Drew."
Olive alone of the group before the living-room fire in the evening just
past, had realized that Jack had no idea of giving up her intention.
Olive slipped quickly into her clothes, determined to follow her friend.
She was unusually timid, but she knew that Jack must not go alone among
the wild cattle and the strange men who gathered at the autumn round-up.
The girl had little knowledge of what a round-up was like but knew that
the Indians often went to it and camped about on the outskirts of the
plains to enjoy the racing and sports that usually closed the day's
work.
Jack must have had about a half hour's start of Olive. She rode as fast
as she could tear for the first few miles of the way, knowing that Jim
had started several hours before. Their cowboys had been off over the
plains for two days searching for their stray cattle and herding them
into the great open field selected for the round-up. There was no one to
follow her and Jack slowed down. Then her heart began to fail her the
least little bit, for she supposed everybody at the ranch would be
furious with her for her disobedience.
Jack heard another horse coming along the trail behind her. Her
repentance vanished, for she presumed Miss Drew had sent some one to
bring her ignominiously back home.
"Jack, Jack," Olive's gentle voice called. "Won't you please slow down a
little? Your horse is faster than mine and my poor beast is tired
already."
Jacqueline waited, but she stared at Olive reproachfully. "I did not
think you would come to try to make me go back home, Olive," Jack
exclaimed. "I thought you knew that when I said I intended to do a
thing, I would do it, in spite of all the Miss Ruth Drews and Mr. Jim
Colters in the world."
Olive knew that Jack was behaving abominably but she could not help
feeling the deepest admiration for her. To Olive, Jack's courage and
high spirit were glorious. Olive was so shy and frightened; she had
borne so much ill treatment from the time she was a little girl that her
nature was almost crushed and she could only contend with people when
she was driven to the last limit of patience. But when Olive made up her
mind to a step, she had the Indian's power of endurance.
"I only came to go along to the round-up with you, Jack," Olive replied
quietly.
Jack flushed. She was fairly sure of being able to bear her own burdens,
but she did hate getting other people into trouble. "You are awfully
sweet, Olive dear, but do go back home," Jack urged. "Jim and Cousin
Ruth will both be furiously angry with us and there is no reason why you
should have any of the blame. You know you will hate this old round-up
and be dreadfully frightened, and that you are only coming on my
account."
Olive shook her head. "Never mind, Jack," she answered, "I have come
with you now so I would have to get my share of the scolding and I am
not going to have you go to that place alone." Olive kept her horse just
behind Jack's and the two girls rode for a short time in silence. By
and by Jack sighed.
"What's the matter, Jack?" Olive asked quickly.
Jack laughed wickedly. "Oh, it is not that I have repented of my evil
deed, Olive," she returned. "It is only that I am so dreadfully hungry.
I sneaked off this morning without a bit of food. I know we can get some
lunch at the mess-wagons, or perhaps we may find some one we know at the
round-up. But the question with me is, how am I ever going to live until
then?"
Olive silently produced two rolls with slices of bacon between them.
"I stole them on my way to the stable," she announced happily. "I knew
you hadn't eaten anything and I didn't dare to wait."
The two girls ate their outdoor breakfast ravenously, for both were
enjoying their morning ride. It was cold, but they wore heavy sweaters
and corduroy riding skirts and besides, the swift ride had sent the warm
blood tingling through them. Jack was in brown and Olive in green, the
color Jack liked best for her. The sun had just risen and there was a
faint rose glow over the bare prairies, and in the distance the girls
spied a few coyotes racing along over the hard ground in search of their
breakfast, but for miles and miles there was no sign of human life.
Finally the girls rode up to a pair of tents set up within no great
distance of the plain chosen for the round-up. There was a fire near one
of them, but the girls saw no people about and decided that they must
have been used by the cowboys for their sleeping quarters at night.
Olive brought her pony closer to Jack's.
"Don't be nervous, Olive," said Jack reassuringly. "I expect the
round-up is a pretty wild business, but we won't go near enough to get
into trouble and you must be sure to stay close to me. I shall try to
see some one to ask about our cattle and then we will start right back
home. We will be sure to be at Rainbow Lodge by night."
Away off in the distance, the girls soon saw a great swirling cloud of
grey dust, rising over the yellow plain. They could distinguish an
enormous mass of moving objects and hear a far hollow roaring and
bellowing of men and animals. To the left, across a diagonal trail,
Jack saw a dark line of wagons at some distance from the round-up. She
knew they were the mess-wagons and carriages of the ranchmen, who came
over to superintend the branding of their cattle. If the ranchmen
happened to live near the scene of the round-up their wives and families
sometimes drove over to spend a few hours, but the women were careful
not to go near the frightened animals and returned home before night.
The two girls moved slowly along this trail.
Jack's eyes were dancing and her cheeks were glowing with excitement.
She dearly loved this typical western scene and its noise and savagery
did not frighten her. It was a part of the business of the cattlemen to
which she had always been accustomed. She was sorry of course that the
poor animals had to be burned with the brands of their owners, but since
the cattle ranged together through vast tracts of land, she knew of no
other way by which one ranchman could distinguish his cattle from
another's. Jack had been careful never to witness the branding, but she
had often seen the cowboys driving the herds across the plains.
But Olive did not feel so cheerful. The distant noise and the surging
crowd alarmed her. She wished that she and Jack were safe at home.
Coming at full speed down the trail toward them, the two girls spied two
cowboys wearing the full cowboy regalia, leather suits with fringed
trousers and immense sombrero hats, tied under their chins.
"Great Scott!" cried a familiar voice. "Here come Jack Ralston and her
Indian girl! What a place for a couple of girls to be alone!"
Jack's ears burned. She recognized Dan's tones but was not so much
abashed by meeting him, as she was by Frank Kent's astonished face. The
young English fellow's surprise was unmistakable.
"May I stay with you until your escort joins you, Miss Ralston?" Frank
asked immediately. "The men about here are pretty rough and if you
should happen to get too near the cattle it might be dangerous. I am
told they sometimes break out and start a stampede."
Jack kept her face turned away while Frank was speaking. She was
actually ashamed to return his friendly gaze. Frank had entirely
separated himself from Dan Norton, who was grinning scornfully at Olive
and Jack.
"Please don't worry about us, Mr. Kent," Jack said quietly. "We won't
get into danger. I don't exactly like to tell you, but we rode over to
the round-up by ourselves. You understand that we didn't mean to go near
the men or the cattle, but I thought we might find some one we knew near
the mess-wagons."
"Come on, Frank Kent," Dan Norton yelled impatiently. "Do you think I
have got time to waste while you talk to Jack Ralston all day? I told
Laura we would be back with them in half an hour. Hustle."
Frank Kent's face was no longer pale, as it had been when Jack had her
first meeting with him on the Ralston Ranch. It had been tanned and
reddened by his weeks in the sun and air of Wyoming, but that did not
account for the sudden color that flamed in it. "Be quiet, Dan, you
cad," he ordered sharply. "Go when you like, I shall stay with Miss
Ralston and her friend."
"I say, Miss Ralston," Frank suggested suddenly. "Mr. and Mrs. Simpson
are not very far away. They came over in their automobile, because Mrs.
Simpson thought maybe her sister and niece would like to see the cowboys
from the different ranches ride up to their work. Gee, they are
stunning-looking fellows, aren't they? I wish I were an artist, I would
like to paint them. Won't you come over to Mrs. Simpson with me? They
are well out of any danger and I know Mrs. Simpson would want you and
Miss Olive to join her."
An unregenerate twinkle returned to Jack's eyes. "To tell you the truth,
Mr. Kent, I would like awfully to go over and stay with Aunt Sallie.
Olive and I feel very strange here alone, but the fact is I deliberately
ran away from home to come to the round-up and Olive rode along to
protect me. I am ashamed to confess my sin to Mrs. Simpson."
"Nevertheless you had better come," Frank urged, and for once, Jack
yielded to another will.
It might have been wiser to have turned back home than to have faced
Aunt Sallie and her Eastern relatives, but Jack and Olive could not have
ridden to Rainbow Lodge without having something more to eat. Olive
already seemed exhausted. She was quite pale and scarcely lifted her
eyes. Jack knew that Olive hated to meet the members of the house party,
whom she had not seen since the time when she was rescued from being
Miss Laura Post's maid.
"Jack Ralston, the most unlikely place in the world is the most likely
place to find you," Mrs. Simpson exclaimed laughingly, as Frank and the
two newcomers rode up to her big touring car. "What in the world are you
girls doing here?"
"Shall I tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Aunt Sallie?"
Jack demanded, smiling at Mrs. Simpson and bowing to Mrs. Post, Laura
and Mr. Simpson. Mrs. Post put up her lorgnettes, as though she were in
a box at the opera, to gaze at these extraordinary girls. Their clothes
were dusty and their hair showed the effects of their long, morning
ride, but turning, Mrs. Post beheld her beloved Laura swathed in a pale
pink motor veil and a long fur coat, and breathed a sigh of admiration
and relief. Surely her Laura was not in the least like these Western
tomboys!
Mrs. Simpson shrugged her handsome shoulders. "Well, you usually tell
the truth, whatever else you do and don't do, Jack," Mrs. Simpson
avowed. "I know you have run off, so just stay here and have lunch with
me."
Mrs. Simpson was talking to Jack, but she was really interested in
Olive. How the girl had changed, in the few weeks since she had seen
her: she had always been pretty, but she had lost her look of fear. Her
grace and quiet manner showed beyond a doubt that from some source she
had a heritage of gentle blood. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson shook hands with
Olive very kindly, but Mrs. Post and Laura utterly ignored her. Olive
showed no resentment, but Jack was exceedingly provoked.
The girls dismounted and climbed into the automobile. Now and then
groups of cowboys would pass by them, jingling their spurs and joking
with one another. Olive recognized a number of Indian boys, who had
lived in the Indian village, where she had been brought up. Among them,
she thought she saw old Laska's son and her supposed brother, Josef.
Mrs. Simpson was worried over Dan's return to their party. She and Mr.
Simpson, and indeed all the ranchmen in the neighborhood, now knew of
Mr. Daniel Norton's claim to the ownership of Rainbow Ranch, and his
efforts to get it away from the ranch girls. Most of the neighbors
deeply sympathized with the Ralston girls. Mrs. Simpson dreaded a
meeting between Jack and Dan. She knew they were open enemies and hated
each other very sincerely.
But when Dan joined them, Jack showed no trace of ill feeling. She had
thought matters over and decided that good manners compelled her to
behave as naturally as possible. She had no right to continue a quarrel,
when she and Dan were both guests.
Dan Norton was in no such humor. He was furious with Frank for having
brought Jack and Olive to Mrs. Simpson, and he was determined to get
even with Jack, if he possibly could, for Jim's treatment of him at
their last meeting.
Mrs. Simpson had an early lunch, since they meant to return to their
ranch in a short time. The tablecloth was spread out on the ground, and
unconsciously she placed Laura and Dan next Olive, who made no effort to
speak to them. But Dan whispered something to Laura, immediately they
got up and marching to the other end of the line of guests, sat down
directly opposite Jack and Frank.
Nobody had much to say. To save her life, Jack could not talk naturally
with Dan's sneering face across from her. Mr. and Mrs Simpson did their
best, but the luncheon party was a failure.
Dan was awaiting his opportunity.
"Jack," Mr. Simpson remarked innocently, "Jim Colter tells me that you
have recently been losing some of your cattle and young colts. He says
that they disappear from your ranch, and when they are seen again they
have the brand of another owner on them. That is a pretty bad business.
Have you any idea who is responsible for the trouble?"
Jack shook her head desperately. She was determined to say nothing that
could make any trouble. "No, Mr. Simpson, we don't know. That is, it
don't make any difference. Perhaps we are mistaken," she answered
lamely.
Mr. Simpson was puzzled by Jack's manner. There was an awkward silence.
Dan leaned over and whispered to Laura in a tone that could be
distinctly heard, not only by Jack and Frank, but by every member of the
small company. "I shouldn't think Jack Ralston would worry about losing
a few of her old cattle. She is going to lose something else pretty
soon, that is a good deal more important."
Laura snickered nervously. She caught sight of Jack's face.
Mrs. Simpson frowned and glanced hastily at Jack. Mr. Simpson's eyes
flashed and he too watched his young girl guest. Jack was distinctly
conscious that everybody in the party stared straight at her when Dan
ended his insulting speech.
Jack felt herself turn cold all over. Only her face was scorching hot.
Half a dozen angry retorts trembled on her lips. She started to speak,
but then she turned to Frank and said quietly. "Won't you tell me
something more about your home in England? I am awfully interested."
Mrs. Simpson breathed a sigh of relief. Only Laura seemed disappointed.
There was nothing she loved half so well as a scene and she fondly
believed Dan and Jack meant to treat her to one.
Ten minutes later, Jack went over to Mrs. Simpson. "Aunt Sallie, I think
Olive and I had better start back to the ranch now. You were awfully
good to give us our luncheon, but we ought to be at home by dark."
Mrs. Simpson caught Jack's hand. "You were a trump, Jack dear," she
whispered. "I would like to shake that red-headed boy if I had a chance
at him, but I believe somebody else will when you go."
Jack smiled, though her voice trembled a little. "I don't think Dan and
I ought to carry on our quarrels at your table, Aunt Sallie," she
answered. "But you know if he says anything like that to me again, I
should die if I didn't answer him back. So, good-bye."
Jacqueline bowed her farewells and she and Olive started toward their
ponies.
Frank Kent had a moment alone with Dan.
"Dan Norton, you have got to settle with me for that speech, you cub,"
he insisted, in a white passion of anger that startled his host.
Dan thought Frank too much of a gentleman to be willing to fight.
"All right," he rejoined calmly, "choose your own time."
Half way over to their horses, Frank joined Olive and Jack.
"I am going to ride back to your ranch with you, Miss Ralston," Frank
announced quietly.
Olive looked relieved, but Jack shook her head firmly.
"You are awfully good, Mr. Kent," Jack protested. "But really Olive and
I can go home perfectly well alone. We would rather not trouble you."
Frank assisted Olive on her broncho and then climbed into his own
saddle, Jack being already mounted.
"Mr. Simpson thinks I had better go home with you," Frank repeated
carelessly. "And I think you might let me act as an honorary escort,
because in case you don't I shall simply ride along behind you."
CHAPTER XVIII.
A RACE FOR LIFE.
"JACK, don't you think we are going too near the corrals?" Olive
inquired timidly.
It was high noon. The cattle had been brought by the cowboys into the
open field and each ranchman had divided his own stock from the herds.
The animals had been driven into the corrals, separate enclosures made
of fence rails, one belonging to each of the neighboring ranches. In the
afternoon the branding of the cattle took place, but most of the cowboys
had now gone off to get something to eat before the real business of the
day began. Only a dozen men guarded the entire stockade.
"Oh, no, Olive," Jack answered lightly. "I believe, if we ride a little
closer, we may get some news of Jim. I would like to see him to ask him
some questions, before we start back home." Jack rode gaily ahead,
forgetting her disagreeable scene with Dan Norton. The swarming hundreds
of cows and calves, the bright sunshine, the brilliantly blue sky
overhead, the noise and splendid action of the scene interested her
tremendously.
"I think Miss Olive is right, Miss Ralston," Frank insisted gravely. "We
must not ride too near the stock, for fear of a stampede."
"Just a few feet more," Jack begged, turning half way around in her
saddle to glance back at Olive and Frank.
At this moment an immense bull burst out of one of the corrals and made
a wild dash across an open field. He was not headed toward Jack, or
Olive, or Frank, and there did not appear to be the least danger.
Two of the cowboys made a rush to cut off the bull's charge but turned
back a moment later to their companions. It was more important for the
men to keep the other animals from following their leader, than to
recapture the one infuriated beast.
Jim Colter had warned Jacqueline, when he first gave her the new pony,
that "Tricks" was well named. He had told her that she would have to
watch the little animal pretty closely, but Jack was a trained rider and
so far the mare had not given her any trouble. She had not realized,
when she came to the round-up, that "Tricks" was one of the ponies that
had been formerly used by the cow-punchers at the round-ups.
Tricks saw the bull break away from the stockade and make its plunge for
freedom at the moment that Jack turned her head and slightly relaxed her
hold on the broncho's bridle.
The pony's fighting blood was up. She did not intend to see a bull
escape when it was her business as a cowboy's pony, to head him off and
turn him back toward the herd. She made a leap forward, running
diagonally across the plain, in order to cross in front of the bull at
the shortest possible distance. For the first time in her experience,
Jack Ralston completely lost control of the horse she was riding; the
pony's headlong rush had been too unexpected. Tricks was a good-sized
broncho with a will of her own and was convinced that she was doing her
duty.
Jack had unfortunately taken off her gloves. People in the West never
ride the hard-mouthed little Western ponies, without thick leather
gauntlets. She pulled on her reins until they cut into her flesh, but
the pony ran on. Still Jack had no idea of not being able to control
her before she got into danger.
No one, except Frank and Olive, saw Jack's wild dash. The cowboys were
riding in and out among the corrals, swinging their long ropes and
forcing the excited cattle back into their enclosures.
"Get back out of the way," Frank commanded Olive quickly. Almost before
she realized what had taken place, Frank Kent was off like a shot after
the flying Jack.
His horse pounded along, but Jack was yards ahead. Frank did not know
what he could do, if he reached Jack. He could only grasp her bridle and
try to stop both of their ponies. At best, if he got ahead of her, he
might be able to shut off the bull's mad charge. There would be only one
way to do it and that would be to let the animal rush upon his horse. He
knew nothing of the cowboys' methods. He had no lasso. He had seen
pictures of Spanish toreadors with their flaming scarlet scarfs. If he
only had as much as a red handkerchief, perhaps he might divert the
bull's course. Of course Frank realized that this would have been a
forlorn hope. But nothing really mattered. Jack's pony continued to
gain on his; he had not a fighting chance of overtaking her.
Frank hardly dared look at Jack. He could see so clearly what would
happen: the range-bred pony would take her straight in front of the
furious bull, not knowing that her rider was not a cowboy and would be
unequal to the task of turning the great brute aside. She would do her
part and expected Jack to do the rest. Jack did not have so much as a
small riding whip in her hand, having lost it in her pony's first plunge
ahead. But she now realized her peril; one glimpse of her face would
have revealed this. It was white as marble save for the flying, bronze
gold of her hair. Her eyes were wide open and almost black and her lips
were parted. But there was no give-up in her expression; determination
marked every fine cut line.
Jack had considered but two alternatives. Either she must stop her wild
pony or drive back the maddened bull. Now she knew she could do neither.
She was only a few yards from the bull and understood that an animal in
a wild rush for liberty, never turns aside unless he is driven.
Half unconsciously Frank Kent closed his eyes. Jacqueline Ralston had
seemed to him so splendid, typifying to him the free, outdoor life of
the great West. He realized that Jack had lots of faults, but that she
was the kind of girl who would make a wonderful woman. She was a true
American girl, brave, generous and gay. The thought of her being
injured, or killed, was horrible. She was the very spirit of youth and
energy.
Frank looked again. Jack was going to face death squarely, or else to
drive her pony across the bull's course, before it reached her. Yet the
last method seemed hopeless, because the pony was master of the race,
not Jack. The girl had stooped low in her saddle. Her feet were out of
the stirrups and she lay almost flat across the pony's back. She seemed
to slip to one side. Frank watched for another horrified second. Jack
and her horse were not a hundred feet from the bull.
Then something slid along the ground on the right side of the pony, ran
a few feet, let go of the bridle and sat down limply in the brown grass.
Frank shouted as he had never thought it in him to shout. The trick of
dropping from her horse that Jack had just effected, he had seen
accomplished once in a Buffalo Bill show in London. The vision of a girl
doing it for her own safety was the most thrilling sight he had ever
seen in his life.
Tricks, deserted by her rider, and uncertain what she should do alone,
sprang to one side as the bull lunged at her, and the danger was all
over in an instant.
Frank found Jack shaking like one in a chill. But she smiled at him
bravely and put out her hand to let him pull her off the ground.
"Perhaps, Frank," she said, forgetting formalities in her thankfulness,
"if I live long enough, I may some day learn to do what I am told.
Please take me back to Olive."
Tricks, exhausted by her wild run, was led back to Jack, a weary and
repentant pony.
Jack was silent and shaken. She followed Frank back to the spot where
they had left Olive, without a word.
The cowboys were returning to the work of branding the cattle and it was
high time the ranch girls started for home. But neither Jack nor Frank
could find a trace of Olive. She had completely disappeared. They rode
over to the spot where they had lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, but
the automobile party had left for their ranch. Frank inquired of a dozen
cowboys. No one of them had seen Olive.
Jack tried not to cry, but the day's experiences had been too much for
her. She had never been so utterly wretched before.
"Don't worry, Miss Ralston," Frank urged. "I'll bet you anything that
Miss Olive has run across your overseer, Jim Colter, and has returned to
Rainbow Ranch with him."
Jack shook her head despairingly. "Olive would not go away without
telling me, for anything in the world," she insisted. "Besides, Jim
would not leave me here. He is somewhere around, won't you find him?"
Frank insisted that Jack wait in a place of safety a mile farther along
the trail toward their ranch. For an hour Jack walked up and down a few
yards of barren ground, her pony resting near her. The time seemed an
eternity.
By and by Frank arrived with Jim Colter. Jim looked sternly at Jack, but
she was past caring what he said or thought of her.
"Can't you find Olive, Jim?" Jack pleaded.
"I'll do my best," Jim returned. "Mr. Kent will take you home to the
ranch."
"But I can't go without Olive, Jim. I'll stay here until you find her.
She has probably just lost her way," Jack entreated.
"Hope so," Jim repeated shortly. "But in any case, your place is at
home."
Jack hesitated.
"Haven't you made enough trouble for yourself and other people already
to-day, Jack?" Jim questioned keenly. And Jack submissively bowed her
head.
CHAPTER XIX.
NO NEWS.
WEEKS passed and there was no word from Olive. The ranch girls had
almost ceased to talk of her return. They had begun to lose hope.
Immediately after Frank Kent and Jack left him, on the day of the
round-up, Jim Colter had gone to the Indian village, but he could find
no trace of Olive there. Curiously enough old Laska had disappeared from
her hut several days before, so she could scarcely be held responsible
for the lost girl. She had said nothing of where she was going nor when
she expected to return. In Indian fashion, she had departed silently,
carrying only a bundle strapped across her back.
Josef would give no information. Jim tried him with threats and bribes,
but the boy insisted he knew nothing of Olive. He had not seen her in
many weeks. It was useless to try to make an Indian betray a secret he
meant to keep and Jim Colter knew better than to waste his time. The
Indian is as suspicious and reticent to-day as he was in the old days,
when no kind of torture ever wrung a sound from him.
Advertisements were inserted in the papers in the nearby towns, but no
girl answering to the description of Olive was ever reported. She had
vanished as completely as though she were dead. By and by Jim Colter
gave up the search. He did not believe that they would ever see the
Indian girl again.
Frank Kent kept quietly at work. He was very rich, and without a word to
anyone, offered a reward for Olive's return, so large that had Laska
seen it and had she had Olive in her possession, she must surely have
given her up. Frank came often to Rainbow Lodge. The girls no longer
thought of him as the guest and relative of their bitterest enemy, and
the name of the Nortons was never mentioned between them. He used to
take Jean and Frieda and Cousin Ruth off on long excursions to keep them
amused, but Jack would rarely go with them. She seldom left the ranch
and spent the greater part of the time alone, refusing to talk either of
Olive or the prospect of losing Rainbow Ranch, which loomed nearer with
each passing day. Jack was polite to Cousin Ruth, but she never
expressed any penitence to her or to Jim for her wilfulness, which
seemed to be responsible for Olive's loss. But daily Jack grew paler and
thinner. She seemed much older and quieter than the radiant beautiful
girl who had been the ruling spirit of the entire ranch. Everyone who
knew her worried over the change in her, and most of all Ruth, who
wondered if she were not somehow to blame for the whole disaster. If she
had not opposed Jack's going to the round-up, Jim would have taken Jack
with him and Olive would not have left the Lodge.
Jean and Frieda bore their troubles differently. Sometimes they would
talk of Olive and again of the loss of their home and Jean would weep
passionately for a few minutes and Frieda would cry softly. But they
would soon cheer up and be convinced of Olive's immediate return and the
discovery of the lost deed to the ranch. Jean even suggested that they
need not perish if the ranch were taken away from them. She was quite
sure she would be able to work and support herself and possibly Frieda.
And for once Jack laughed, for, as she explained to her cousin, she and
Jean knew nothing in the world except how to ride horseback, and ranch
girls though they were, they could hardly be expected to join a circus.
But no one interfered with Jack. She took her long rides alone in spite
of the cold weather, for they seemed to be the only things that would
quiet her restlessness. When she was in the house, she was either
searching in every conceivable crack and corner for the lost title deed,
or else gazing listlessly out of the window.
One clear, frosty morning, Jack came in to an early breakfast, wearing
her riding habit.
"You won't mind if I am away from the ranch all day to-day, Cousin
Ruth?" she inquired quietly. "I would rather not say where I am going,
but I shall be in no danger and I shall be home before dark."
Jean waved her fork pettishly in the air. "What in the world are you up
to, Jacqueline Ralston?" she demanded. "Frieda and I awfully wanted you
to go over to Aunt Sallie's for the day with us. You knew she had asked
us and Cousin Ruth can't go, because she won't learn to ride horseback.
I should think you would be tired of mysteries and secrets by this
time, I am sure I am. Rainbow Lodge didn't use to be like this. It is
the most changed place I ever saw," Jean sighed mournfully. But Jack
made her no answer and waited until Ruth agreed to her request.
By ten o'clock, Ruth Drew was alone at the Lodge. The day began early at
the ranch, as the winter twilights soon closed in and there were no
lights but the stars to guide the wanderers over the prairies.
Ruth had assured the girls she would not be lonely. She had lots of work
to do and letters to be written to the people at home. But somehow Ruth
did not feel in the mood for any of her tasks. She was astonished at
herself. Already the old village life in the East seemed far away;
Rainbow Lodge and the vast, primitive West meant home to her now.
Outdoors the world looked utterly deserted. There was not a leaf, nor a
blade of green grass visible, not a human being, nor an animal in sight,
except old Shep, who howled dismally at having been left at home by the
ranch girls.
Ruth slipped into a heavy old coat and went for a walk up and down the
frozen fields in front of Rainbow Lodge. Old Shep kept close beside her,
with his warm nose thrust in her hand. There were many things Ruth
wished to think about and it would be easier to see clearly and to know
what was best in the open air.
Ruth was exceedingly vexed with the overseer of Rainbow Ranch. What was
to become of Frieda, Jean and Jack, in case they were forced to give up
their home at the beginning of the New Year? Jack had confided to Ruth
that they owned six thousand dollars in bank, beside the stock on their
place. But Jack had no ideas for their future, and Mr. Jim Colter had
not seen fit to discuss with their chaperon any plans that he might have
for the girls. Of one thing Ruth was determined, whatever happened, she
would stay with the girls. She had a little money and she could earn her
living as a teacher if it were necessary, but the ranch girls should not
face the world alone. Nevertheless, Mr. Colter should explain affairs to
her more fully. It was all very well for him to argue that Rainbow Ranch
could not fall into other hands. He should look at both sides of the
question. Ruth had not seen the overseer, except for a few minutes at a
time, since the evening before the round-up. He certainly had not
treated her with proper respect.
The longer Miss Ruth Drew thought of her grievances, the angrier she
grew. Of course there was nothing personal in the matter, but as the
girls' chaperon, she deserved more consideration.
Ruth's cheeks were glowing by this time, partly from the cold air, but
quite as much from temper. She had changed a good deal. Her complexion
was certainly not sallow. She no longer wore her glasses, except when
she wished to read, and her smooth hair was now blowing becomingly about
her face under an old felt hat of Jean's carelessly put on.
But Ruth was not being altogether honest with herself; she did have a
little private spite against Jim. He had promised to teach her to ride
horseback weeks before and he had never referred to the subject again.
She dearly wished to learn. She had wanted to ride over to return Mrs.
Simpson's call and had only pretended an indifference to Jean, because
she did not intend in any way to remind Mr. Colter of his forgotten
promise.
Ruth saw Jim riding up the road that led to the Lodge and drawing
herself up, gave him a stiff little bow. Of course she had known all
along that a cowboy could not be a gentleman, but Jim had struck her as
being rather superior, in spite of his bad grammar. However, no man
worth the name broke a promise to a woman. Ruth turned her back on the
rider and continued her walk with her head in the air.
Jim reined up in front of the frosty young woman. "Good morning," he
said in rather an embarrassed fashion.
The lady's manner was not encouraging. "Good morning," she repeated
severely, "I suppose you wanted to see one of the girls, but they are
all away from the ranch."
Jim shook his head slowly, staring at Miss Ruth Drew with a puzzled
frown. He had not the faintest idea why she was so haughty, and clearing
his throat, continued to stare at her without a word until the silence
grew more and more embarrassing.
Ruth's cheeks grew redder. She was irritated by Jim's silence and the
expression of his eyes, which were as blue and direct as a young boy's.
"Do you want to leave a message for one of the girls or to speak to Aunt
Ellen or Zack?" Ruth inquired irritably.
But still Jim did not speak.
"For heaven's sake, tell me, what do you want, Mr. Colter?" Ruth
demanded. And suddenly Jim laughed.
"Well, I thought I wanted to speak to you, Miss Drew," he drawled in his
slow, good-humored fashion. "But perhaps I had better not. I kind of
thought maybe you would like me to give you a riding lesson this
morning, but I can see now you wouldn't. I have been trying to get one
of the ranch ponies broke in for you ever since I heard you wanted to
learn to ride and now I have got a little broncho that is just about as
gentle as a kitten. But, so long, maybe you'll be feeling more like it
another day."
Jim rode calmly away, leaving Ruth looking as young and foolish as a
cross child.
She did want a horseback lesson to-day of all days, when she was alone
and a little blue. Ruth ran after Jim, entirely forgetting her dignity.
"Mr. Colter, please wait," she called. "I do want to learn to ride,
dreadfully, and I should be awfully glad to have you show me how this
morning, if you don't think I would be too much of a chump."
"Chump!" Ruth's ears burned. Jean's favorite word, "chump," had slipped
out of her lips as unconsciously as though she had never been a New
England school marm with a perfect horror of slang. She wondered if the
ranch overseer had noticed her break.
When Jim turned and smiled down on Miss Drew, she was no longer the
superior person he had just left.
"You'll learn to like it better in Wyoming, once you can ride," he
answered kindly. "Why, when the spring comes, our barren prairies
blossom like a rose and the birds are about everywhere. The ranch girls
want you to get fond of it out here. There ain't any feeling much worse
than being homesick for the things you left behind you. Now run along
and rig yourself up in some kind of a riding habit of the girls. I will
have the pony waiting by the time you are ready."
Ruth rushed into the house, wondering why she felt so absurdly young and
happy all at once.
The young chaperon did not acquire the art of learning to ride
horseback in a single lesson. But Jim was far too sweet-tempered to let
her know that she was the hardest pupil he ever tried to teach. Both the
master and pupil were elated when Ruth finally managed to sit straight
in her saddle, without slipping to either side, and to hold her reins
while the pony walked sedately up and down with Jim at his head.
Late that afternoon, Ruth was sitting alone by the living-room window.
It was growing dark. The day had been a tiring one and she was feeling a
tiny bit depressed. Jack cantered up to the house, gave her pony over to
their colored man, and without so much as a glance at Ruth, strode past
the living-room into her own room and closed the door behind her.
Ruth sighed. It did seem to her that Jack might have come in to speak to
her, thinking that she had been by herself all day. Ruth was beginning
to make up her mind that it was an utterly hopeless desire that she and
Jack should ever be friends. Jack was so reserved and unapproachable and
so bent on having her own way.
Ruth did not expect Frieda and Jean to return for another hour. Mrs.
Simpson had promised to send some one over with them, so they could have
a longer visit with her. It was growing spooky in the living-room, with
only the dancing shadows of the fire. Aunt Ellen had forgotten to bring
in the lamp and Ruth started toward the kitchen down the wide hall.
Outside Jack's door she heard a queer noise that startled her. It was a
strange choking sound, as though some one were in pain. Ruth listened.
The sound was not repeated, but the room was in perfect darkness and she
became vaguely uneasy. She did not understand Jack's disposition. The
girl had been so quiet and unhappy since Olive's disappearance and Ruth
wondered what Jack was doing in the dark alone.
A knock on the door brought no answer and Ruth tried again.
"What is it?" a stifled voice asked.
"Won't you let me come in, Jack?" Ruth urged, feeling her uneasiness
increase.
"I would much rather you wouldn't, I prefer to be alone," Jack replied
in her habitual frigid tones. But Ruth heard a queer little catch at the
end of her sentence that was unfamiliar.
Ruth had her hand on the doorknob and without waiting for permission she
turned it and walked into Jack's room. "I think it is my duty to come in
to you, Jack," she explained, in her self-righteous, lady-governess
tones that Jack so much disliked.
The room was in almost total darkness and Ruth could catch only a faint
outline of Jack's figure, drawn up in its usual proud pose. But to-night
her head was drooping. The fire had burned out in the grate, except for
a few colored ashes, but Ruth found paper and wood and soon brought it
to a blaze. She said nothing and Jack neither moved nor spoke. But Ruth
caught one glimpse of Jack's face, when the firelight leaped up into the
room.
She found an old eiderdown wrapper in the closet and pushed a low chair
near the fire, putting the warm grey gown over Jack's rigid shoulders
and pushing her softly toward the chair.
"There, dear, sit down by the fire," Ruth said gently. "I did not mean
to intrude on you and I will leave you by yourself, but you must try and
not let yourself get ill because you are miserable. There may be a lot,
you know, that you must do for Frieda and Jean."
Ruth could see that Jack had lost her self-control and was trembling
with nervousness and cold, and turned to leave her, but Jack held out a
shaking hand.
"Please don't go yet, Ruth," she pleaded, as though she were one girl
talking to another. "There is something I want to try to tell you if I
can."
Ruth sat quietly down. She realized all at once how much harder it is
for some people to say the things they feel, than it is for others.
"It's about Olive," Jack declared after an instant. "I have been over to
the Norton ranch to-day. I brought myself to ask a favor of Mr. Norton.
I asked him to let me speak to the Indian boy, Josef, who works on his
ranch. Mr. Norton consented, if I would allow him to stay in the room
while I talked. Of course he thought I wanted to play him some trick
about the ranch." Jack spoke indifferently. "I offered Josef everything
I had in the world, a hundred dollars father once gave me and my share
of my mother's jewelry, if he would only tell me what had become of
Olive. He wouldn't tell." Jack shook her head despairingly. "I am
beginning to believe Olive is dead."
"I don't think so, Jack, somehow, though I don't know," Ruth returned
gravely.
"I suppose there is something I ought to say to you, Cousin Ruth," Jack
continued quietly. "I ought to tell you and Jim that I am sorry that I
went off to the round-up against your wishes. Of course I am sorry, it
seems almost foolish for me to speak of it. I don't want to ask you to
forgive me, because of course I shall never think of forgiving myself
for losing Olive, no matter how long I live."
Ruth took hold of Jack's cold fingers. Jack spoke with perfect
self-control, but Ruth began dimly to understand something of her
disposition.
All at once, Jack's calmness gave way. She began to sob, as though she
were torn in pieces. "Oh, Cousin Ruth, won't Olive come back ever? I
used to think that having to give up our ranch would be the most
dreadful thing that could happen, but now I don't. Olive was so gentle
and so timid. I thought I was going to protect and take care of her as
though she were Frieda, but instead of that it was I who led her into
danger."
Ruth and Jack talked quietly after this, until Jean and Frieda came
home. Ruth had entirely lost her school-teacher manner and forgot to
preach.
Jack's reserve having once broken down, she told Ruth all she had
suffered in silence for the past few weeks.
Though Ruth and Jack might have many conflicts of their two strong wills
in the future, they would never misunderstand each other so completely
as they had done in the past.
[Illustration: SOMEONE CREPT UP BEHIND HER WITH THE STEALTHINESS
POSSIBLE ONLY TO AN INDIAN.]
CHAPTER XX.
OLIVE.
ON the day when Jacqueline Ralston's pony ran away so unexpectedly, and
Frank Kent commanded Olive to get out of danger, Olive had watched them
both for a few minutes in a kind of daze. She had then moved slowly
backward, keeping them both in sight, until she dimly saw Jack's leap
from her horse. She then continued alone along the trail which she and
Jack had traveled that morning, until the men and the cattle at the
round-up were entirely out of sight, supposing that Frank and Jack would
follow her as soon as they crossed the field.
Olive stopped her horse finally. She was not looking about her, nor
thinking of anything in particular except her joy in Jack's safety. She
heard no sound.
Someone crept up behind her with the stealthiness possible only to an
Indian. Suddenly Olive felt her hands drawn behind her and she was
forcibly dragged from her horse.
Two or three times only she cried for help, but before she could do
more, a handkerchief was tied tightly about her lips and she was half
dragged and half carried to one of the very tents which she and Jack had
passed that morning on their way to the fateful round-up.
Old Laska sat stolidly smoking a pipe. "Ugh," she grunted, but her
small, beady eyes flashed like coals in the sunlight.
Although Olive was the last person she expected to see at such a moment,
she took the girl from Josef without a word, and held her so that she
could not get away. Josef disappeared immediately. He must have gone to
hide Olive's pony from sight.
Olive struggled, but she could make no outcry, and in a little while
Laska bound her so that she could scarcely move. The girl was a captive
inside the tent at the moment when Frank Kent and Jack passed it,
unheeding, on their return to Rainbow Lodge.
The Indian woman and her son had not thought to capture Olive at such a
time and place. But they had vowed to get hold of her by any means they
could. From the instant Josef discovered that Olive had come to the
round-up, he had not lost sight of her and when he found her alone, he
was ready.
All afternoon she lay in the tightly closed tent with Laska, neither one
of the women moving, Olive being in a stupor from terror and pain. By
and by, when the dusk fell, Josef appeared silently at the tent
entrance, leading Olive's pony and a horse for his mother. He bound
Olive to her horse, and the two women set off across the prairies, Laska
with her bundle across her back and two jugs of water swung over her
saddle.
Through all the long, cold night, Laska traveled across the barren
plains with her hand on Olive's bridle. At first there were shadowy
fences that marked the division of one ranch from another. These were
soon lost and the way lay through a trackless waste, unbroken by a trail
of man or animal. Laska had gone into the desert where there was no drop
of pure water.
In the morning the Indian woman rested, built a fire, untied Olive and
fed her, knowing that if the girl ran away from her now she would not be
able to go back the way they had come. She must be lost and could not
fail to perish from hunger and thirst. Still Laska guarded her closely.
On the morning of the third day of their journeying, Olive saw on the
far horizon some curling wreaths of smoke. Nearer there were a few lean
horses grazing on the scanty sage grass. A dozen Indian tepees were set
up in what seemed a small oasis in the desert. She knew that Laska had
brought her to the winter quarters of a small band of Indians who would
not stay in a village overlooked and regulated by the United States
Government. These Indians lived the old nomad life, wandering from place
to place, setting up their tents like gypsies, wherever they could
remain unmolested.
Olive almost gave up hope. Here in the wilderness she would never come
in contact with any one from the outside world. When the spring came,
the Indians would gather up their belongings and wander farther away,
taking her with them, where she could have no chance of return.
Laska and Olive had a tent of their own. In it they lived for some time,
rarely speaking to one another. Nobody was unkind to her and for some
reason Laska left her alone. It was growing bitterly cold and the old
woman used to sit smoking all day by the fire, either in her own wigwam
or one nearby. She did not try to watch Olive, knowing that she could
not get away. Laska had told her that she should never leave the Indians
again; that they would return no more to the neighborhood of the white
men and Olive seemed quietly to accept her fate. Even Laska, who had
trained the girl in her own school of silence, was deceived by her. She
thought that Olive no longer cared enough to go back to dare the perils
of the trip.
At first it did appear utterly impossible to Olive. She had not the
faintest idea in what direction she and Laska had traveled and on
arriving among the Indians, her pony had been taken away from her. She
had no food except the little bit she was allowed each day, barely
enough to live on and knew that at any time now, the swift and bitter
snowstorms of the prairies might fall. Any traveler caught out in one of
them would surely perish and not be found until the snow melted.
There were many hours, when Olive thought she would run away anyhow and
take whatever fate came to her. But the memory of Jack, and Jean and
Frieda, Cousin Ruth and Rainbow Lodge sustained her. A little time
before and she had not known any happiness. Now the thought of the joy
she would feel if she ever got home again, gave her patience and courage
to wait.
Few of the older Indians paid much attention to the captive. Whatever
story old Laska had told them, they had accepted without question. They
spoke very little English and rarely stirred, except when the men went
off on long hunting expeditions to return with whatever deer they
managed to slay.
Olive had only one friend, one person, with whom she talked in the weeks
she spent in the Indian camp. This was Carlos, a young Indian boy, about
twelve years old. He was as slender and straight as a young pine tree,
the fastest runner, the best rider and shot in the tribe. She had paid
little attention to the boy at first, but he followed her like a shadow.
Often when she came out of her tent, she would find him sitting like a
brown image on the cold ground. The boy was like an Eskimo and appeared
to feel neither hunger nor frost.
One day Olive set out for a walk. She did not wish Carlos to go with
her, but before she had gone many rods the boy appeared at her side and
quietly marched beside her, looking neither to the right nor the left.
"Go back, Carlos," Olive commanded quietly.
The boy shook his head. "You travel not alone over the prairies, you do
not know your way," he answered stolidly.
Olive's patience gave out. She seized the boy by the shoulders, tears
came into her soft black eyes and her face quivered. "You are hired to
spy on me, Carlos," she said accusingly. "I thought I had one friend in
you."
Again Carlos shook his head. "Why should I spy on you?" he asked. "What
is it you would do?"
Then Olive told the boy what had happened to her.
Very quietly he listened. "I knew you were not of our people," he
answered. "I will find the way for you to get back home. You are a woman
and timid. Have faith in me."
Olive smiled, and from this day she called the Indian boy, "Little
Brother," but she had no hope of his helping her and she saw him far
less often. Carlos was away from the camp nearly every day, returning
with rabbits that he shot on the plains. Olive saw him drying the skins
and sometimes he brought her their meat to eat, but he never referred to
his promise to show her a way of escape from the Indian camp.
The days were long, but the nights were far longer and the long
twilights the saddest time of all. Olive sat often in the tent alone.
One evening Laska had departed earlier than usual to the wigwam of a
neighboring squaw and Olive was huddled up on the dry grass in front of
their fire, trying to keep from freezing. The air was filled with smoke.
The girl looked scornfully at the two beds of straw, covered with coarse
Indian blankets, where she and Indian Laska slept. Before her eyes came
the vision of the splendid living-room at Rainbow Lodge. She could see
the ranch girls and their cousin before the great fire and wondered if
they ever thought of her now. Olive did not know how long a time had
passed since she was stolen.
Sticking out from under Laska's bed was the bundle which she had borne
on her back across the plains. Until this moment she had kept it hidden
from Olive, except during their trip, when she had gotten their food
from it.
Olive was not particularly interested in her discovery. But it occurred
to her that this bag might have something to eat in it, which would aid
her, if she could manage to get away. She drew out the dirty sheepskin
bag and thrust her hand into it, shuddering at the things she touched.
There were some odd bits of soiled clothing and a small package, tied up
in an old, red cotton handkerchief. Olive had seen the package in the
handkerchief before, in Laska's hut in the village. But she had never
been interested to find out what it contained. To-night she cared for
anything that would break the monotony of the long hours ahead of her.
Olive looked cautiously at the tent opening. The place was entirely
still. There was not a sound in the lonely tepee, save the blowing of
the winter winds across the desert. The girl crawled to a spot where the
fire cast its brightest glow. Patiently she worked at the hard knots in
the handkerchief. There was a roll of money in it tied up with a cord.
Olive tossed the money impatiently aside. What use was money to her in
this wild land? Olive had known always that Laska got money from some
unknown source. She always had more than the other Indians in their
village, and Jack had explained to Olive that this money was sent to
Laska for taking care of her. Olive searched for a bit of paper,
something to show from what place or from whom this money came. But
there was no scrap of anything of that sort.
Beside the money, there was a small box in the handkerchief. It was of
delicate, carved wood and smelled very sweet. Olive saw at once that the
carving had never been made by Indians. It was far too fine.
She was so intent on opening this box that she did not hear a stealthy
noise just outside her tent.
The lid of the sandalwood chest slid gently off. Inside, Olive beheld
some trinkets, which she knew in a moment of swift rapture, must belong
to her. One was a curiously wrought old silver chain, with a beautiful
cross hanging from it. A watch, large enough to belong to a man, had a
girl's picture painted in it which made Olive catch her breath. The
picture she knew looked like her, only it was far lovelier. This girl
had the same brilliant yet soft black eyes, the same straight, glossy
hair and the deep, olive coloring. She was not an American, but Olive
knew there was no trace of Indian blood in this woman. Whatever Indian
blood ran in Olive's veins, she guessed she must have inherited from her
father. Beside the watch and chain, the carved box held but one more
treasure. It was a little book about four inches square, written in a
language that Olive could not understand.
The noise at the tent opening grew more distinct. Some one was peering
through a tiny opening, yet Olive seemed to have neither eyes nor ears.
Her face was flushed with happiness and she held the odd, sweet-smelling
box close against her cheek.
Someone entered the tent. At last Olive awakened and springing to her
feet, thrust her treasures inside her dress. With her eyes flaming, she
turned to face her enemy; for Olive had not lived all her life among
nearly savage people without learning something from them. She meant to
fight now to save her possessions, as a real Indian girl would have
fought to the last moment of her strength.
But instead of the ugly face of old Laska staring at her, Olive saw the
slight figure of Carlos, the Indian boy.
Olive held out her treasures eagerly. "Look what I have found," she
exclaimed. "I know they must be mine."
The Indian boy regarded the pieces of jewelry gravely. To him they
appeared like any other trinkets that the Indians loved.
"I have come to tell you how you may return to your white friends,"
Carlos announced proudly. "I told you that a man would find a way. It is
only women who give up."
Olive shook her lovely head, her thoughts still dwelling with her
discovery. She did not understand exactly what the Indian lad said.
He caught at her dress and pulled it impatiently. "Listen, woman. I have
found a way for you to get back to your ranch-land. Do you hear me, or
is it that you have changed your mind like all women and do not now wish
to go?"
Olive laughed. It was so funny to hear this small boy take the
patronizing tone with her that the men of his race used toward all
women. She put her arm about him and drew him down on the floor by her.
The flickering lights of the fire played on the two dark heads, her hair
fine and soft as silk, his stiff and straight as a young colt's mane.
"Of course I want to go back to my friends, Little Brother," Olive
sighed. "But let's don't talk of that to-night, I want to be a little
bit happy in thinking that I have found something that must once have
belonged to my mother."
But the boy would not be persuaded. "We must talk of your getting away
to-night, for the time is ready," Carlos declared, in the solemn tone of
a young Indian chief making ready for battle. "You know I have been out
on the prairies for many days together and no one knew where or for what
I had gone. I have wandered in many directions seeking for the home of
some white man, for I know that however much the Indian pretends he is
in a wilderness, he is always to-day on the border of the white man's
land."
"Well, have you found a friend to help me?" Olive demanded fervently.
"I have found no friend," Carlos replied, refusing to be hurried or
disturbed. "But I have found an iron trail that stretches across the
desert. It must bring you to where the white people dwell."
"An iron trail," Olive repeated wonderingly. "I am afraid I don't know
what you mean."
The boy gazed at her with slow, unmoved patience. "It has an iron
carriage on it that flies along the trail more swiftly than any horse
can run," Carlos explained. "There is great heat and noise and smoke
like a prairie fire."
Olive caught the boy's hand in hers. "You mean an engine and a railroad
track, don't you, Little Brother?" she queried. "You have seen a train
somewhere out on the desert. You will take me to it and somehow I will
find people to help me to get back to Rainbow Lodge." Olive flung her
arms about Carlos and hugged him as she might have hugged Frieda. She
poured out such a flood of questions, that the boy was convinced he was
right in his scorn of her sex, but he listened with deep gravity.
"I do not know all things," he replied finally. "Only I have laid all
day on the ground near the trail. I know the hour when the iron carriage
passes over it. The walk is a long one, but if you will follow me, I
will take you there. I will come for you to-night just before the dawn
breaks. When you hear an owl hoot, you will know that Carlos is outside
your door. You will creep softly, so that we may have several hours
before old Laska wakes. I will bring food and the skins of many wild
rabbits that I have sewed together in the evenings, that you may not
freeze."
CHAPTER XXI.
THE WAY OF ESCAPE.
IN the darkness Olive kept tight hold of Carlos' hand. They ran swiftly
and softly, like frightened hares, each moment dreading to hear
footsteps behind them. But the darkness hid their tracks and a wind was
blowing, which shifted the sand and whirled it into hills and hollows,
so that not even an Indian could find the print of any passing foot.
Besides, old Laska slept soundly and she had not stirred when Olive
stole out from her tent.
Carlos marched toward the east, where the sky looked less dark, until
the cold dawn broke. Before the sun was well up the boy saw something
glinting and glimmering ahead of them like a long steel serpent. He gave
a cry of victory. Breaking away from Olive, Carlos ran ahead. For a
moment he stood balancing himself on the track rails, waving his thin
brown arms and crowing like a young chanticler.
"We will rest here by the iron trail," he announced happily. "I will
build a fire and we will eat. By and by the great wagon will pass by,
roaring and snorting like an angry buffalo. It will take you with it."
For a moment the boy's face clouded. Then, as Olive reached his side, he
laughed at the thought of her joy.
"But, Carlos," Olive whispered. She was weary and almost frozen from her
long tramp across the plains. "You have brought me to the railroad
track, but where is the station? Did you not know that the white man's
trains will not stop unless there is a little house set up by a wooden
platform, where a man at a window sells you small squares of paper?"
Carlos shook his head in confusion. He had no idea what Olive was
talking about, for he had never seen a railroad depot in the twelve
years of his wandering life. But he saw Olive's disappointment and knew
that something in his beautiful plan for his friend was wrong.
"Never you mind, girl," Carlos insisted, shaking his straight, black
hair, like a little foreign king, "I will see that the wagon stops for
you here, where we wait."
Olive dropped down on the ground, too tired to argue or to explain any
further. Carlos ran along the track, finding a few odd sticks and pieces
of wood. He made a little fire, into which he stuck one long stick, like
a staff, which he had carried from the camp; but he saw that only the
end of it burned.
Hungrily Olive ate. She believed that she must follow the railroad track
until she came to a depot. She had no way of guessing how many more
miles she must walk, nor how many trains passed over this iron pathway
through the desert; but she did know that she must save whatever
strength she had, as her only hope was to reach a city somewhere. She
had not Carlos' faith, that the train would take her straight into the
arms of her beloved friends, yet she knew that once in a town, she could
probably find a way of communicating with them.
Carlos and Olive did not dare to talk. Olive was listening for the sound
of a horse's hoofs, knowing that the journey, which had been so long on
foot, could be made on horseback in a little while, if old Laska ever
guessed the route they had taken. But Carlos listened for a louder
noise and one to him far less familiar.
The boy and girl heard it at the same instant and both sprang to their
feet. Olive's face grew white and rigid with disappointment; but the
boy's eyes flashed with excitement. The train was coming along the track
past the spot where Olive and Carlos rested. Olive feared that her only
chance of escape for that day was gone. She had hoped to reach a depot
before a train went by them.
Nearer the roar of the engine sounded. It was in sight far off across
the desert, but a very few minutes brought it close.
Olive stepped quickly back to be out of danger and seized Carlos by his
woolen shirt to drag him with her. The boy jerked away, and before Olive
could dream what he intended to do, he grabbed his burning stick from
the fire. "I'll stop the train for you," he shouted valiantly. "Only be
quick. You must get on when I command it."
Like a flash, the brave, brown figure ran along the track, waving his
tiny torch and facing with all his feeble strength the great monster of
iron and steel that was driving toward him. The blood of many centuries
of Indian chiefs must have been back of little Carlos. He dared the
unknown force of this engine to-day, as his ancestors had the bullets
and powder of their white enemies, with the same blind belief in his own
power against the forces of civilization.
Olive saw Carlos go, with a feeling of sickening horror. The boy was so
small, so stupidly audacious. Olive's, "Come back, come back!" was lost
in the noise of the train, but Carlos would not have heeded her. What
Indian chief has ever obeyed a woman? There seemed to be but one fate
for him,--he would be crushed to death in an instant.
The engineer saw the boy running toward his train, and the fire which
Olive and Carlos had built near the track. He had but one thought: there
must be danger somewhere ahead of them and these children had come to
warn him.
Fortunately for Carlos, the train which he had chosen for Olive's escape
was not one of passenger coaches, but a freight train. The engine was
going at far less speed, and quickly slowed down and stopped.
"Come, come, Olive," the boy shouted triumphantly, this time waving his
burning stick like a conquering hero.
Olive ran toward the car, dazed, breathless, hardly knowing what had
taken place, nor what she was doing. The Indian boy's spirit had somehow
seized hold on the situation.
"What has happened, imp?" the engineer roared out of his car window. "Is
something wrong ahead on the track?"
Carlos danced up and down, as though he did not understand what the
engineer asked. He had only a dim idea of the man's meaning as he knew
so few English words. Olive was slipping by him and Carlos saw that she
meant to do what he had planned. The engineer was climbing out of his
cab, his back being turned, so that he did not see Olive swing herself
up into the next car. In an instant the girl had hidden herself in the
midst of great piles of boxes, unobserved by the other trainmen, who
were also interested in Carlos.
The engineer was determined to find out what the Indian lad had to tell
him. If the boy had fooled him and there was nothing for them to fear
ahead, he should get the punishment he deserved.
Carlos guessed the engineer's meaning from the expression of his face.
The boy made a dart that was almost as swift as the first plunge of an
arrow from a bow. He was a small brown spot some distance off, when the
engineer made up his mind to run after him. The man did run for a few
rods, but the idea of catching the boy was ridiculous. He was like a
breath of wind, blowing this way and that across the prairie. He could
lead the engineer off into the desert, so that he would not know how to
return, and the man realized this. He climbed slowly back into his
engine, determined to watch out himself for trouble along the track;
believing, however, that Carlos had played an ugly trick on him. It
would have gone hard with Olive if she had been discovered at this time.
The train went tardily on. Olive could hear the men moving on the top of
the coach over her head. Once or twice a dirty-faced trainman stuck his
head in the open door of the freight car, but he saw nothing of the
frightened girl huddled between the boxes. Olive of course had no
knowledge of where she was going. Her plan was to crawl out of the car
as soon as it stopped at a town and then try to find some one to help
her.
But the car did not stop and Olive finally fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXII.
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT.
A ROUGH voice aroused Olive. She sprang up in terror and stood pressed
close against the piled up freight in the car. It was an odd-looking
figure she made, as though she had stepped out of a world several
hundred years younger than the present one. The coarse man who watched
her dimly felt it.
The girl's shoes were ragged and hardly covered her slender feet, her
skirt was torn and old. Over her shoulders hung a strange fur garment,
shapeless, save that a hole had been cut in the center for her head. Her
beautiful black hair was braided and one long plait hung over each
shoulder; her head was uncovered and her delicate face, with its pointed
chin, was deathly pale. She was trembling. Dark shadows encircled her
great black eyes and there was a look not of defiance but of pleading in
them.
So picturesque a passenger had never before stolen a ride on a modern
freight train. She belonged to the days of the pioneer settlers in the
new land of America.
"How did you come here?" the man demanded gruffly.
Olive's voice shook. She had thought it would be easy to tell her story,
if she could only get away from the Indians, but this fierce man
frightened her more than any one of them could have done. What must she
say? Where could she begin with the tale of her misfortunes.
"I stole in, when the train stopped a while ago, I don't just know
when," Olive answered vaguely. She could not tell how long she had been
asleep.
"Then you'll git out the next time it stops, young Missie," the trainman
announced harshly. "I'd put you off right now, but we are already behind
time, because of a rascally Indian boy a piece up the road. Better stay
hid and not let our engineer catch sight of you, or he'd make it good
and hot for you. Maybe he would turn you over to the police."
Olive could not realize it, but her appearance had already touched her
discoverer. She crouched in her corner again and bowed her head in her
slim brown hands, as she had the day when the ranch girls brought her
out of Frieda's cave. She did not try to defend herself.
The trainman climbed up on a box and sat whittling a stick and watching
Olive out of a pair of shrewd Irish blue eyes. He was not a fierce man.
He had a wife and five tow-headed children, living in one of the little
frame shacks along the line of the railroad. The man was clever enough
to see that Olive was not an ordinary thief or impostor.
"Are you sick, girl?" the man inquired, surprised by Olive's silence.
The girl shook her head. "Oh, no, I am not sick, thank you," Olive
answered gently, "but I am very tired. I ran away from an Indian
encampment before dawn to-day. Would you mind telling me where this
train is going?"
Little by little Olive told the whole history of her strange life to the
Irishman, who sat on the box in the freight car and never ceased his
whittling for a moment.
"By St. Peter!" he muttered, when Olive finished replying to his last
question. "This girl tells a story that might have come out of a poetry
or a history book. The funny thing is, her story must be true! Oh,
well," he announced to himself, not to Olive, "there is one thing
certain. Nobody can ever make up in their heads such all-fired queer
things as happen every day."
But the man had not answered Olive's question as to where this train was
going. She had not the courage to ask him again.
By and by Olive saw little houses along the road and knew that their
train was nearing a small, western town. She got up and touched the
Irishman timidly on the arm. "May I get off at the station myself,
please?" she begged. "You won't have to put me off."
The man shook his head severely. "No, you are not going to get off
yourself," he returned gruffly, "and I ain't going to put you off
either. If you can keep on making yourself small, and you are a pretty
thin kind of a girl, I am going to take you farther down the road with
us. I have an idea this here freight train will run along somewhere near
Wolfville in the course of the afternoon. You have had such bad luck in
the past, Missie, that maybe your luck has changed. Anyhow, when you
butted blindly into this freight car, you found a coach going in just
about the way you needed to travel. Don't worry your head any more about
what you are to do. I'll put you off at Wolfville, and though it looks a
bit cloudy, as though it might mean to blow up a bit of snow, I expect
you'll manage to get back to the Ralston Ranch, somehow, before night."
Olive, satisfied that this kind-hearted stranger would look out for her,
dozed on, half waking and half sleeping. Neither she nor her new friend
knew how exhausted she was. She had passed through several weeks of
dreadful hardship, exposure and unhappiness, and now she felt too happy
to think or care because her head ached dully, and her legs shook so she
could hardly stand on them. She would be home soon with Frieda and Jean
and Jack!
Several hours went by. The trainman left the car and attended to his
duties. But Olive had entire faith that he would not forget her.
At a little past five o'clock in the afternoon the freight train came to
a stop near the little town of Wolfville, which was only a matter of ten
miles from Rainbow Ranch. The wind was blowing with a queer, ominous
rattling sound and a few flakes of snow were falling.
Olive's new friend gazed at her a little queerly, as he lifted her out
on the platform. There were no people in sight except the station
master, for it was almost dark and the stopping of a freight train was
of little interest.
"Sure you know how to get to your friends from here?" the Irishman asked
Olive. She took time to nod and wave her hand, then ran swiftly away
from the station in the direction of Rainbow Ranch.
If Olive had gone into the town, someone would have driven her to the
Lodge, or else sent word to Jim Colter or the Ralston girls that she was
in safe-keeping for the night. A prairie snowstorm was approaching and
few people would have cared to trust themselves to a ten-mile drive at
this hour of the winter evening.
But Olive did not think of further danger. Ten miles seemed to her to be
so near home that she could not bear a second's delay in trying to reach
there. For the first few miles she ran swiftly along, as she knew the
trail and it was not too dark to follow it. The stinging wind cut her
face and at times the snow blinded her. But the distance was only a
short walk for a girl who had spent all her life out of doors in the
great West. Yet Olive should have known what a snowstorm in Wyoming,
with a heavy pall of gray clouds and a scudding blast, meant.
After a while, her feet in her worn shoes felt like wooden pegs stumping
on the frozen earth. Her hands had lost all feeling, although she
managed to draw the rabbit-skin furs that Carlos had given her, over her
head and to keep her hands under them. The snow no longer fell in flakes
but in white sheets, lashed and driven by the force of the storm.
The trail across the plains to the Ralston Ranch was quickly hidden.
Mountains of snow piled up in front of Olive, deep gullies appeared at
her feet, where the land was usually as level as a table, and she had no
idea in which direction she should try to travel. But she fought her way
on, thinking perhaps that another wanderer might overtake her, or that
she might catch a glimpse of the lights of some ranch house. If she
could find an objective point ahead of her, she felt that she might get
to it. But to move blindly in a circle of snow, brought no hope of any
relief.
Yet Olive knew she must keep moving if she wished to live. She did not
suffer the same agony from the cold, that she had at first. The wind
blew her about, as though she had been a bit of paper. She staggered and
fell in the snowdrifts, got up and pressed on wishing that even a wild
animal would scurry past her on the way to its retreat. But animals are
always wiser than human beings before the approach of a storm. Every
head of cattle, every horse on the plains, every beast in the forest had
found a rude shelter. Olive felt herself entirely alone in a savage,
white world.
But in quiet natures like Olive's, there is a wonderful power of
resistance. She had endured so much, she had learned the fortitude that
comes with misfortune.
She prayed silently through the hours she struggled. There were moments
when she believed she spied the light of Rainbow Lodge gleaming on the
cruel surface of the snow. She would fight her way to this place, only
to discover that her own blind desire had led her astray.
Night came on, but there was little change from the twilight. The few
stars that broke through the clouds only made the way more blinding.
Olive's patience, Carlos' planning seemed to have been in vain.
Again Olive dreamed she saw some lights ahead of her. Her mind was no
longer clear. She could not remember why she was out alone in the snow.
She cried for Jack, when she had the strength, but the tears froze on
her face.
Olive reached out her arms toward her vision of the lights of Rainbow
Lodge. She was either too blind or too utterly spent to see the snowbank
in front of her, as suddenly it shut out her mirage of home. The girl
gave a cry of despair with all the feeble strength that was left in her
and tumbled headlong into the cold embrace of the snow. But the snow was
no longer cold. It was strangely warm and she was shut away from the
cruel winds.
CHAPTER XXIII.
JACK IS HAPPY.
"CHILLUNS, it's time for bed," Cousin Ruth announced softly. "Frieda has
been asleep in my arms for the last ten minutes. Perhaps I can tumble
her in bed without waking her, she is so frightened at the storm."
Jean glanced up at the clock over the living-room mantle. "Do let's wait
a little while longer?" she begged. "I am just at the most thrilling
part of my book and I am bound to finish it before I go to bed. Jack,
you stay here with me, if Cousin Ruth is going with Frieda. I don't like
to sit up alone. This storm is a terror! Listen how the wind howls down
the chimney. I hope our stock won't be frozen to death to-night."
Ruth led Frieda gently out of the sitting-room while Jack got up and
wandered to the window. But the frost covered the glass. She scratched a
little space away with a hairpin, but there was nothing to see outside
save the snow.
Jack walked restlessly up and down the room for a minute. It was just
nine o'clock and she did not feel like going to bed. She could not read
as Jean was doing. These terrible western storms, that came once or
twice every winter, always filled her with foreboding. Jack was too good
a rancher not to understand that they caused great suffering and loss
among the cattle. The rude corrals, which the ranchmen built for their
stock, could not save them on a night like this.
Jack dropped down on her knees before their book shelves and began to
look over the collection of volumes that had once belonged to her
father. The books were the same ones that Jean had found in her uncle's
trunk and brought to the living-room to impress their new governess on
the day of her arrival at Rainbow Lodge. Shep got up from his warm place
by the fire and trotted over to lie down by Jack, seeming to know that
she was worried and wishing to offer her his subtle sympathy.
Jack turned over the pages of half a dozen books, shaking them, so that
every leaf fluttered apart.
Jean glanced over at her cousin. Jack was quieter and older than ever
to-night. "What are you doing, Jack, want me to help you?" Jean asked
lovingly.
"No, Jean, I am not doing anything special," Jack replied quietly. "I am
just killing time."
But Jean knew that her cousin was searching once more for the lost title
deed to Rainbow Ranch and she had gone to the window to gaze out on the
snow with the thought of Olive on her mind. Even light-hearted Jean
sighed. It was only a few days before Christmas.
Jack was getting up off the floor, when a sound startled her. She jumped
quickly to her feet. Old Shep gave a long howl.
"What is the matter with you, Jacqueline Ralston?" Jean demanded
pettishly, partly because she had just been so sorry for Jack. "You
almost scared me out of my wits."
Jack was pointing toward the window. "I heard a noise outside in the
snow," she exclaimed excitedly.
"You did no such thing, Jack, it's only the wind howling. It has been
making a racket for the last four hours. I don't see why you are so
surprised all of a sudden. I heard nothing unusual," Jean protested.
"But it wasn't the wind I heard, Jean. This noise was quite different.
Shep heard it too, see how queerly he is acting," Jack argued.
Old Shep had gone to the front door of the ranch house and was stretched
against it with his fore paws resting on the door.
"Well, if you didn't hear the wind, it is some animal that has seen the
lights in the Lodge and stolen near here for protection. Do sit down,
Jack, you make me dreadfully nervous, staring like that. You know you
haven't heard the sound a second time. Let's go to bed."
Jean slipped her arm about Jack's waist, but Jack pushed her gently off.
"I am going out in the snow to find out what that cry meant, Jean," Jack
announced decisively. "Suppose it was an animal, I can't allow anything
to die just outside our home to-night."
Jean clung to her cousin's skirts. "You shan't go out that door, Jack,"
Jean avowed. "You will be blown off your feet by the wind. You will be
frozen. If a wild animal has come out of the woods for shelter, you'll
be torn to pieces." Jean pictured every horrible fate that she could
imagine overtaking Jacqueline. But Jack was quickly buttoning up her
overcoat and tying a thick woolen scarf about her head.
"I won't stay out but a minute, Jean dear," she returned. "Shep will go
with me. He will keep me from getting hurt."
"I'll call Cousin Ruth, Jack, you are the most obstinate person in the
world!" Jean exclaimed passionately, but Jack had wrenched open the big
front door of the ranch house, and plunged out into the night. A gust of
snow swept into the wide hall. Straining with all her might, Jack closed
the door back of her, so that Jean should not feel the fury of the
storm. With Shep by her side, Jack faced the white wilderness of snow.
Jean ran down the hall toward Ruth's room, but Ruth had already heard
the noise and joined her. For an instant the two women awaited Jack's
return. They believed that she would come into the house as soon as she
saw what lay ahead of her.
Jack seized the lantern, that swung always above the door of their
Lodge. The light was out, but by crouching down and turning her back to
the wind, Jack managed to relight it. She knew the light would soon
blow out again, but for a minute it would serve a purpose.
Jack climbed off the porch. Shep ploughed in front of her. Jack swung
her lantern once, twice it flashed, then the wind blew it out.
But in that space of time she saw something dark in a mound of snow not
far from the house. Jack felt her way toward it, guided by an
overwhelming instinct. Shep shook all over, not with the cold, but with
the foreknowledge of what was ahead of them.
When Jack reached Olive, Shep had already covered the still body with
his own warm one. Jack pushed Shep away. She had to feel under the
drifting snow before she knew the object she touched was a human being,
but it was not until her hand touched the delicate frozen face, that she
realized that Olive was found at last.
Jack's cry for help brought Ruth, Jean, and from the kitchen, Aunt Ellen
and Zack. There was such agony in Jack's tones, that they all believed
some horrible thing had happened to her.
The women got Olive inside the house, not one of them having an idea
that she was alive, but no one dared to tell Jack so. They stripped off
the girl's clothes and found the little sandal-wood box hidden inside
her dress.
If Jack had not already learned to love Ruth Drew, she would have begun
to care for her to-night. For Ruth knew exactly what to do for Olive.
She would not let the girls and Aunt Ellen carry Olive too near the
fire. She sent Uncle Zack off to find Jim Colter. Ruth and Jack rubbed
Olive's stiff body with snow, until their hands felt almost as numb as
hers and forced hot tea between her clenched teeth. By and by Aunt Ellen
and Jean were allowed to bring warm blankets and hot irons.
At last the blue, stark look left Olive's face. It was Jack who
discovered a tiny bit of color in her lips. Jack flung herself on her
knees and hardly knowing what she was doing, breathed all the warm,
vibrant breath of her own vigorous body into Olive's almost frozen
lungs.
After another hour, Olive stirred and moved one hand. She half opened
her black eyes. "I am all right, Jack," she whispered. "I have got home
at last."
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHRISTMAS EVE.
"IT'S the most beautiful one we have ever had, Jim; I'm so glad," Jack
declared happily.
Jim beat the snow from his coat and folded his arms proudly. "It took
all day to get it, Jack, but it's worth it. Where are the other girls?"
Jim Colter and Jacqueline were standing at the base of a wonderful pine
tree, whose top pressed against the ceiling of the living-room at
Rainbow Lodge. The frost still clung to the tree and the snow and
icicles melted into long chains of diamonds, as they fell in drops of
crystal clearness to the floor.
"The girls are in Cousin Ruth's room at work," Jack answered. "Olive and
Frieda have promised not to look at the tree until the evening. We are
going to have everything in pure white, a regular German Christmas tree,
in honor of Frieda's birthday and her name. There is a white world
inside and out and we shall be at peace for to-night at least," Jack
ended with a little sigh.
Jim moved nearer to the tree and shook one of the branches until the
bits of frost fell to the ground with a soft tinkle like the far-off
music of sleigh bells. He kept his clouded blue eyes turned away from
Jack's.
Jack slipped her arm through his and pressed it affectionately.
"Never you mind, Jim, I didn't mean to be doleful," Jack persisted. "I'm
not a bit, really. Olive is all right, and you've seen that that
wretched Josef and old Laska have been sent away, so they can't annoy
her any more. And I think it's perfectly great that we are going to have
such a lovely Christmas to-night as we have hardly ever had before!
Suppose it is our last one at the Lodge, we will have it to remember!
But, Mr. Colter," Jack danced away from Jim and made him a mock curtsy,
"you may kindly observe that I haven't begun to pack up the furniture at
the Lodge just yet. We never say die, do we, Jim? I think I will have
that motto engraved on a coat of arms for Rainbow Ranch."
Jim nodded approvingly. "It's a pretty good sentiment, Jack," he agreed,
as he started toward the door. "I must be off now, but I'll be back
to-night, promptly at seven, for the festivities."
But Jack clung to him. "See here, Jim, you can't go so soon. You haven't
said hello to Cousin Ruth or showed her the tree. You know you want to
see her. She has had a bad cold ever since the night we found Olive and
it is only polite that you should tell her you are glad she is well."
Jack's tones were perfectly serious and her expression as innocent as a
baby's.
Jim flushed a little angrily. "No. I don't want to see her, at least not
particularly. Why should I?" Jim demanded awkwardly. "That is,--"
Ruth was standing at the living-room door with her arms full of
mysterious packages. She laughed and came into the room, glad that Jim
looked as awkward as she felt on the day of her first horseback ride
with him.
When Ruth was putting down her packages Jack winked solemnly at Jim, and
in return for his irritated glance at her, she slipped quietly out of
the room.
All the way down the hall Jack was smiling to herself. "Wouldn't it be
too funny if old Jim should fall in love with Cousin Ruth?" she
thought. "Goodness knows why he is so touchy about her! She has been
awfully nice to him, since he taught her to ride horseback, but the
friendlier she is, the queerer he behaves.
'Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west,
Of all the wide world, his steed is the best,'"
Jack quoted, apropos of nothing, as she joined the other girls in Ruth's
bedroom.
Olive, Jean and Frieda were working industriously. Over in the corner
there was a little mound that looked like a pile of snow but was only
the strings of popcorn for the Christmas tree. Jean was fashioning an
immense silver star. Olive and Frieda were filling boxes of white paper,
decorated with the initials, "R. G.," with homemade taffy candy and
chocolate fudge. The ranch girls had not invited their neighbors to
their Christmas eve party, but the cowboys who worked on their ranch
were coming up to the Lodge to wish them good luck.
Jack dropped down on the floor and deliberately began devouring the
fudge from a big China dish. "Don't work too hard, Olive," Jack
insisted, reaching up to pop a piece of candy into Olive's mouth.
"Remember you are not very strong yet."
Olive only laughed. She was a little paler than when she first came to
the ranch in the early autumn, but her eyes were serene and untroubled
and she looked far less timid and shy. Since finding her mother's
picture in the possession of old Laska, Olive felt that she was more
like the other girls and the thought that old Laska had any real claim
on her, no longer worried her.
"This isn't very hard work, Jack," Olive replied gaily. "And there is
still a lot for us to do to be ready for to-night. Just think, this will
be the first real Christmas tree I have ever seen!"
"Well, we won't have so much work to do, Olive, if Jack eats all the
candy," Jean remarked severely. "And Jack, perhaps if you would help
Frieda and Olive, instead of talking so much, they wouldn't have such a
lot to do."
Jack flung a cotton snowball at Jean. "Bear with me, sweet coz," she
pleaded cheerfully. "I don't know just why, girls, but I feel so kind of
happy to-day, that I suppose I am silly. I believe all the clouds have
passed over our benighted heads and the Rainbow Arch of Promise is just
over the Lodge."
Jean pointed scornfully to the winter landscape outside the window.
"It looks rather like we might have a rainbow after the summer shower:
don't you think so, Olive?" she inquired. But she bent over and crowned
Jack with a wreath of silver tinsel and went on with her work, smiling
as though she had more faith in Jack's prediction than she cared to
confess.
"Ah, Jean," Jack went on, "don't you know there is a legend that
somewhere there is a wonderful land where all the rainbows that have
ever been or ever will be, drift to and fro, like beautiful colored
flowers? Perhaps one of these rainbows will find us to-night in spite of
the weather." Jack's face softened at her own pretty fancy.
All day the girls worked and whispered and laughed. Ruth and Jean and
Jack decorated the great Christmas tree. The gifts were piled up under
the tree, for nothing was to be allowed to mar the perfect whiteness of
its decorations. Only Ruth's presents were to be given just before
supper time. She insisted that this was absolutely necessary, or else
they would lose half their value.
When Jack came into her room at about five o'clock to get ready for the
evening, she saw what Ruth had meant. Lying on the foot of her bed was
the prettiest dress Jack had ever owned in her life. It was very simple,
of a soft white material like crêpe, with a lovely band of silver
embroidery about the low, square neck and around the waist and skirt.
Jean was busy in the kitchen. But Jack saw that her dress was of
delicate, pink cashmere, the color Jean most loved.
Jack slipped into her costume very quickly and stole softly into the
great closed living-room, thinking she would find Ruth there. She had no
idea how beautiful she looked.
The room was empty. The pine tree stood in one corner, lifting its noble
green branches hung in dim festoons and covered with myriads of small
white candles. It was quite dark. Only the fire, that never went out all
winter long at the Lodge, flickered and danced and threw fantastic
shadows over the girl who was standing near the Christmas tree.
Jack's eyes were misty as she gazed about her. Her loves were not so
very many, but they were deep and strong. She cared for the old ranch
house more than most girls would for a fairy palace.
Suddenly Jack heard a stamping on the porch just outside the front door
and Shep's quick bark. She ran swiftly to open it. She supposed Jim had
come up to the house earlier than he had promised. But it was dark and
the glare of the snow for a moment blinded her.
Frank Kent held out his hand. "May I come in, Miss Ralston?" he asked.
"I know it's late, but I have tramped all the way over here and it's
taken a long time. I want to tell you something and I want to say
good-bye."
Jack hurried Frank in near the fire. He had been to the Lodge once since
Olive was found, but the girls had not seen or heard of him in several
days.
Jack lit the candles on the mantelpiece and then turned to smile at her
guest. Frank stared at her boyishly and then: "Gee, Miss Ralston," he
exclaimed. "If you don't mind my saying it, you look perfectly ripping!"
But Jack was regarding Frank anxiously. He had a deep and rather
unbecoming bruise over one eye and the other side of his face was
somewhat swollen.
"What on earth is the matter with you, Frank, Mr. Kent, I mean?" Jack
demanded. "You look like you had been in a fight." And Jack laughed at
the thought of so well-bred a fellow as Frank Kent engaging in such a
small-boy occupation.
"I have. That is what I came over to tell you about." Frank replied.
"That is, I didn't come to tell you about the fight, but of something
that led to it. I shall not go back to the Norton ranch again. I am
through with those people forever." Frank dropped into a chair which
Jack drew forward. "You see, Miss Ralston, it's like this. I have been
knowing for some time that Dan Norton, Jr., was a cad, and I have had a
good many scores to settle with him. But I didn't know that he and his
father were thieves until to-day. I happened to be in the room next Mr.
Norton's study, when I heard Dan and the old man talking about your
ranch. I don't say I actually hurried away, but I wasn't going to
eavesdrop. Just as I started to clear out, however, I overheard Mr.
Norton say: 'Well, we've fixed them good and plenty, haven't we, Dan,
Jr. Rainbow Ranch is the same as ours! I tell you might is right in this
country, my lad.' I kind of stopped then, Miss Jack," Frank added. "I
didn't exactly like the sound of what Mr. Norton said."
Jack had come close to Frank, but her hands were clasped behind her to
hide her impatience. "Do go on, please," she urged breathlessly.
"Then Dan answered: 'You are sure right, Father. We are going to prove
that Rainbow Ranch belongs to us a whole lot easier than if it really
did.' I heard just exactly those words. Miss Ralston," Frank remarked,
quietly. "And I am ready to swear to them in any court of law."
"Oh-h," Jack bit her lips to hide their trembling and a hot color
flooded her face. "What did you hear next?" she pleaded. "Do go on."
"I didn't hear anything more," Frank answered. "I marched into their
study and told Mr. Norton and Dan exactly what I thought of them. Then
Dan and I got to using some language and we rather broke up the
furniture for a while. Of course I can't stay in the house of a man whom
I know to be a rogue. But will you tell your overseer, Mr. Colter, that
I won't get too far out of this neighborhood to appear when your suit
about the ownership of Rainbow Ranch comes into court." Frank looked
around for his hat. "I hope you will have a very happy Christmas," he
said. He held himself so erect, with a dignity of grace and breeding
such as Jack had rarely seen. Before Jack realized what was happening,
Frank was out of the room.
For the second time in their acquaintance, she ran after him. This time
she put her hand on his and fairly dragged him back with her.
"Oh, please, please don't go. You must stay and have Christmas at the
Lodge with us," Jack entreated. "We have plenty of room and we would so
love to have you. Do wait here until I go and find Cousin Ruth, I know
she will be more apt to persuade you to stay."
Needless to say, Cousin Ruth was successful and at eight o'clock, the
ranch girls, Cousin Ruth, Frank Kent, Jim Colter, Aunt Ellen, Uncle
Zack, and six bashful cowboys were gathered about the mammoth Christmas
tree.
Frieda was to light the candles. She looked like a plump little German
fairy in her new white frock, with her long braids of flaxen hair.
But Frieda could not reach up to the tall candles on the big tree and
she would not allow either Jim or Frank to lift her up.
On the largest chair in the room, Frieda could tiptoe up to almost the
tallest row of candles. But just under a little wax figure of the Virgin
and the Christ Child, Jean had set seven in a circle. These were the
topmost glory of the tree and Frieda's crowning ambition and were the
only candles she could not possibly reach from her chair.
The little Christmas-eve girl slipped onto the floor, and before any of
the men in the room guessed what she was after, dragged out from the
book shelves an immense old law book, bound in worn brown leather.
Frieda started gallantly across the room with it. But it dropped from
her small hands and scattered yellow parchment leaves over the floor.
The back of the book ripped off and Frieda held only the leather cover.
Out of this, from a kind of inner pocket, a folded sheet of paper
fluttered and fell at Frieda's feet.
The company crowded to the rescue. Blonde heads and brown heads bumped
into each other in picking up the leaves. Frieda started to the fire
with the old book cover and the folded paper. She gave them both a toss
toward the flames, but the paper fluttered back to her feet.
Frieda laughed and picked it up again. "This paper won't be burned up,
Jack," she exclaimed. "Let's light it in the Christmas candles."
Jack caught Frieda's hand. "May I look at it, dear?" she asked gently.
Frieda consented to have Frank lift her to the row of lights on top of
their Christmas tree. Jim was talking to Cousin Ruth, Jean was
distributing boxes of candy, and it was Olive who put her arm around
Jack.
"What is it, dear? What has happened?" she whispered. "Are you glad or
sorry over something?" It was no wonder Olive asked. Jack's eyes were
streaming in tears, but under them shone a kind of radiance. Her face
was white one minute and then glowed with a beautiful rose color.
"Oh, I am so happy, happy, Olive!" she cried, throwing her arms around
Olive and forgetting the rest of the company. "See, we have the most
wonderful Christmas gift. Frieda has found our deed to Rainbow Ranch! I
believe somehow that Father sent it to us to-night."
But Jim and Cousin Ruth and everybody in the room had heard Jack.
Jim lifted Jack up in the chair, which Frieda had given up. She waved
her wonderful paper before her friends. The cowboys broke into a
prolonged cheer. The girls cried a little, because they couldn't help
it. Jim suddenly looked ten years younger and what he whispered to
Cousin Ruth, no one ever knew, but she blushed and shook her head.
"Do let's dance or do something, quick!" Jean exclaimed, "or I simply
can't bear it." She ran over to the piano. But at this moment sleigh
bells sounded outside and a pair of horses could be heard stamping on
the frozen ground. Then another sleigh followed and the wide hall of
Rainbow Lodge was quickly crowded with Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, Harry
Pryor, Laura, who for once looked friendly, and all the neighbors of the
ranch girls for miles around.
"Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide,
Though wind may follow and snow beside,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide."
Harry Pryor sang the first verse of the old Christmas carol alone.
Before he had finished Jean was playing the air softly on the piano and
all the guests joined in the second verse.
"Here we stand in the snow and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away, you to greet,
You by the fire and we in the street,
Bidding you joy in the morning."
"How did you know, Aunt Sallie? How could you have come to congratulate
us at just the right moment?" Jack inquired with a puzzled frown, as she
helped Mrs. Simpson out of her wraps. "We only found it about a minute
before."
"Found what?" Mrs. Simpson demanded curiously. But the next instant she
put her comfortable arms about Jack and hugged her with all her might.
"Of course we didn't know you had found your deed to Rainbow Ranch,
child," Aunt Sallie exclaimed. "We came over because we were afraid you
might not be happy this Christmas. We wanted you to know that we all
meant to stand by you. I don't think there is anything in this State
that we have a better right to be proud of than our ranch girls," and
Aunt Sallie choked a little with mixed emotions.
Jack laughed gaily. "You are a dear, Aunt Sallie," she answered
gratefully. "I don't know why you should be proud of us. But anyhow, it
is lots of fun to be a Ranch Girl."
The Ranch Girls Series.
The story of the four Ranch Girls is plainly just beginning. Girls so
entirely unlike in temperament and ideals, as Jack, Jean, Olive and
Frieda, cannot fail to lead lives that will develop in interest. In the
second volume in the Ranch Girls Series, which will be entitled, "The
Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold," they have even more unusual experiences and
adventures and are brought into closer contact with the real life of the
West. It isn't possible to tell exactly what the Ranch Girls will do in
this second book, but it is safe to promise that it will be something
even more original and full of delightful opportunity, than running a
ranch.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Text uses both some one and
someone.
Page 40, "timew anted" changed to "time wanted" (same time wanted to)
Page 62, "franticall yout" changed to "frantically out" (frantically out
the window)
Page 91, "Pryer" changed to "Pryor" (special friend, Harry Pryor)
Page 178, "creek" changed to "Creek" (Rainbow Creek lay on)
Page 241, "seemes" changed to "seems" (it seems almost foolish)
Page 268, "we" changed to "me" (telling me where this)
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge, by
Margaret Vandercook
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