open quote
OUR caravan looks like the real thing, doesn't it, Jim?" Jean exclaimed, balancing herself insecurely on the front wheel of a mammoth wagon and peering over inside it at a tall figure under the cover. "Do you think we will be able to get off this afternoon?"
Jim Colter climbed wearily out and sat on the driver's seat, surveying his questioner gloomily. "Don't you think you might go in the house and dress or fix your hair or something?" he asked. "You have asked me twenty questions in the last ten minutes, and I might be working in the time it takes to answer you. We are going to get away from this ranch to-day if it's dark before we start. It's awful with those Harmons, and you and Jack sleeping at the rancho, and Olive and Frieda and Miss Ruth crowded into one bedroom at the Lodge. I don't see why they couldn't have stayed away from here untilafter we had gone. They have nearly pestered the life out of me, and now what do you think is the latest?"
Jim lit a cigar about half a foot long, so it occurred to Jean that he must intend to continue the conversation with her for at least a few minutes. She caught hold of Jim's hand and swung herself up into the seat beside him.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning, ten days after the ranch girls' trip to Laramie. The caravan for their journey to the Yellowstone Park was standing alongside the road midway between Rainbow Lodge and the rancho, where Jim lived. It was a comfortable distance from the Lodge, because Jim preferred any amount of labor in carrying the girls' belongings from their house to the wagon to being compelled to exchange fashionable conversation with the Harmon family and to answer their tenderfoot questions about the affairs of the ranch. Near Jean's and Jim's novel traveling coach, four rough, short-legged ponies and four larger horses tethered to short ropes were quietly grazing. The scene suggested a circus resting for a short time before starting on its travels. The troupe of actors at present included onlyJean and Jim, but the circus appeared to be a new and stylish one, for "Mrs. Jarley's" famous caravan was not more spick and span and less like a gypsy cart than the little house on wheels belonging to the ranch girls. Instead of being covered with an ordinary white canvas top, the canopy over the largest of the ranch mess-wagons was made of new, strong and serviceable golden-brown waterproof khaki. The expedition into wonderland was to have a strictly military appearance, for the five girls were to wear service uniforms of the same material.
"Well, what's the latest, Jim?" Jean inquired coaxingly, crossing her feet and slipping her arm through her companion's. She was feeling a little sore, for Olive and Jack had gone off driving with Elizabeth and Donald Harmon without asking her to go with them, as the cart held only four people. So Jean was rather glad to gossip about the newly arrived family.
Jim frowned darkly in answer to Jean's question. "Well, the first thing—that Harmon fellow marched himself down to the rancho this morning before any of you girls were up and invited me to let him go along on our trip, if you would give your consent.I told him I wasn't thinking of running a co-educational excursion party; my job was to look after girls, not boys." Jim took another long, slow puff at his cigar and was silent.
"Do go on, Jim," Jean urged, giving him a friendly nudge. "You know Donald Harmon said something else that made you cross."
"Oh, no, except he asked such an all-fired lot of questions," Jim answered. "I didn't see his game at first; he kind of led up to it by degrees. But he wanted to know how long Olive had been living with us and how you girls happened to adopt her and what made her own people give her up. When I found out what he was after I didn't give him the least bit of information. I hate a Paul Pry."
Jean laughed lightly, "Oh, it isn't just curiosity on Donald Harmon's part, Jim. Of course, you and Jack would scorn to notice it, but Donald has a crush on Olive. I have seen it from the first. Olive don't like him a bit, but he is always staring at her."
Jim threw away his half-finished cigar. "Look here, Jean Bruce, will you please stop talking about crushes and such nonsense?" he remarked sternly. "I never hear any of theother girls talking such foolishness, and I think Miss Ruth ought to see that you put a stop to it. I mean to speak to her about it."
"Grouchy," Jean whispered under her breath, then her eyes sparkled wickedly. "Here comes Ruth now; I'll run and tell her that you want to complain of the way she is bringing me up." Jean slid down over the wagon wheel out of the reach of Jim's restraining fingers, and he retired into the covered depth of the wagon, pretending not to have observed Miss Drew's approach. However, Jean fled past her chaperon without a word and only a mischievous nod of her head.
Ruth was walking down the road from the Lodge, already dressed for the journey. Little blonde Frieda was on one side of her and little brown Carlos on the other, and all of them had their arms loaded with bundles. Ruth wore a short, plaited skirt which showed her pretty feet clad in high, brown leather boots. A Norfolk jacket, a tan silk blouse and a soft brown felt hat completed her costume. Somehow she seemed to have lost ten years of her age and looked about eighteen. There was no trace of the maidenlyprimness that had been so conspicuous in the early days of her stay at the Rainbow Ranch. Her figure was pretty enough for a model in a fashion paper; her ash-brown hair and eyes that had once seemed plain when her skin was sallow, now had a picturesque charm of their own. Ruth's coloring suggested Burne-Jones' pictures of English women, with the same dull, even tones in their hair and eyes, and their clear, pallid skins warmed by an inner glow.
Frieda's going-away suit was also khaki and made in exactly the same style as the other girls'. She was too funny in it, with her plump body and fat legs. But her eyes under her plain felt hat were bluer than myrtle and her cheeks pinker than a rose.
Of the trio approaching the apparently empty caravan, only Carlos' expression was serious. A kind of inner rapture transfigured even his Indian solemnity. To be in the wilderness again and this time not with a roving Indian camp, but with "The Big White Chief," which was his name of Jim, and "The Princess," his title for Olive—the soul of the lad was filled to overflowing. Therefore, since an Indian must never show an emotion of joy or sorrow, Carlos wasmore silent than ever. No wonder Frieda had lately found him a dull playmate, but then he filled one requirement—he was a good listener. So, on the whole, she was glad he was to be a member of their expedition though she could fancy a companion.
"Oh, Mr. Colter," Ruth's voice called, as she drew nearer the caravan, "if you are not too busy here are a few more things you might put in the wagon for us. We saw you hide a few minutes ago."
Jim stuck his head out and tried to look as severe as possible, though his companions were not of the kind one could easily treat with severity.
"Miss Drew," he said sternly, "if I had known what you girls were going to take on this trip I should never have consented to run it. I lie awake nights wondering how four horses are going to pull such a load, seven people and all this truck," Jim groaned. "I'm glad we've got two extra pack horses and two ponies for riding."
Ruth laughed, not in the least disturbed by Jim's complaints. "Please come down out of the wagon, Mr. Colter, and go attend to the last things on the ranch. We are to have an early lunch so we can start soonafter. I know I won't have the least trouble in finding a place to store away these things."
Jim crawled out submissively, lifting Frieda and Ruth into the van; then, after Carlos climbed in, he left them.
The three newcomers stood silent for a moment inside their caravan, speechless with satisfaction, as they surveyed the interior beauty and trimness of their equipage. The frame that supported the khaki cover of the wagon had been made by a cowboy on the ranch who had formerly been a carpenter. He had fashioned two small windows, one on either side, and at these windows Ruth had hung white muslin curtains. Outside the canopy toward the front of the wagon were two broad seats, each capable of holding three persons and shut off from the back by a heavy khaki curtain, while under the canopy were two long benches to rest the travelers by day and to serve Jim and Carlos for beds by night.
Suitcases and boxes were stored under the benches and seats, blankets and pillows were rolled tight and crammed into every available space. From a nail in the frame of the wagon hung a large mirror which Jean insisted upon bringing, completely surroundedby pots and pans and important kitchen utensils. There was no great store of provisions; as the caravaners trusted to their guns and fishing tackle for game and fish, and intended to restock their larder in the towns along their route. A plan of campaign had been drawn up and solemnly agreed upon—the five girls were to do the cooking, Jim to look after the horses and set up the sleeping tent, and Carlos to fetch wood and water and teach them all he knew of the lore of the great outdoors.
Ruth saw that everything in the little house on wheels was in shipshape order for their start before she and the children returned to the Lodge to see if Olive and Jack were at home.
The two girls had been driving around the Rainbow Ranch with Donald and Elizabeth Harmon the greater part of the morning. From the hour of Elizabeth's arrival at the Lodge the day before she had not been willing to let Jack out of her sight. It was very trying, as Jack longed to help with the last preparations for their departure, but, faithful to her promise, with Olive's assistance she was showing off the place, driving an old plough horse hitched to a low yellow cart,which Mr. Harmon had sent from town for his daughter. There was no pony yet safe to use with Elizabeth. They rode along on the far side of Rainbow Creek, the ranch girls pointing out the best fishing pools to Donald and showing him the trails that led to different parts of the ranch. Near the middle of the creek and in sight of the big rock where "Gypsy Joe" had been seen making his investigations, Elizabeth insisted she was tired and they must stop for her to rest. Donald lifted her out and she sat down on the trunk of an old tree with Olive, while Jack and Donald walked a few yards farther on, leaving their horse to wait patiently for them.
"I am going to show you a discovery, Mr. Harmon," Jack declared in a friendly fashion, anxious to make their new acquaintance feel at home. "Years ago I found a secret trail along here which no one knew of. It leads from this thick underbrush." Jack got down on her knees before a clump of bushes and parted them. Sure enough there was the beginning of an overgrown path which the eye could follow for a short distance. "I found this trail one day when I was a little girl playing over here with Jean and Frieda,"she explained, "and I went on and on for miles until I came to a cave in some rocks, where some settlers had once lived. Jim Colter believes the path was made by gold seekers who came to get water from Rainbow Creek. Some of our other men claim they were searching for gold in our creek."
At this moment Elizabeth's impatient voice was heard, and Jack and Donald went back to her, but not before Donald had made up his mind to investigate the mysterious path pointed out to him. He meant to find out whether an eastern tenderfoot could be trusted to find his way along those first trails which the earliest pioneers had left.
Olive had been amusing Elizabeth by carving on the stump of a tree an Indian design, a perfect square cut into four equal parts, representing the direction of the four winds. Now Elizabeth insisted that they write their names in the spaces to show the bond of friendship between them. Neither Jack nor Olive wished to promise their friendship so readily to comparative strangers, yet neither of them knew how to deny the sick girl's whim. So the compact was made before they returned home.
Ruth and the girls were to have their lastluncheon with Mr. and Mrs. Harmon at the Lodge; Jim was not to be with them, as he scorned to have anything to do with the strangers. The last course had been served and they were just getting up from the table when a long, clear call was heard. The five ranch girls sprang instantly to their feet and began to gather up their coats and last remaining parcels. On the front porch farewells were said to Mr. and Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth and to Aunt Ellen and Uncle Zack. The old woman, who was to stay to look after the newcomers with her husband's help, had her apron over her head and refused to be comforted; Uncle Zack was equally depressed, realizing the loneliness and longing for the girls that they would soon feel.
Five khaki figures now sped down the road toward the caravan with Donald, who was trying to assist with the bundles. Seated in the driver's seat, with Carlos next him, and cracking a long whip, was Jim Colter. Every speck of his grouchiness had disappeared; his eyes were as shining and his lips as smiling as Frieda's.
"Good-by, Mr. Harmon," Jack said, smiling half sadly at Donald. "Please take good care of things for us at the ranch. I feelalmost like a traitor in turning my back on my home."
Donald laughed. "Oh, don't worry," he answered kindly. "You will find things just as you left them when you get back. You know we want to borrow, not to steal your place." And for some reason neither Jack nor Donald ever forgot his words.
The horn sounded again; Jim turned his horses with their noses toward the western sun, when suddenly there was a loud clanging from the great bell that hung in front of the rancho to summon the cowboys from across the fields. Six cowboys rode in toward the caravan in as many different directions. As the big wagon wheels crunched in the sand with the pack-horses trailing behind and Olive's and Jack's ponies alongside, the six cowboys formed a semicircle, the emblem of the Rainbow Ranch, and cracking their whips in unison let out a tremendous yell. It was the call the Indians use before going into battle and it might have frozen the blood of the uninitiated, but the ranch girls knew it meant good luck and went away with the sound ringing in their ears.
The caravan party did not feel they had started on their journey until they crossedthe border of their own ranch. The land beyond was familiar enough, but this afternoon it was invested with a new charm. It was a new world, because they had set out on a voyage of discovery, so it was disenchanting when they had ridden a few miles beyond their own place to discover another caravan, smaller and far shabbier than theirs, but still a caravan, drawn up by the side of a solitary tree along the road. A ragged girl nursing a baby was resting in the grass and an old woman was bending over a freshly lit camp-fire. There was no man in sight, but Jim recognized the wayfarers with a sudden tightening of his lips before any one of the girls spoke.
"Why, there are our gypsies!" Jean declared lightly. "And, Ruth, there is the old woman who told us our fortunes. She said you were going on a journey, and sure enough you are! I wonder if any other of her predictions will come true. She told us such a jumble of things and most of it was such utter nonsense that I can't remember half of them."
Ruth leaned over toward the front seat: "Have you any idea why those people are staying around in this neighborhood, Mr.Jim?" she asked, using her new name for him for the first time.
"No," Jim answered truthfully, beaming approval of his title.
An hour or so afterwards Jack and Olive were riding ahead of the wagon looking for a suitable place to strike camp for the night. There was no water near, but a tiny clump of trees offered a certain shelter, and they went toward it. From a cluster of bushes a western bluebird, which is bluer than all others, rose up and soared over the girls' heads, homing toward its nest in the trees. It was a wonderful darting ray of splendid color against the orange glow of the setting sun.
Olive clapped her hands softly. "O Jack, do let's get Jim to pitch our tent here for the night. That was a bluebird that flew across our path, and it's a good omen: 'the bluebird for happiness'—don't you remember the play Ruth read us?"
FOR a week the caravan party moved on. They had gotten away from the railroad and were following an ancient trail which wound southward to the timber-lands of the Yellowstone, passing through valleys and canyons and over upland summits, now faint and grass-grown, now lost in the sand drifts, but always reappearing and always re-discovered by Jim's trained eyes. The journey across the state was to last several weeks, and the caravaners were in no hurry to accomplish it.
One morning Ruth came to the tent door, dressed before any of the girls. She stood for a moment looking about her and then waved her hand to Jim, who was chopping a big log of wood that Carlos had dragged into the camp the night before. "Mr. Jim," she called, "do you think there is any special need of our traveling to-day? The girls and I have been talking things over and wethink that we and the horses need a rest. This is such an enchanting place, anyhow, I feel this morning I would like to spend my life here."
Jim stalked over to the tent, with his face as radiant as the morning. He had his arms full of wood, and the string of shining fish over his shoulder showed that he had been up and at work for several hours. "Sure," he agreed heartily. "I'd like nothing better than to loaf a while in this part of the country. I've got some harness to mend and a lot of odd jobs to do, and this is sure the prettiest spot we've seen."
The wagon and horses were a little distance from the ranch girls' tent, but still in plain view. The tent was at the head of a silver stream that ran like a ribbon through a green oasis of "gramma" grass. In the distance rocks that looked like battlements rose on either side of a deep gorge, and dimly seen farther on were hoary old mountain tops with their peaked caps of snow.
Ruth laughed. "An honest confession is good for the soul, isn't it? I should have told you that my real reason for not wishing to move on to-day is that I simply have got to do some housekeeping. My New Englandsoul is racked by the way our pots and pans are looking, and Jean says if she doesn't have a chance to wash the sand out of her hair she will have to cut it off and wear a wig. If you'll make up the fire for me, I'll get breakfast in a minute; the girls already are starving."
"Then why don't one of them come out and help you cook?" Jim demanded autocratically. "I'm plumb afraid they are putting too much of the work on you."
"Injustice, thy name is Jim Colter!" Jack exclaimed at this minute, appearing before the fire with a sleepy look in her gray eyes, and a coffeepot in her hand. "I told Ruth I'd get breakfast this morning, so run away, Ruthie, and help Frieda find her clothes; she is in the depth of despair about one of her shoes. And tell Jean and Olive they must set the table."
Jim swung his fish before Jack's delighted eyes. "I'll cook these, Missie," he said calmly. "I don't believe I care to trust you."
"All right. I'll fry the bacon to go with them," Jack returned in her most professional cook manner. "I like the odor of bacon these mornings in camp better than any flower that blooms. Isn't it great thatwe have had a whole week of perfect sunshiny weather?"
The camp breakfast did not take much more than half an hour to get, though it was a pretty substantial meal. Coffee and chunks of toasted bread, fish, bacon, marmalade and jam, and this morning fresh water from the near-by spring, formed the menu. It took quite as long to eat, however, as the most elaborate repast served by a fashionable New York hotel. Jim moved over a little nearer the fire to be farther away from the girls when he finished. He got out his favorite pipe and tenderly snuggled the tobacco into it, and Jack saw the thought of the day's chores fade gently from his mind and a reminiscent light come into his eyes. Ruth was no longer overcome by household cares. The day stretched on before them, apparently an endless chain of golden opportunities to do nothing.
"I was around in this neighborhood once before," Jim remarked casually. This was as near as Jim had ever gotten to being confidential, and Jean and Jack exchanged glances.
"What were you doing here, Jim?" Jack queried, trying to make her voice appear perfectly indifferent.
Jim hunched his big shoulders and took a long puff at his pipe. "I was prospecting for gold, same as every other young idiot that ever came west not knowing a lump of gold from a chunk of mud when he found it," he returned calmly. "There are three little pine cone hills a matter of ten miles from here, with an ugly stream of water and a group of trees near them, where I believe I had a claim located once, a good many moons ago."
"And you never told us a word about it. Jim Colter, you are a pig!" Jean declared inelegantly.
"There wasn't nothing to tell, Jean," Jim replied in his usual slow, indifferent manner. "Just another fellow and I saw a hill with some bits of black rock with yellow streaks in it, and we dug away for a couple of months without getting anything out of it but trouble."
"Jim, I don't believe there wasn't gold in your mine," Jean declared resolutely. "You just gave up too soon."
"All right, Miss Bruce," Jim agreed. "You can have my claim if you want it. Come to find out, we weren't the first and I don't reckon we were the last fellows to go digging in that hill. It's called 'Miner's Folly', andis about as gloomy a looking hole as anybody ever saw."
"I'd like to see the place awfully, Jim," Jack suggested eagerly.
"Don't doubt it for a moment, Jack," Jim returned unwinkingly.
Jack whispered something in Jean's ear. "I'll do no such thing, Jack Ralston," Jean replied firmly. "Remember, yesterday you were awfully selfish about letting me have my turn at riding horseback with Olive. I told you then I shouldn't do the next favor you asked me and I certainly don't mean to wear myself out on such a tramp. Besides, Jim wouldn't think of taking you."
"Wouldn't you, Jim?" Jack pleaded meekly.
Jim appeared to have no ears.
Jack slipped around by the fire and dropped a few pine cones on it.
"Wouldn't you kind of like to see that old mine you deserted, Jim?" Jack queried. "Suppose there is any change in it? Maybe it has turned out to be a really valuable claim since your day and you have never heard of it."
Jim shook his head, but Jack saw that she had lighted the fires of desire in his soul. "Maybe I will walk over toward the oldspot just to see what the scenery is like, when I finish my work," Jim admitted, a few minutes later, and his admission spelt defeat.
An hour after, Jim Colter and Jack Ralston set out with their rifles over their shoulders and their pockets stuffed with provisions, to find Jim's unlucky mine. Little brown Carlos followed them like a persistent, though distant shadow. He had been ordered by Jim to stay near the tent, water the horses and make himself generally useful, for Jim did not believe that he and Jack could get back from their fool's errand before bedtime. Of course, Jim did not consider that the girls he left behind would get into danger or mischief in his absence, or he would never have gone; but they had met with no rough characters on their journey and the country seemed perfectly safe. Neither Ruth nor Olive nor Jean objected to being left alone; indeed, they were rather glad to get rid of the man of their party for a little while. Ruth was worried only for fear Jack would get overtired from her long walk; she did not dream that any other trouble might befall her with Jim as her escort.
"Slow but sure, Jack. Remember, you promised to trust to my judgment on thistrip," Jim suggested kindly, when after several miles of travel Jack showed no signs of fatigue.
"All right, I remember," Jack answered obediently. "Let's sit down."
The two travelers had reached the deep gorge which they had seen from their tent, and Jim recalled that the trail to the old mine had followed this ravine for a part of the way and then branched off across country to the west.
Jack's sudden backward glance caught sight of a moving figure behind them. In a moment she recognized Carlos and wondered what Jim would say to him, for she knew he could be pretty fierce and savage when he was disobeyed.
"There's Carlos," Jack pleaded meekly; "don't be hard on him."
"I've known he was after us for the last half hour," Jim replied curtly. "Carlos, come here."
Carlos had been creeping along through the grass in Indian fashion, but now he straightened up his lithe body and came straight toward Jim. Jack knew he was horribly frightened and so she couldn't help but admire the boy's sudden grip on himself.He looked straight into the "Big White Chief's" eyes; only once his eyelids twitched.
"Why did you come with us when I said stay behind?" Jim demanded quietly with his own peculiar sternness.
The boy hesitated; but an Indian does not lie to his friends. "I heard you speak of the cave of the never-found gold," Carlos answered simply. "The Indians of the plains now know the value of the white man's gold. Often have I followed them into the desert to search for it in vain. For nothing else would I leave the women whom you gave me to tend, but I too must see the place of which you speak."
Jim groaned, and Jack laughed lightly. "Come on, Carlos," she said kindly. "Partner," she turned to Jim, "no matter what happens from this day's outing, remember you are responsible for planting the gold microbe in Carlos and me." For the rest of their tramp Jack could not but amuse herself, whenever her companions were silent, with wild dreams of what joy it would be for them to come across a gold mine and get suddenly very rich. She kept guessing and planning what she and the other girls would do. More than anything, she wished to playfairy godmother to the overseer of their ranch. During the week of their caravan trip, Jim had showed so plainly that only Ruth and Frieda were still unconscious of it, how much he cared for the ranch girl's chaperon. And Jack knew how little, except the strength of his love, he had to offer her. Jim had been running the Rainbow Ranch, receiving a salary so small for the value of his services that it made Jack blush to think of it.
Time after time had she begged him to manage the ranch on shares, but he had always refused, saying he had no need of money, and the place made only enough to pay expenses, take care of the girls, and put a little by for their futures. And Jim knew they would need more money some day if they were ever to see anything of the great world which lay outside their ranch lands.
Jim paid no heed to Jack's unnatural silence, for his mind was fixed on a discovery that absorbed his entire interest. Other travelers had lately crossed the trail which he and his companions were following. Footprints were fresh upon it, and in an out-of-the-way spot a tin can showed a bright new label. The footprints not only followed thepath along the side of the ravine, but marked the same track through the more open country. Without these signs, Jim knew he could never have traced the old trail so easily, yet he felt the gold prospector's hot glow of resentment—another man had located his claim. Then he smiled, remembering he had turned his back on it as no good, nearly fourteen years before. Without a word to his companions, however, he kept his eyes fastened steadfastly on the ground and his ears alert for every sound each step of the way, but no other human being appeared in the vast solitude. Once Jim and Jack sighted a covey of quail and killed half a dozen. Ruth and the other girls were willing to eat quail so long as they did not have to see them killed.
About three o'clock in the afternoon the travelers had their first vision of Jim's three pine cone hills with the stream of brackish water running down the side of one of them, and in the background a dense thicket of evergreens. Forgetting their tired feet, Jack and Carlos made a sudden rush, but Jim caught hold of them, making them keep close to his side until he saw the place was deserted. At last he brought them in breathless silence to a yawning cave in the middlehill. It was only a great, black hole, dull and uninteresting. Jack peered well into it for a sign of anything that sparkled or shone like a precious metal. It showed only a mixture of earth and stones and sand, and the whole place was so gloomy it gave her a shiver of apprehension. The sun was not so bright as it had been a short time before. Suddenly she felt cold and weary, though she could not explain the cause.
"It's a pretty dismal place, isn't it, Jim?" Jack said quickly. "I am awfully glad to have seen it of course, but I don't wonder you ran away. I am sure no gold could be discovered here." And the girl heaved a sigh of fatigue and disappointment. She was sure she had made the trip simply from idle curiosity, yet the chance of their finding a gold mine had been lurking in the back of her mind.
Jim was stalking about the deserted mine like a hound that had been given a scent. He had seen, not far from one of the hills, a piled-up heap of ashes, which showed that a fire had been built there within the past few days, and the rank grass in the vicinity pressed down by human bodies. Jack had picked up a tool from the earth immediatelyin front of the mine, and the tool had been lately used.
"Wait here for me, Jack," Jim suggested finally. "I know you are tired and need a rest before we start back. Carlos, look after Miss Jack and don't go out of sight. I want to explore the neighborhood a bit. I will not be long. Nothing will happen, but if you want me call out."
Jack paid no special attention to Jim's departure. She found a comfortable place, sat down and closed her eyes. How soon she fell asleep she did not know, but she heard no sound from Carlos when he slipped away into the woods back of them. Tempted by the possession of a new gun, the boy disobeyed a second time that day.
JACK sat up with a start. She had dozed only a few minutes, and felt indignant with Carlos when she found he also had deserted her. It was time they were starting back for camp. "Jim! Jim! Carlos!" she halloed, in half-hearted fashion; then she hugged her sweater closer about her, glad that Ruth had insisted on her wearing it, for as evening approached it was growing strangely cooler.
There seemed nothing to do that was interesting before her companions returned. Jack wandered idly to the edge of the pine woods behind the hills, but saw and heard nothing of Carlos; then she examined the small stream along one of the hillsides, knelt and scooped up a handful of water, putting it to her lips. It was salt as the Dead Sea, and must have made life doubly hard for the men who worked in "Miner's Folly," for they could hear its soft trickle by dayand night and yet never quench their thirst in its waters.
All this time Jack was thinking, not of what she was doing, but of the queer big hole in the side of the hill, that was like a wound. Irresistibly she was drawn toward it by an impulse of curiosity and dread. Jim had told her of no tragedies except disappointed hopes that were buried in the deserted mine, yet she felt that if the cavern could suddenly change into an open mouth it would have many strange stories to tell of lives and fortunes lost by its false lure.
Jack stared so hard into the entrance of the tunnel that it no longer seemed dark to her. She went into it a few feet and peered about her. Curiosity was one of the strongest traits of Jacqueline Ralston's character, not a girl's idle desire so much as a boy's firm determination to find out what things are like, and how they are accomplished. Jack had never seen a gold mine before, and she did not wish to tell the girls nothing except that it was a big hole in the earth. The mouth of the cave was uninteresting, so Jack lit a match and walked a few feet further in. On the ground were bits of broken stone which she stuffed in her pocket for Frieda,thinking she spied an odd glimmer in them. Although the main entrance to the mine was through a single opening, by the aid of her flickering light Jack saw that miners had pursued many dead lodes in the sides of the hill. This means they had dug tunnels wherever they hoped to follow a vein of gold, until the whole inside of the hill looked like a network of black passages.
It now occurred to Jack that Jim and Carlos must have returned and surely they would think the earth had opened and swallowed her, so out she crept into the daylight again. The place was still solitary and gloomy. "Jim! Jim! Carlos!" Jack cried aloud. There was no answer. If only she had waited five or ten minutes more before she started back into that gruesome cave. And yet, perhaps, the spirits of other adventurous natures were summoning her to follow them.
One passage was larger than the others. Jack certainly thought she saw stones that shone like gold lying near its mouth. It was separated from the main tunnel by a gully, across which some planks had been laid. With a lighted match in her hand and gazing upward, Jack stepped on the forward end of a plank. In a flash her light went outand she fell back with a heavy thud. Her weight on the loose plank had caused it to rise up, striking her in the forehead with terrific force. Fortunately, she had fallen clear of the gully, but her body lay in the shadow out of the reach of any light that might come from the mouth of the cave. She suffered no pain; the blow had been too swift and sure, stunning her into silence and complete unconsciousness.
"Oo! Ooo! Oooo!" Jim whistled through his fingers nearly a quarter of a mile away. "Cheer up, Jack, I'm coming at last," he shouted, a few yards farther on. His conscience had begun to trouble him, and he was quite prepared to find Jack cross at having been forced to wait for him more than half an hour. Jim had not consulted his watch at the moment of his departure, but he was fairly certain that he had been gone some time, and that they must hurry off at once if they were to be with Ruth and the girls by an early bedtime.
Jim whistled and called all the way to the three pine cone hills. He presumed he would have to make his peace with his companion by telling her that he had discovered other visitors to the old mine within a very shorttime. There were evidences of their presence everywhere in the vicinity, and they had not been idle curiosity seekers, but men with a mission. Whether they had given up the hunt for gold and gone away from the neighborhood of the mine for good, Jim could not tell. This was one of the reasons why he had prowled around so long. He had gone to all the likely spots near by, where a party of miners might be camping, thinking he might run across them, but not one of them had turned up.
Pretty soon, Jim discovered that Jack and Carlos were not in the spot where he left them, but he did not yet feel uneasiness. He circled around the three hills; he went a short distance into the thicket of pine trees, making as much racket as possible; he gave the long cowboy call of the Rainbow Ranch. And then Jim's blue eyes turned black with anger and his sun-tanned skin grew red. He was exceedingly angry with Jack and Carlos, he was frightened, and an inner voice reminded him that if anything had happened to them he was to blame for leaving them so long alone.
But what could have happened?—for no one else had come near the place.
Jim saw Jack's footprints leading to the entrance of the cave, but his own and the Indian boy's were alongside them, and as they had rushed to look in the mine the first moment of their arrival he did not think to search for fresh tracks. And yet, for an instant, Jim had an odd premonition urging him toward the deserted mine.
The wind was now blowing hard across the plains; and the sun was slipping down to the line of the far horizon, not in a crimson glow, but in a piled-up mass of smoke—gray clouds lit with flame-colored sparks. Jim watched it uneasily. A summer storm was coming up after their week of perfect weather, and Jack, who knew the signs of the weather as well as any backwoodsman, had probably set off with Carlos for their camp, expecting him to overtake them. There was no other explanation for their disappearance. Once Jim walked irresolutely toward the mouth of the mine; then he turned, quickly moving off along the trail, wondering how far his companions would be able to travel before he reached them. Within twenty yards he halted, swung himself about and, in spite of his worry and haste, strode back to the open mine, where he had once vainly tried to findhis fortune. Jim did not know exactly why he returned; he never dreamed that either Jack or Carlos could be inside, but he had to obey the impulse that first prompted him.
The great hole in the hillside was blacker than ever, and Jim felt a shudder of repulsion as he gazed into it. He had always hated his old subterranean existence of digging into the earth for her treasures, when everywhere on her broad plains the fruit and flowers and grasses offered an equal opportunity and a fuller and higher meaning to life.
"Jack! Jack!" Jim called weakly, down on his knees at the gaping mouth of the tunnel, trying to grow more accustomed to the darkness and crying Jack's name, not because he thought her near, but because he was filled with a vague foreboding.
There was no answer out of the grim darkness. Jack could give no sign of her presence, and the black shadow into which she had fallen hid the outline of her prostrate body.
Suddenly a boom of distant thunder sounded from the far side of the world, and Jim Colter sprang quickly to his feet, for he knew how swiftly storms travel across the western plains, and he feared Jack and Carlos might wait for him in the dangerous shelter of the trees.Faster than he had run in many a long day he left the neighborhood of the unlucky mine.
A little later Carlos appeared at the opening of the pine woods, his brown face scratched, his breath coming unevenly, with his gun on his square, lean shoulder, and a little bunch of a feathery or furry something tucked under his arm. He did not linger as Jim had; he believed at once that his companions had given him up, and sped on as fast as his weary brown legs could carry him along the path which had brought them to the place of the pine cone hills. Carlos had wandered too far into the woods and had lost his way, but now he hoped to overtake the other adventurers and in some way to make his peace.
When Jack opened her eyes it was nearly dark outside the mine as well as in. She lay quite still, feeling a dull pain in her head and an aching numbness in her body. "Olive! Jean! Ruth!" she called fretfully. "I'm ill. Why don't somebody come to me?" She thought she had wakened in the middle of the night in her bed at Rainbow Lodge. Poor Jack put out her hand to touch Jean, who usually slept with her, and her fingers closed on some loose mud and gravel. She held it for a moment and struggled to situp, but her head ached harder than ever, and she reached back to find her lost pillow. There was only the earth to touch again, and slowly her consciousness returned. Jack stumbled to her feet and made for the faint light at the tunnel entrance. She took a few uncertain steps and sank down in a little heap on the outside at the foot of one of the hills. Drops of rain were falling, and the wind whistled through the tops of the tallest pine trees and swirled around the crests of the lonely hills. "Jim! Jim! surely you haven't left me!" Jack cried aloud. She was not usually timid or nervous, but the deserted place had alarmed her when she came to it early in the afternoon. Now she was alone in it, and about to face a fierce summer storm. Dulled by the pain in her head and by hunger and thirst, for Jim had carried the food and water bottle away in his pockets, she was uncertain as to how she had come to the mine and whether she would ever be able to keep to the return trail.
Jack's face was white and her expression unusual, while just over her temple there was an ugly bruise, and she did not feel able to think clearly. Once she put her hand to her head and was surprised to find her hairdamp with wisps of wet curls streaking her forehead. Then she wondered what had become of her hat. An instant later she knew she had dropped it off her head when she fell inside the mine, but nothing would have induced her to go in again to find it. If Jim came back, perhaps he or Carlos would get it for her. Sometimes she was not certain of whether Jim and Carlos had just gone away for a few minutes or whether she had been waiting for them a great many hours. Then she pictured them back at their tent in the green place by the quiet stream, and wondered what they would do when she did not come.
It began to rain harder and faster in big pelting drops; lumps of hail beat down on Jack's shoulders and unprotected head. She ran to the woods to hide, but the place was so sodden and wet and ghostly in the twilight that she would not enter it. There was nothing to do but to try to find her way back to camp alone. Jack thought her head ached less and her decision a wise one. She did not realize that her friends could return to the old mine for her, but once missing the trail back to them she would be utterly lost in the wilderness. Jack recalled that several milesahead there was a deep gorge with high walls on either side of it, and that she and Jim and Carlos had followed a path at the side of this ravine for a part of their journey. She would strike out across the open country, feeling sure that its high walls could soon be seen rising like a wall of mist beyond the rain.
Flying along on feet unconscious of fatigue, fighting through the storm and darkness and calling aloud when she had the strength, in about an hour Jack reached the ravine. No actual sight of the trail had guided her, but an instinctive feeling for the right direction. Now she sat down for a few minutes in the shelter of an overhanging rock, hoping the storm would blow over or that Jim would find her. But the thunder crashed on, and the wind in the jagged rocks of the ravine moaned and sighed like lost souls wandering in the walled chambers of the canyons, crying for release. Had she ever been rash enough to say she loved the splendid western storms? Jack asked herself. Yes, even in her terror and loneliness she realized there was something magnificent and awe-inspiring in their sudden fury and abandon, as though nature, yielding to a burst of elemental passion,poured forth her anger on the earth in the sweeping rain and furious charges of electricity.
When half an hour passed, the young girl crept out of her hiding place. Perhaps the storm was less severe; anyhow, she would rather face any fate than remain in the gorge all night. It was now too dark to see anything except the vague outlines of rocks and bunches of low shrubs. For a moment Jack stood still, trying to remember whether she should turn to the right or left, and straining her eyes to catch sight of a familiar object that might help her to decide. Then she moved off in exactly the wrong direction, with each step getting farther and farther away from her friends and shelter.
Trained to a knowledge of animal life in the plains of the great West, Jacqueline knew the call of almost every wild beast that is still native to the uncivilized portions of the western states. After walking for another hour, a sound filled her with horror. It was the low cry of a cougar! A thicket of trees and underbrush bordered one side of her path; on the other, lay the deep hollow of the ravine. And it had just begun to dawn on Jack that she was going in the wrongdirection; she had passed by no such dense shrubbery in her morning journey. But this was not the time to turn back, nor must she show hesitation or fear, well knowing that the wild creature behind her would dog the footsteps of a solitary traveler, keeping only a short distance away, like a hungry wolf, and though a coward at heart, spring upon her if she showed weakness or defeat.
Digging her nails in the palms of her hands, Jacqueline crashed on, shouting when she could. A little while before, she had felt ill and deadly tired; now, forgetting both, her old courage revived. In the tragedies of the afternoon, her rifle had been forgotten and left outside the mine, but the big cat back of her would never dare attack her if she kept steadily on, frightening it by loud shouting and trampling.
How far Jack walked that night she never knew. There were times when the cougar kept back of her, then he seemed to be walking along by her side in the shelter of the thicket. Now and then Jack believed he slipped in front of her, crouching in a clump of underbrush, but she never once caught sight of the big furtive cat, though she was always conscious of the presence slinking nearher. If it is necessary to prove that the modern American girl still has the nerve and fortitude of her pioneer grandmother, Jacqueline Ralston proved it that night. Not for a moment did she falter in her long march in the darkness.
A few hours before daylight the rain suddenly ceased and the stars came out as though the storm had not interrupted the usual hour of their appearance. Now Jack could rest at last! Having come through the wooded place, her enemy no longer pursued her. There were no more rocks ahead. She had reached the end of the gorge; the country beyond was a well-nigh unbroken plain.
A few yards farther on the young girl spied, like a dim sentinel, the outline of a solitary tree with its close, low branches sweeping the ground. Even in the darkness of night she knew a comfortable shelter could be found in it, for its beautiful boughs extended in a solid mass of foliage from its crown to its base, so the rain could scarcely have soaked through them. Jack crawled into the cradle-shaped branches and lay down to wait for the dawn and whatever the new day might bring forth, wondering if she were too tired to care what happened to her or ifshe had earned any shadow of right to the title Carlos had once given her: "The Girl Who Was Never Afraid."
It never dawned on her that sleep could come; but before the lamps in the sky went out she had journeyed to that dim country where we find strength for the next day's need.
HARDLY had the three more adventurous members of the caravan party turned their backs on their wayside tent for their trip to the far-off gold mine, when Ruth, Jean, Olive and Frieda were seized with a furious attack of housewifely energy. Everything was routed out of the tent and wagon. A flapping line of blankets hung on Jim's best lasso, which was stretched from a tree to a tent pole. Then the girls collected their laundry and carried it down to the brook. The water of the stream was so clear that every pebble shone under it like a jewel, and the sand was as white as the sand of the sea. Over a shimmering pool a broad, flat rock formed a comfortable platform.
Jean and Ruth got down on their knees on this stone, swashing their clothes up and down and smearing them with big bars of soap, like the laundresses in Holland, untilthe clear water of the brook was a mass of iridescent soap bubbles.
Olive and Frieda rinsed and squeezed and spread the clothes out on the grass or hung them picturesquely over the low bushes. At the end of their labors, Frieda and Jean started a shadow dance with a big red tablecloth which Ruth had washed none too clean. Jean flapped it from one end, Frieda swirled it from the other; it flew up in the air like a redballoonand collapsed just as suddenly. Ruth and Olive rested in a patch of sunshine watching them. Suddenly Jean attempted to twist her unwieldy scarf into graceful curves about Frieda, but instead, tripped her up, and the little girl lay in a heap of helpless laughter on the grass. Straightway, Jean flung herself down beside her, beginning to unwind her long braids of hair.
"Ruth, make Frieda let me wash her hair," Jean urged. "She doesn't look like our pretty blond baby any more, but a poor, neglected 'orfling.' I am sure if she lies down flat on the rock, I can manage so she won't tumble into the brook."
Frieda crawled out of Jean's embrace, looking quite unresigned to the experience ahead of her. "You shan't do any suchthing, Jean Bruce," she protested; "you'll get gallons of soap in my eyes and make me all sandy."
Jean struck a dramatic attitude. "Frieda Ralston, if you will let me make you beautiful, I will give you all my share of the gold that Jim and Jack bring back from the mine," she exclaimed.
Frieda shook her head. "They won't bring any gold," she said firmly.
"But you'll feel lots better, Frieda," Ruth begged.
Frieda saw that the weight of opinion was against her, and, besides, she was vain of her hair and did wish it to look pretty again, so she gave ingraciously.
"All right, Jean, if you will ride horseback with me all day to-morrow and make Olive and Jack ride in the wagon, I guess I will let you," she conceded.
Jean had the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up past her dimpled elbows and the collar of her white blouse tucked in at the neck. She felt as much at home by the wayside pool as she did in Rainbow Lodge. Frieda was wrapped in a white towel like a shawl. Only once, toward the end of the washing operation, did she utter a squeal ofindignation, and Ruth and Olive immediately ran to her rescue.
"Jean's caught a minnow in my hair," she insisted wrathfully, with her face very red. "I saw the tiniest one sailing down the brook by me, and then all at once it disappeared, and I am sure I can feel it wriggling on my neck."
Ruth made a careful examination of the clean yellow hair before Frieda would be reconciled. Then she led the small girl away to a sunshiny spot, spreading her hair over her shoulders to dry, until she looked like the original "Miss Goldilocks" in the old fairy tale. Frieda was given a piece of scalloping, which she had been working on for weeks, to keep her quiet.
"Jean," Ruth called a minute later, "do you mind staying here with Frieda for a little while? Olive and I have to go foraging for some chips before we can make the fire burn for luncheon, naughty Carlos having deserted us. Do you think you can make yourself lovely and keep an eye on things at the same time?"
Jean nodded peacefully from her throne of rocks, though a minute before she had been hot from her exertions and angry at Frieda'singratitude. "Sure, as my name is Jean Bruce, I can," she answered cheerfully, letting down the masses of her dark-brown hair. She made such a pretty picture that Ruth watched her smilingly for a few minutes. She thought she loved all the girls alike now, but Jack and Olive were her friends and Jean and Frieda her children. She guessed her business of playing chaperon to the ranch girls would not be an easy one, if ever Jean got away from their western life into the gay society world of which she dreamed and talked.
But no frivolous ideas of a society existence now engaged Miss Bruce's attention, and she had no more idea of being disturbed than if she had been the original lady in the Garden of Eden. Jean was indeed the nut-brown maid of whom old-fashioned poets loved to write. Her hair had no golden tones in it; only the rich browns of the autumn woods, and her eyes matched it in color. She was paler than the other ranch girls, with a soft, healthy pallor, although to-day a little tanned and rosier than usual from her week's trip in the caravan.
Frieda glanced around to see Jean leaning over the water with her hair covering herface. It did not seem worth while to disturb her, so without a word, Frieda slipped away to their tent to search for more thread for her sewing.
Jean could not hear very well at this time had she spoken, for the brook made a roary, gurgling noise of its own in her ears, and her head swam from being held upside down so long.
"Crunch, crunch, crunch." Some one was marching along the side of the stream right in her direction. Jean did not trouble to take her hair out of the water or to look around. Of course it could be no one but Frieda!
"Well, I never in all my life!" she heard a perfectly strange masculine voice exclaim. "I know I have walked straight into fairy land, and you must be the queen who has brought all this magic to pass over night, for I passed this stream just two days ago and there wasn't a sign of a tent or a caravan or a princess anywhere around."
Jean flung back her long, brown hair with a gasp of sheer surprise, and the drops of crystal water showered around her like the diamonds that fell from the mouth of the good sister in the fairy story.
"I have been washing my hair," she announced to the strange youth, and then because her explanation was so obvious, they both laughed. "You see, I hadn't the faintest idea anybody could turn up in this wilderness except us," she explained, not very grammatically. "We are making a caravan trip through the state."
"I suppose I ought to say I am awfully sorry I intruded," the young fellow answered. "Of course, you know, I would say it if I had bobbed into a lady's boudoir unexpectedly, but I am so glad to see some one in this out-of-the-way place that I haven't a social fib at my disposal. Don't you think you could let me stop to rest and perhaps talk to you a few minutes?"
Jean drew herself up in an effort to look as dignified and unapproachable as she felt sure Jack and Olive would have done under the same circumstances. Far be it from either of them to engage in a friendly conversation with a stranger, even in a trackless waste; but to save her life Jean couldn't keep her eyes from shining mischievously. The water was trickling down her back until her shoulders were damp through her shirtwaist. Knowing she looked dreadfully foolish, shecould not make up her mind to do anything so unattractive as deliberately to squeeze the water out of her hair or roll up her head in a towel before this handsome young fellow.
He was somewhat older than Donald Harmon or Frank Kent, and his eyes were as blue and his hair as golden as Siegfried's, thought romantic Jean, if only he were dressed in a suit of silver armor instead of dust-covered corduroys. The traveler had a knapsack strapped over his shoulders and a gun in his hand; his whole appearance suggested a long tramp.
Jean gazed at him meaningly. Ordinary intelligence might suggest to him that he turn his back for a few minutes while she repaired her damaged toilet, but the young fellow evidently had no such amiable intention. He seated himself by the edge of the brook a few feet from Jean. "My name is Ralph Merrit. I'm a mining engineer," he announced briefly.
Jean slightly inclined her wet head. "If you don't mind, I must beg you to excuse me?" she returned as haughtily as even Jack could have desired. Suddenly she made up her mind to snub this uncomfortably stupid acquaintance. Off she marched in as statelya fashion as possible, when one considers her damp, flowing locks and the fact that she had to pick her way through their various articles of laundry spread on the grass.
Inside the security of the tent Jean rubbed her hair vigorously and waved it energetically through the opening at the door, so it might dry as soon as possible. Frieda stationed herself outside the tent so as to communicate all possible information about the intruder to Jean.
"Has he gone yet?" Jean inquired for the fifth time in ten minutes.
Frieda shook her head. "He isn't going for a long time, Jeanie, I believe," she returned. "He is sitting by our brook just as though he never means to leave it. Now he has gotten up and is drinking some water. Now he is washing his face," she whispered excitedly, "and is taking a mirror out of his pocket to prink."
Jean and Frieda giggled and Jean joined her little cousin out of doors. She had piled her hair in a loose, damp mass on top of her head, for she was now determined, with Frieda for a chaperon, gently but firmly to persuade the young man to leave their Adamless Eden.
"Oh," said Jean, as, holding fast to Frieda'shand, she got within speaking distance of the stranger, "are you still here?" As there was nothing in the world to interrupt Miss Bruce's vision of the young man, even if she had been hopelessly near-sighted, he was obliged to understand her meaning. Coloring hotly under his already rosy skin, he got up.
"I thought you wouldn't mind if I rested a bit," he explained. "I have been tramping around this neighborhood for the last two days and I was counting on slowing up when I got back to this place. I need to fill my water bottles. And look here, I wonder if you would give me something to eat. You don't know it, but it is a custom for travelers of the open road to help each other out."
Ralph Merrit knew he had never seen a girl whose expression changed as swiftly as Jean's. A minute before, her eyes had been cool and reserved, and now they were brimming pools of kindness.
"Oh, I am so sorry you are hungry. I'll get you something to eat right away," she replied sympathetically. "If you will stay until Cousin Ruth and Olive come back I know they will invite you to lunch. I am sure you will tell how you happened to turnup here, and, of course, I can see you are a gentleman," she ended.
Ralph's face flushed gratefully, "You are awfully kind," he murmured, and then all at once Frieda saved the situation from further embarrassment. Suddenly she thrust into the young man's hand a large, red apple and a cracker, which she had concealed in her apron pocket. She had been foraging on her own account inside their tent, but had forgotten her provisions in the interest of Jean's discovery.
Ten minutes later Ruth and Olive appeared on the scene, swinging a large basket of chips and pine cones between them. In amazement they set down their basket and stared at a three cornered group composed of Jean, Frieda and a strange young man, seated comfortably on the ground, laughing and talking and lunching on their best jam and pickles and bread.