RALPH MERRIT explained his unexpected appearance to Ruth in a far more conventional fashion than Jean had required. He was a native of Chicago, a graduate of a mining school, and had come west to see if he could make his living by testing the gold deposits in the mining camps in the northwest states. Two miners had induced him to go with them to an old mine not far away to see if their discoveries of gold deposits were of value. When the find turned out to be no good, the men had slipped away, leaving him, and not only refusing to pay what they had promised for his services, but stealing all the money he had with him. For the past two days the young man had been scouring the country for the thieves, but he now believed they had gotten to some town and were safely out of his reach.
"I should be awfully grateful to you, Miss Drew, if you would tell me the way to thenearest village," Ralph Merrit said at the end of his story. "I am green about this part of the country and don't know in what direction to move on."
Ruth shook her head. "I am afraid I don't know either," she confessed, "but if you will spend the day here with us until our guide, Mr. Colter, comes back, he will tell you anything you wish to know."
Ralph accepted the invitation gratefully, although he hardly guessed what a concession it represented. A year before, when Ruth Drew left Vermont, she had never spoken to a man in her life without a formal introduction, and now she was inviting a stranger to spend the day with her and the three girls in the woods. But Ruth never doubted the story Ralph Merrit had told her for a moment, although it was an unusual one. No one who was a judge of character ever doubted Ralph. He was a straightforward, manly, determined fellow, with a strong will and a sense of humor—one of the most delightful combinations in the world—and from the first hour of their acquaintance he was a special favorite with Ruth and later with Jim Colter.
For several hours, Ralph made himself auseful visitor, insisting on bringing in fresh stores of wood, as he assured his hostesses their stock would never last over night, and they would desire to keep up a particularly brilliant fire as a beacon light to the wanderers from camp.
About four o'clock in the afternoon Ruth suggested that the five of them take a walk to find out the source of the little stream, which made such a wonderful oasis in the stretch of sandy desert. After a few miles, Ruth, Olive and Frieda sat down to rest, while Jean and Ralph carried on their explorations. They had caught a splendid lot of fish, but Ralph had his gun with him and hoped to get some game for their supper. The young man and girl had talked to each other for the past few hours, but now they seemed to feel well enough acquainted to keep silent and enjoy the exquisite beauty of the scenery. They had wandered to the source of the brook. Trickling down from the base of a low hill, it was circled by a grove of cottonwood and spruce trees. Jean and Ralph hid in the underbrush and got softly down on their knees so as to make no possible noise, for they saw a few yards ahead a delicate, dappled fawn, with its nose deep inthe clear water. Its sides were of a light gray and brown, its legs like slender staves, and its long ears as soft and sensitive as any created thing. The scene was so beautiful that Jean's eyes grew suddenly misty with tears.
Ralph also felt a quiver of excitement stiffen his arm. His companion was behind him and out of any possible danger, the fawn was in direct range of his gun and as yet unconscious of his presence.
The young man lifted his gun, took direct aim, and his fingers pressed the trigger. At the same instant the gun kicked up in the air, exploded and the shot went wide of its mark. For one quivering instant the fawn gazed at the hunter, its big brown eyes full of terror and reproach, and then with a bound was off through the trees and out of sight.
"How could you, Miss Bruce?" Ralph demanded indignantly, turning on Jean. "If you hadn't struck the butt of my gun I should have gotten that deer and we would have had fresh meat for a week." He stopped abruptly. Jean's eyes were as wide open and brown and frightened as the fawn's and her body trembled just as delicately.
"How Could You, Miss Bruce?" Ralph Demanded Indignantly.
"How couldyou?" she replied brokenly. "I couldn't bear to have you kill that lovely, gentle thing. I can't help it, I hate people who kill things. But if you think you will be hungry because of what I did, I'll get Ruth and Jim to let me give you some of my share of our food in the caravan," and Jean marched back to her friends and would have nothing more to say to her companion for the rest of the day.
Just before tea time, the storm that had overtaken the travelers to the deserted mine gathered over the little party, who were resting near the tent. Ruth and the girls tried their best to fight down their fears, but their lips and eyes asked the same question: "How were Jim and Jack and Carlos to fight their way back to them through the darkness and rain and wind with only the light of the small lantern Jim had taken with him when they set out?"
Jean and Olive got a hasty supper, while Ralph Merrit lashed the tent ropes more closely to the ground, found what shelter he could for the horses, and made a canopy of pine branches over the fire, so that the downpour of rain should not put it out. It was about dusk when he found Ruth and Frieda standing outside their tent door watchingwith white, nervous faces the big clouds roll together in a black mass.
"Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable, Miss Drew?" Ralph asked. "You have been awfully good to me, and I can't tell you how I appreciate it. Why, this day with you has been almost like running across my own people here in this wilderness. But if there is nothing I can do, I had best move on to find some sort of shelter for the night before the storm gets worse."
Ruth put out her hand, impulsively clutching Ralph's coat sleeve. "Please, please don't leave us until Mr. Colter and Jack and Carlos return," she begged. "I told them I would not be worried if they did not get back until quite late, but this storm makes us feel so much more lonely and frightened."
Ralph patted Ruth's hand reassuringly. "Of course I won't go if you would like me to stay," he answered cheerfully. "And you mustn't be alarmed. I'll watch the fire to keep it from going out, and when your friends return, I'll roost in a tree, like 'Monsieur Chantecler,' and wake you first thing in the morning."
Ruth smiled, and Olive, who had come out of the tent with Jean, looked less forlorn;but Jean, although she was devoutly glad they were not to be left alone, could not cheer up. She walked apart from the others, not wishing them to guess how uneasy she felt about Jack. Of course nothing was going to happen, but she wished she had not accused Jack of being selfish the day before.
Ralph Merrit came over and stood silently at Jean's side for a moment. He felt twice her age and was actually eight years older.
"I did not know you would mind my shot this afternoon," he began stiffly in the fashion in which a man usually apologizes. "If you had been brought up in a city and were unused to hunting I might have understood your feeling. As it was I——"
Jean's cheeks flushed in the somber twilight. Already the first drops of rain were falling. Ruth was calling them inside the tent.
"I hope I have not been rude," she said. "I ought to have explained to you that I can never bear to see anything killed. My cousin, Jack Ralston, and the overseer of our ranch, Jim Colter, both think I am awfully silly because I never go hunting with them even when they are after wild game, though I can shoot pretty well. But when a bird or animal is full of motion and maybe joy, why,to see it stiff and cold all of a sudden and to know you can never make it alive again——" Jean's voice broke off abruptly. She did not care to show emotion to a stranger.
"I understand," Ralph answered slowly. "I believe I would like to have my sister feel that way. I know you have not asked it of me, and we may never meet again, but so long as I live I shall never kill anything unless I positively need it for food, or am trying to protect some one."
For several hours Ruth, the girls and their guest huddled inside their tent waiting for the storm to pass and the wanderers to return. The rain beat in until their waterproof cloaks were hung over the slits and openings, and then, in spite of the coldness of the night outside, the air in the tent grew close and heavy. Ruth did her best to keep up a conversation with Ralph, but Jean and Olive sat on a pile of sofa cushions with their arms about each other, waiting, listening for some sound that would tell them the wayfarers were almost home. Frieda had fallen asleep in a weary lump on a cot, with a tear of sheer lonesomeness for Jack not yet dry on her pink cheek.
Suddenly the girls jumped to their feetand Frieda rolled off the cot. From afar off they heard Jim's familiar whistle and long, cheerful call. Ralph Merrit rushed out to pile the fire with the pine cones and logs they had been keeping dry inside the tent. Jean and Olive lit the extra candles they had been saving all evening. The rain having almost ceased, Ruth flung a mackintosh about her and ran forth to follow the sound of Jim's voice.
"Home at last!" thought Jim Colter happily, his worry and uncertainty slipping from him as he caught the distant gleam of the camp-fire. For many miles after leaving the mine he had hurried on, expecting each moment to overtake Jack and Carlos. Then fearing they might have lost their way, he turned aside at every doubtful place along the trail, searching and calling their names until he was hoarse. Not only was he torn with anxiety at the loss of his fellow-truants, but uneasy about Ruth and the girls alone in a tent in a fierce summer tempest. Now his journey was almost over, he believed Jack and Carlos had traveled fast and were safe within their own shelter. The vision of Ruth's pretty figure battling toward him through the wind seemed a good omen.
Both of them stretched out their hands. "Where's Jack?" they cried in the same breath. And Ruth was glad she had caught Jim's big hands in her warm ones, for the great, self-controlled overseer of the Rainbow Ranch shook like a child in a chill. "Aren't Jack and Carlos with you?" he queried hoarsely. And Ruth shook her head, drawing him, stumbling like a blind man, to their camp-fire.
All night long she sat by the fire with him while the girls and Ralph Merrit made coffee and walked back and forth from the tent to them. No one thought of going to bed. Jim wished to be off at once to recommence his search, but Ruth persuaded him to wait till daylight. For his sake she pretended to believe that Jack was too clever not to have found a refuge for herself and Carlos for the night. They were glad that the little Indian boy had run away with Jim and Jack to the mine, for it was better that Jack should not be alone.
At the first streak of dawn a light footfall sounded some distance away. Jim and Ruth and Ralph Merrit sprang up from the smouldering fire. "It's Jack!" Ruth cried happily, so that Jean and Olive and Frieda heard her,and came running pale and breathless from the shelter of the tent.
Stealing up the pathway of light made by the first streak of rose color in the sky was little brown Carlos, but he walked alone.
"Where's Jack?" called everybody this time. And Carlos shook his head uncertainly. He could not understand. There stood "The Big White Chief," and certainly he must have brought their companion back with him. Why did they askhimabout "The Girl Who Was Never Afraid"? He was only a little boy, even though an Indian; he was hungry and cold and tired and had found his way all alone through the darkness of night in a strange country, and no one, not even "The Princess," seemed glad to see him. Carlos blinked, but his bronze, statuesque face showed absolutely no emotion. He dropped a little gray ball of fur on the ground, which Frieda picked up with a cry of pleasure.
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DON'T, please, Mr. Colter!" Olive faltered.
Frieda clutched at Jean's skirts, with big tears in her eyes, and Jean stared at the scene with a frightened face. Ralph Merrit had walked some distance away and Ruth had gone back to their tent, worn out by her second disappointment over Jack's failure to return. The three girls who remained had rarely seen anyone so angry as Jim Colter. He had not spoken when Carlos first returned; now he made the boy stand up before him and give an account of himself.
Ruth was crying when she heard a swish of a whip through the air and thought she caught the sound of a sob from Frieda. She listened again. Jim was speaking in a voice she did not know he could use, and for a minute she turned quite cold.
"You deserter," the voice said harshly. "I forgave you for running away from campthis morning, when I told you to stay behind, and then when I leave you for an instant you turn traitor the second time. There is no blood of an Indian Chief in your veins; they at least keep faith with their friends." Swish! Ruth knew the whip had struck again.
She slipped quietly on the scene. Olive and Frieda were both crying, and Jean was biting her trembling lips. Jim's face was crimson and his blue eyes blazed as only a man's can who is slow to anger. Only Carlos stood as still as stone. He had but one thin shirt over his slender body, but when he staggered it was from fatigue not pain. He bore his punishment with the silence and fortitude of an Indian warrior.
Jim had lifted his stick for the third time and this blow he meant to make the severest of all. A small, white hand closed over the raised whip. "Stop, Mr. Jim," Ruth said quietly. "Carlos is a child and whatever he has done he is too tired for you to punish him now. I think he did not mean to desert Jack any more than you did." Ruth did not intend her words as a reproach, but Jim's arm dropped quickly to his side and he turned so pale that she was frightened."Take Carlos away and see that he has something to eat," he ordered Olive, "and, Jean, make Frieda stop crying." Without glancing at Ruth, Jim picked up a flask of beef tea, which he had had prepared for Jack's return, and without another word set out to search for Jack.
A little later Ralph Merrit proposed that he too should go out to reconnoiter. Having also met with misfortune at "Miner's Folly," he knew the country all about the neighborhood. The young man was saying good-by to Ruth and Frieda, when Jean's face, paler and more wistful than usual, appeared over her chaperon's shoulder.
"Ruth, dear, Olive and I want to go with Mr. Merrit to look for Jack," she begged. "Yes, I know it is awfully selfish of us to leave you, but we are perfectly worn out with waiting. Besides, Jack don't know Mr. Merrit and he will never be able to persuade her to return with him."
Ralph laughed. "Frieda, won't you give me the blue ribbon on your hair to prove to your sister I have been a guest of the caravan party?" he asked. "Though, of course, I don't believe she would be so obstinate."
Frieda solemnly unwound the band of ribbon which she used to keep her hair out of her eyes, and Ralph tied it in his buttonhole, where the ends floated out like blue pennants; but understanding their impatience, Ruth let Olive and Jean go to assist in the search for Jack.
It was now broad daylight; the birds were singing and the sun shining with the peculiar brilliancy that follows a rain-washed night. Ruth put Frieda to bed, as the little girl was exhausted; then she persuaded Carlos to lie down on her own cot. The boy had said nothing, only he never let go the gray ball of fur which he had brought home from the woods, but kept it pressed close to him. Ruth had no idea what animal Carlos had found, though it had a sharp, pointed nose, restless eyes, and every now and then tore at something with its baby teeth. Hidden near an old tree in the woods back of the gold mine, Carlos had run across a baby wolf cub, and having a curious fellowship with animals, had brought it back with him, hoping he might be allowed to raise it as a dog.
The ranch girls knew of Carlos' strange communion with birds and beasts. They would come at his call and eat out of hisbrown hand, but it did not seem remarkable to them, as the boy had lived always in the open and was only a half-tamed creature himself.
Ruth left the children alone in the tent. Fifteen minutes later she returned and Carlos had again disappeared. This time she made up her mind that the Indian boy must be sent back to his own people, since they could do nothing to stop his disobedience. But Olive had been trying to teach the little fellow to read and write, and in straightening up her bed Ruth found a piece of torn yellow paper. On it Carlos had written in quaint, scrawling letters: "I Go Girl Never Afrid. Find Not, Come Back Not."
Ruth put the letter away; her heart once more softened toward the lad, hoping for his sake that he might be the one to bring Jack to them.
But no one need have been troubled about Jack on this wonderful summer morning. Quite comfortably she awoke in her nest of branches to a bewildering chorus of song, a little stiff, of course; hungry and thirsty. But climbing out on the ground, she ran for half a mile until the soreness was out of her muscles and the surging blood warmed herheart and cheeks. Jack took off her sweater, carrying it under her arm, the wind blew back her hair, which had the colors of the sun in it, her lips were open and full and a deep crimson. If ever any of the old-time pagan goddesses that one reads of in mythology sheds her influence over the modern girl, Jack had drawn some of her spirit from Diana. She looked as you might imagine Diana to have looked after she had spent the night hunting with her maidens in some lonely forest—fresh, brilliant and gay.
When Jack stopped to rest from her run she saw, near the rocky gorges and in many of the waste places, red cacti blooming against the gray buttes, like splashes of flame. Gathering a little she stuck it in her belt, but Jack hoped to discover a cactus plant of a different kind. Her father and Jim had taught her all they knew of the plants and flowers that grow in the American desert, for they wished her to be prepared for just such an emergency as had now befallen her. At first Jack kept close to the path at the side of the gorge, retracing the steps she had wrongly taken the night before. When she came beyond the thicket through which the cougar had followed her, a stretch of aridcountry spread away to her right on this side the gorge. Standing in the desert with nothing about it but sand and sage brush, Jack spied the cactus she sought. It rose like a tree, with thick, bunchy leaves at its base, and dozens of clusters of small mustard-colored flowers on separate branches sticking out from its summit like the ribs of an umbrella.
The American aloe has been the salvation of many a traveler in the desert country of the West. Hurrying to it, Jack cut away some of the thick leaves and then settling herself comfortably in the sand she sucked the sap from the leaves until her throat was no longer parched and her hunger and thirst were both appeased.
She was resting, trying to make up her mind to go back to the ravine, where Jim would surely find her, when she heard a well-known whistle. It was not like the note of a bird, and yet it did not seem to come from a human throat, yet Jack recognized it at once. It was the odd sound Carlos made when calling to the birds in the woods or fields. The call had traveled a great distance in the clear morning air.
Jack clapped her hands loudly. "I amcoming, Carlos, I am coming," she cried; "wait for me." Then she ran back toward the edge of the cliff. She would have liked to cry out with pleasure when she first saw Carlos, but instead kept quite still.
The lad had made himself a whistle from a stalk of wild grass that grew like a reed. He was wandering along searching everywhere for Jack, yet beguiling his way with wonderful woodland noises which he made through his whistle. A robin sat perched on his black hair, several other birds fluttered over his head, afraid to alight and yet unwilling to leave him. If Jack had suggested the huntress Diana, Carlos looked like a follower of Pan. Surely in mythological days just such red-brown boys had accompanied the old wood god, making the weird and eerie music that caused a smile to hover ever on his wild face.
The caravan party, except Jim and the truants, were eating luncheon when Jack and Carlos burst in upon them. Jack flew to Ruth, flinging her arms about her and giving her a breathless hug. "It was all my fault, as usual," she explained, "but there is nothing the matter with me except a bruise on my forehead and an empty feeling in anotherplace." Jack stopped, suddenly discovering the presence of the stranger, Ralph Merrit.
Hugging Jack with one arm, Ruth respectfully shook hands with Carlos with the other. The small lad tried not to show emotion, but a light of triumph shone in his eyes. He and not the "Big White Chief" had found "The Girl Who Was Never Afraid." Now surely he would be forgiven the sin of his failure to keep faith.
Worn and haggard, Jim returned a few hours later to find his fellow-travelers engaged in cheerful conversation and seemingly forgetful of the strain.
"I hope nothing will happen to me again while we are on this trip," Jack remarked carelessly. "I thought last night in the storm that the gypsy who came to our ranch had surely put her curse on me. You know she announced that something would happen to me that would force me to depend on other people, and as I had to depend on Carlos to show me the way home to the caravan, perhaps the spell is past."
Olive, sitting next Jack, gave a shudder. She had never confessed how much she had thought of the woman's evil words to her, but Frieda, who was playing with the stonesJack had brought back from the gold mine, made a quick turn in the conversation.
"Jean," she announced indignantly, "you told me you'd give me the gold Jim and Jack brought from the mine with them, and now they haven't brought any, because Ralph Merrit says these rocks are no better than other pebbles. I really did think they might find some gold, though I said I knew they wouldn't," she ended mournfully.
Jean laughed. "Same here, baby. I confess I thought maybe they would come home with a grand discovery and we would all be as rich as cream forever afterwards. Did you have any such idea in your head, Jack?"
Jack blushed. "Not really," she conceded; "but of course as soon as one hears anything about a gold mine, one goes quite crazy. Remember how we used to plan, when we were little girls, to run away and find the 'Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow' as soon as we grew up?"
Jean and Frieda nodded, but the entire party was soon busy with their plans for resuming their trip in the early morning. Jim asked Ralph Merrit to go along to the Yellowstone Park with them. The young man had been through the western reserveonce before, and since his experience with Jack, Jim thought it might be just as well to have another man to divide responsibilities for the remainder of the trip.
By nine o'clock the next day the caravaners had moved away from the quiet oasis in the desert, their tent had been folded up and the horses reluctantly driven from the fresh grass. The little place had become but a memory to its dwellers by the wayside.
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THE Forest of Arcady, Jim," Jean called gayly from her seat on the back of her pony. She and Olive, with Ralph Merrit walking beside them, had just climbed a steep road that led across the Continental Divide into the great park of the Yellowstone, called Yellowstone by the Indians many years ago, because its river ran like melted gold between massive stone walls, shading from palest lemon to a deep orange glow.
Behind its outriders the ranch girls' caravan moved slowly upward. They had been passing through tall pine forests that shut them in to a cathedral gloom, but beyond and farther down the hill Jean had just caught sight of a grove of quaking aspen trees with the sky above them shining as bright as sunny Italy. The grove looked like a great umbrella shop with its parasols open on parade, for the trees had circulargreen tops growing high above the ground, and their straight, slender trunks were like white umbrella handles.
Jim cracked his whip in answer to Jean's speech and Jack waved her hat from the place next him; just behind them Ruth clutched at Frieda and Carlos to keep them from falling into the road in their efforts to see everything at once. Away to the right they could catch a faint glimpse of one of the long arms of Yellowstone Lake, and they meant to reach a hotel on its northern banks by twilight.
For the past ten days the caravan party had been moving almost steadily onward. Twice only had they stopped at small towns for mail, to buy fresh provisions and to get rid of some of the stains of travel. However, the entire party looked like a troupe of Spanish gypsies, some of them fair-haired and blue-eyed as the old Castilians, others dark as the Moors, but all with their complexions tanned to varying shades of brown from their weeks in the open air.
"Nature's Wonderland!" Jack spouted rapturously in the language of a guidebook. "Really, Ruth, the Park is even more beautiful than we dreamed, isn't it?"
But Jack ceased talking abruptly and Jim reined in his horses on a stretch of level road, while Olive and Jean slid gently down from their ponies' backs. The noise of their approach had frightened a band of almost a hundred antelopes, who were browsing in a near-by forest, and now they started off in a long, galloping run single file through the trees to a fertile green valley below.
When the deer were out of sight, Frieda flung a dimpled brown arm about Jim's neck. She wore a yellow straw bonnet with a blue ribbon on it, tied under her chin. Ruth had purchased the bonnet in one of the towns where they spent the night, for each member of the expedition was weary of crawling down from the wagon to pick up Frieda's lost hat. "Do let's rest here a few minutes, Jim," Frieda urged. "The horses have stopped, anyhow, and my legs are so tired dangling from the seat."
Ruth had let go her hold on the children for a few minutes, and without waiting for Jim's consent, by some sort of silent signal they both slipped over the wagon wheels and danced away. For hours they had been passing by every variety of beautiful wild flower, but this minute Frieda and Carlosdiscovered an isolated hill crowned with jagged rocks and covered with bitter-root, whose delicate blossoms made the ground look like a carpet studded with small pink stars, leading to a giant's castle in the air.
It was not yet time for luncheon, but the caravaners were always hungry, and Ruth, Jean and Olive dragged a basket of sandwiches out of the wagon, while Jim Colter and Ralph Merrit led the horses away to search for water.
"Better look after the children, Jack," Ruth suggested carelessly.
Jack moved slowly toward the pink hill. She could see that Carlos had run lightly up it and was now crowing proudly from the peak of one of the highest rocks, while poor Frieda was crawling laboriously after him, fired with ambition and envy. Jack stopped a minute to laugh. Her small sister was so round and chubby, that even though she clung to the shrubs as she struggled upward, every now and then she would slip back almost as far as she had gone on.
"Don't try to go any farther, Frieda; come back to me," Jack cried warningly. But Carlos had leaped to another higher crag and was beckoning his companion to followhim, so Frieda either didn't hear or wouldn't heed her elder sister; neither did she look upward toward the goal "to which she would ascend." Carlos vanished around another rock and was out of sight; he did not think to mention that there was a flat platform back of the first big rock and that it was already occupied. Suddenly from her position near the bottom of the hill, Jack saw an old goat thrust his head out over this rock and survey Frieda, with the long gray beard and the glittering eye of "The Ancient Mariner." He was evidently an old time resident of the Park and had no intention of sharing his retreat with an outside intruder.
"Frieda!" Jack halloed, now frightened and running up the hill as fast as she could, but she could hardly hope to come to the rescue in time.
Blue-eyed Frieda had crawled up the side of the crag toward the spot where the goat awaited her. Instead of a shout of triumph she gave a horrified gasp of terror, never having intended to invade the castle of the particular ogre she now beheld.
At this moment a tourist, who had been wandering idly around surveying the scenery, saw the little girl and the goat. Helaughed and moved quickly in their direction. Jack was also doing her level best to arrive before the tragedy, but the old goat preferred not to wait. He took a few steps forward, hunching his shoulders and sidling along, then with a snort of dignified rage and a shove of his shaggy gray head, he struck poor Frieda in the middle of her small person and sent her over the side of the rock down the hill, where she landed in a bed of the coveted bitter-root blossoms.
"If you won't cry, little girl, I'll give you something I have in my pocket," a strange gentleman said hurriedly, just as Frieda opened her mouth to bewail her misfortune. Not only was she injured in her feelings; she was hurt in other places as well, and her new bonnet hopelessly smashed in on one side. Too surprised to do anything but choke for a few seconds, Frieda let her preserver set her up on the ground and brush off some of the sand and twigs. He seemed a middle-aged man, quite as old as Jim, with iron-gray hair and dark eyes, and such a funny expression through his glasses, it was hard to tell whether he was smiling or sympathetic.
Jack now appeared and saw that her small sister was not seriously hurt. Just as shestarted to thank her rescuer a vision of what they had just seen flashed between them. Swiftly Jack's gray eyes darkened, her lips curved and she burst into a peal of gay laughter, which the stranger echoed until he had to take out his handkerchief to wipe his eyeglasses.
Frieda gazed at them both indignantly, then the tears which had been nobly held back rushed down her pink cheeks like the streams from a spouting geyser.
"Oh, dear me, now you are crying and I told you I would give you something if you wouldn't!" the tourist remarked hastily. Down in his pocket went his hand, and before Frieda's and Jack's amazed eyes were displayed a handful of bright jewels, topaz and jasper, agate and garnets.
Jack shook her head decisively. "No, thank you," she said. "You are very kind, but they are much too valuable for Frieda to accept. We must say good-by; our friends are signaling us."
Mr. Peter Drummond laughed good-humoredly. "Please let her have one—they are not of value," he begged. "I just have a fancy for pretty stones, like a small boy, and these have all been found in the state ofWyoming." Frieda's small hand closed suddenly over a shining bit of yellow jasper. Jack blushed, but there was no time for argument. Carlos had already sped down the hill and Jim was shouting to them. From the top of their caravan, as it took up its forward march, Jack and Frieda beheld the distinguished stranger still watching them, and waved their handkerchiefs to him in farewell.
Just before sunset the caravaners arrived in front of the hotel where they intended to spend the night. Yellowstone Lake lay a wonderful sheet of clear water at one side of them, but the travelers were weary of scenery and far more interested in the guests who crowded the hotel verandah. The women wore pretty afternoon toilets and the men white flannels, as though they were visitors at fashionable Newport homes instead of travelers in the heart of a wilderness.
"Great heavens, Ruth!" Jean murmured, as they dismounted and stood close together in a frightened group, "my legs feel as though they were going to give way under me and I am as bedraggled as any beggar maid. However are we going to have the courage to march across that wretched porch with all those people staring at us?"
"I don't know myself, Jean. I had no idea we would find so many visitors here," Ruth replied, vainly trying to straighten her traveling hat, which was considerably the worse for wear. Indeed the caravan party did look almost as disreputable as they felt in their dusty, travel-worn clothes, now brought into sudden contrast with well-dressed people.
Jack lifted her chin in her usual haughty fashion, assuming a courage she did not feel. "Oh, well, we can't stand here in the road all evening," she argued. "Jim and Mr. Merrit must see that the horses and wagon are put up somewhere, so come on, Olive, let's lead the way. At least we can be grateful that we don't know anyone here and no one knows us."
Elderly ladies raised their lorgnettes to stare at the newcomers and some young people whispered together.
"There they come, mother," a young girl cried excitedly. "I told you we would get here before they did!"
Jack and Olive had just mounted the verandah steps with Carlos, and Ruth and Jean, each holding Frieda's hand, were following close behind, when there was a soft rustle of silk across the piazza and Mrs. Harmonand her son Donald, whom the caravan party had left safe at Rainbow Lodge, stood before them. A minute later a servant wheeled Elizabeth over in a big chair.
"We just couldn't bear not to see the Yellowstone Park too," Elizabeth explained fervently. "Don and I talked of nothing else after you went away in your wonderful caravan, and at last father said mother could bring us here. It took us only a day to make the trip that has taken you more than two weeks. Aren't you glad to see us?"
Jack kissed Elizabeth hurriedly, while the rest of the party shook hands with Mrs. Harmon and Donald. The girls were too dazed with surprise and fatigue to know whether they were glad or sorry to see the acquaintances to whom they had rented their beloved home. Ruth thought Mrs. Harmon's manner a little constrained when she spoke to them.
"We don't want to haunt you, Miss Drew," she apologized, "but we were so close to this marvelous park it seemed a pity for us to miss it, and Don and Elizabeth are so in love with your ranch girls they believe they will enjoy it twice as much with you here. We came on after Beth had a letter from MissRalston telling her about the time you expected to arrive."
There was one member of the caravan party who had no hesitation in expressing his views of the unexpected appearance of the three members of the Harmon family. Jim was frankly displeased. "It wasn't enough to rent them our Lodge for the summer and have them drive me plumb crazy with questions before I got away," he complained to Ruth as soon as she broke the news to him, "but now we have got to tote 'em over the whole of the Yellowstone. I guess they must think I'm the original Cooks' Tour man," he growled, forgetting his newly acquired English in his bad temper.
But Ruth laughed sympathetically. "Never mind, Mr. Jim," she returned. "I am sorry myself that we can't have our trip to ourselves, but I hope pleasure will somehow come out of the presence of the Harmons here."
So far as Ruth or any member of the Rainbow Ranch family could see for many months to come not good, but great evil grew out of the entrance of these new acquaintances into their lives.
THE ranch girls, Jim and Ralph Merrit were at supper later that evening when some one walked down the length of the long dining room, glancing for an instant toward their table as he passed by.
Frieda nearly choked over her soup. "Look, Jack, there's the man who gave me the pretty yellow stone this afternoon!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper.
Jack look up quickly and blushed. Then to hide her confusion, she smiled and bowed in an unexpectedly friendly fashion, surprising the others, as she was usually shy with strangers. Mr. Drummond returned her greeting cordially, smiling at Frieda; and straightway the social position of the caravaners reached the high-water mark. He was said to be a wealthy bachelor from New York, but as no one actually knew anything about him and he had refused to associatewith the other guests, his reserve caused him to be regarded as a very important person.
After dinner, as the girls went out on the verandah, they looked as though they had dressed to illustrate the name of the Rainbow Ranch. Weary of their traveling costumes they had put on their best summer muslins. Jack wore a violet organdie, Jean a red one, Olive was in pale yellow and Frieda in blue. Ruth never dressed in anything except white in the evenings. Jim went off to inquire for his mail, asking Ruth to wait for him. He was beginning to feel anxious to hear how things were going on at the ranch in his absence.
Peter Drummond stood a short distance off watching the little group. In coming west, he had made up his mind to have nothing to do with the people he ran across in the course of his travels. He saw too much of society in New York. Wealthy, of an old Knickerbocker family, with a home on the south side of Washington Square, life had given him everything he desired until three short months before. Then, when he was forty years old, for the first time in his life he had fallen in love, and the woman he cared for refused to marry him for what seemed toPeter a perfectly absurd reason. Therefore Mr. Drummond had determined forever to forswear the company of women. He was wondering if girls need be included in his decision, when Frieda solved the problem for him. Slipping away from the others she crossed the piazza. Peter suddenly discovered a pair of serious blue eyes gazing straight into his.
"If you want that stone back that you gave me this afternoon you may have it," she said. "You see I did cry a little bit when I fell, so perhaps it isn't exactly fair of me to keep it."
Mr. Drummond's face was quite as serious as Frieda's.
"I should hardly like to be called an 'Injun giver', would you?" he asked. "I don't know how girls feel about it, but when I was a boy if another fellow tried to get back a thing he had given away he was thought to be a pretty poor kind of person."
"Girls feel the same way," Frieda felt compelled to answer honestly.
"Then, for my sake, won't you please keep it?—and shaking hands makes it a bargain," Peter returned, extending his hand to clasp Frieda's. With her fingers still in his, hejoined Ruth and the other girls, who had been trying not to laugh at the little scene.
Few eastern people, who have had no experience of life in the West, realize how much more unconventional and informal it is. Strangers meeting on a train talk as freely during the journey as though they had been formally introduced; friendliness is in the very atmosphere.
So, though Mr. Drummond was surprised at his own behavior, the ranch girls accepted his approach quite simply. First, he inquired of Ruth if Freida had really been hurt in her accident of the afternoon; ten minutes later he knew the names of the five girls, something of their history, had heard of Jim Colter and Ralph Merrit, and had given a brief account of himself in exchange, and for the first time in three months was actually enjoying himself.
The moon was just rising behind the dark circle of evergreen forests that bordered the Yellowstone Lake on three sides. Going out on the lawn, Olive was first to discover a dark figure with his hands in his pockets strolling quietly up and down. Perhaps because in the early days, when first brought home to Rainbow Ranch, she too had sometimesfelt like an alien, now she was the only one of the caravaners to guess why Ralph had gone away from them wishing to be alone.
Ralph Merrit was having a fight with himself. In the past ten days, as a guest of the caravan party, he had learned to care for them very deeply. If he preferred one of the girls to the others he had not said so nor showed it in any way. During the trip he felt he had been able to make himself useful, but since their arrival at the hotel Ralph had felt shy and ill at ease. Jack had told him they were poor, and in the gay camaraderie of the open air he had thought little of wealth or poverty; now he was acutely conscious of his own lack of money. With hardly a dollar in his pocket and only a change of clothes in his knapsack, he could not remain one of the travelers through the Yellowstone Park. It was hard to say farewell to his friends and to start out again to look for work, but harder to remain and not do his share in the entertainment. The ranch girls evidently had richer friends than he dreamed, the Harmons were evidently wealthy people, and Ralph had been told this Mr. Drummond was a millionaire.
"What's the matter, Ralph?" Jack's friendly voice asked. Olive had drawn her and Jean over in Ralph's direction, while Mr. Drummond, Ruth and Frieda walked slowly on.
"We have been wondering what had become of you ever since dinner?" Jean added.
Ralph cleared his throat a bit huskily.
"I've got a bad case of blues," he said, "but I am glad you found me out. I have got to be off from here early in the morning, and perhaps it is better to explain to you to-night."
Jean pouted, Jack gave a surprised exclamation, Olive believed she understood.
"But I thought you told Jim you would make the trip with us, Ralph," Jack argued. "Has anything disagreeable happened? Surely no one of us has hurt your feelings."
Ralph shook his head emphatically. "No people have ever been so good to me in my life," he answered. "Look here, don't you think the best thing to do is to make a clean breast of things? I am going away because I haven't any money, and I'm not going to be a snide and stay on here as your guest. I told you that the little money I had was stolen from me by the two miners who tookme out to 'Miner's Folly' to see if their claims were any good. It wasn't much, because I came west to earn a fortune, not to spend one, but it was all I had. Now I have to clear out and look for a job. I don't think we are 'Ships That Pass in the Night', I believe we are going to meet again, some day," Ralph ended. "And if ever there is anything I can do to show you my gratitude and appreciation——"
"Oh, do hush, Ralph Merrit!" Jean burst out impetuously. "I don't see what you have got to thank us for. But if you really were having a good time you wouldn't go off and leave us."
"That isn't fair, Jean," Ralph answered hotly. Then he laughed at himself, for Jean's speeches had a fashion of provoking him, although he was so much her elder.
"I don't believe that, Jean," Jack interrupted. "But I don't see why Ralph can't finish the trip with us and then go after his fortune."
"I am so sorry nobody understands," Ralph said slowly, "but I must be off just the same. I'll see you again in the morning, but our real good-by is to-night."
As Olive shook hands she said quietly:"I understand why you are going. And don't worry, please, because I feel sure I can make the others understand." Jack's good night was cordial, but Jean refused to change her opinion of Ralph's desertion.
Ruth suggested that the girls go back to the hotel for their wraps, as the evening was growing chilly. As Jean and Jack disappeared on their way to their rooms, Mrs. Harmon drew Olive and Frieda to her end of the porch, Mr. Drummond had said good night, Ralph Merrit had again vanished, and still Jim had not returned. Ruth could not make up her mind whether to be angry with Jim for being so long in keeping his appointment with her, or to feel worried for fear something had happened to him.
JEAN stayed upstairs, but when Jack came back with the wraps she found Ruth and Jim gone, leaving word that she and Olive were to put Frieda to bed without waiting for her, as she might come back fairly late.
Over in a quiet corner Jack saw Olive and Frieda still with the Harmons. In a moment she meant to join them, but first she must conquer a queer sensation that overmastered her. Jack bit her lips and her eyes clouded. Never before in her life had she known what it was to be overtaken by a premonition; now she felt almost ill, she longed to escape and never set eyes on the Harmons again. With all her soul she longed for Rainbow Lodge and wished they had not rented it to strangers.
But Olive had seen Jack, and Donald was crossing over to ask her to join them. Jack closed her eyes, opened them, shrugged hershoulders and determined to think no more foolishness that evening.
When she reached Elizabeth Harmon's side, the girl caught her hand eagerly and pressed it against her thin, hot cheek. "I have been telling mother I knew none of you were pleased at our coming to the Yellowstone while you were here," she declared pettishly, "and I supposeIwill be in the way; but please won't you just sayyouare glad to have me? I don't care about the others."
"Elizabeth," Mrs. Harmon remonstrated; but Jack leaned over and gently kissed the spoiled girl who had taken such an overwhelming fancy to her. At the same moment a wave of remorse swept over her that she had not at once been happy at her opportunity to add something to Elizabeth's pleasure. How pitiful it was that the young girl so longed to take part in their outdoor amusements, when she was able to walk only a few yards at a time. Suddenly a feeling of thankfulness for her own health and vigor rushed over Jack, and in that moment she determined, while they were thrown together, to devote herself utterly to her new friend; for Jacqueline Ralston possessed many of the traits of character of a brave boy or man.Weakness and a need for her protection made an instant appeal to her. It was her first instinct in caring for Olive and it was responsible for what she afterwards did for Elizabeth Harmon.
"I am truly glad you are here with us, Elizabeth," Jack could now reply honestly. "But haven't you enjoyed your two weeks at Rainbow Lodge, and hasn't it done you good? I felt so sure you would soon grow stronger there, perhaps because I love the ranch so dearly myself, and have been so well and happy there."
Elizabeth shrugged her delicate shoulders until her loose mass of red-gold hair almost covered her face. "Oh, yes, I like the ranch well enough and I suppose I am better," she returned. "But I thought father came west and rented your house so I might be out of doors all the time, and go about wherever I wished, and now I am hardly allowed to get out of sight of the Lodge. As soon as you went away such a queer lot of people turned up at your ranch—a gypsy with his wagon and family. They are camping somewhere on your place, because they are always being seen. One day Don and I saw them near the stump of the old tree where you andOlive made the compact of friendship with us."
Jack opened her lips to speak, and then changed her mind, Olive turned from talking with Donald to stare in amazement, when from the depth of Mrs. Harmon's lap a small voice said sleepily, "I bet you, Jack, Elizabeth is talking about those same gypsies who came to our ranch and told our fortunes. I thought Jim said he would not have them on our place," Frieda ended.
Jack blushed. She too had guessed "Gypsy Joe" must be the intruder, and intended to report the matter to Jim, but she did not wish any discussion of the subject with the Harmons.
"Oh, but gypsies aren't the only queer people who have come to the ranch," Elizabeth continued; "there are other rough looking men whom father spends hours and hours with. He——"
"Elizabeth," Mrs. Harmon interrupted sternly, "how many times have I asked you not to talk of your father's affairs with strangers? He would be extremely angry with you for telling Miss Ralston this nonsense."
"It isn't nonsense, it's the truth and you know it," Elizabeth answered. "I believefather sent us away from Rainbow Lodge at this time because he wanted to get rid of us. And he promised me he would not attend to any business while we were on the ranch. Now two men are coming on from the East to see him, and he is as worried and excited over something as can be and won't tell us what it is."
Mrs. Harmon lifted Frieda from her lap. "Donald, will you please persuade Elizabeth not to bore Miss Ralston with our family history?" she asked.
"Oh, shut up, Elizabeth. Why do you never do as mother asks you?" Donald muttered, and Elizabeth began to cry like a spoiled baby.
Jack, Olive and Frieda kept their eyes on the ground; not being accustomed to family quarrels they felt exceedingly uncomfortable.
"Suppose we say good night, Donald, dear," Mrs. Harmon suggested. "I am sure Elizabeth must be tired. Miss Ralston, I believe my husband has written your overseer of the presence of this gypsy on your ranch. In regard to Mr. Harmon's present worry and excitement, we have not mentioned it to Elizabeth, as we try to keep our annoyances from her; but her father has recently lost a gooddeal of money in Wall Street, so he is naturally concerned."
"I am sure I am awfully sorry," Jack replied, not knowing exactly what she should say. But five minutes later she and Olive and Frieda breathed a sigh of relief—the Harmon family had finally departed to their rooms and the ranch girls were free to go to bed.
Half an hour later Donald Harmon was still in his mother's room. Elizabeth was fast asleep in the room adjoining.
"Is there any way on earth to make Elizabeth stop talking when she shouldn't, Don?" Mrs. Harmon sighed. "Poor child, she is so difficult! I was wretchedly uncomfortable, not knowing what she might tell to-night."
Donald's handsome face clouded. "She don't know anything, so she can't tell anything," he answered. "I almost wish she did; then the responsibility would be off my conscience. And I know father would forgive Beth anything."
Mrs. Harmon changed color. "Well, he wouldn't forgive you or me, son," she replied. "And, after all, this isn't our affair, and we must not interfere with your father's plan."
Don shook his head, unconvinced by his mother's argument. "I don't know whether you are right or wrong in this, mother," he answered. "It seems to me this time we ought to interfere. By keeping silent and not letting the Ralstons know of our suspicion, we are behaving pretty dishonorably." Donald lifted his shoulders and shook them as though he were trying to shake off the burden of the idea that oppressed him. "Perhaps father's great find will come to nothing and he has been deceived about the whole business," he added hopefully. "For my part I wish things would turn out that way. I don't like to be mixed up in this."
Mrs. Harmon looked worn and older. Before no one but her son did she drop her society mask and show her true self. "Dear," she protested, "remember you and I can bear being poor, but think how dreadful life would be for Elizabeth if we did not have a great deal of money to do for her."
Don sighed. Always he had been expected to sacrifice everything for his sister, and now he was to be asked to sacrifice his honor as well. But he wondered why his mother should talk of their being poor because his father had lost a portion of his money inWall Street. His mother had a wealthy aunt who had always done everything for them, and he and his sister were supposed to be her only heirs. It wasn't very probable that Aunt Agatha would lose all her fortune or go back on them.
Donald bent to kiss his mother good night. "For goodness' sake, let's don't worry over this scheme of father's until we know it is going to amount to something," he argued. "We do want to have a good time on this trip—the ranch girls are simply great!"
While all this was transpiring, Ruth and Jim Colter were rowing along the northern border of Yellowstone Lake toward a small island known as Pelican Roost. Earlier in the afternoon, on seeing a number of the pelicans floating like a fleet of boats on the face of the water, Ruth had idly suggested that she would like to see them at night, as they must look, roosting on their island, like wicked old ghosts. And Jim had planned then to bring Ruth out for a moonlight row alone.
When he returned to find Ruth waiting on the verandah for him, he had made no explanation of his long absence and, as his face was unusually serious, Ruth had asked noquestions. In the hour of his absence the face of the world had changed for Jim Colter! Before going to the hotel clerk for the letters that had been sent him from the Rainbow Ranch, Jim had made up his mind to tell Ruth he loved her to-night, and to try to make her love him in return. The weeks of the caravan trip had ended a fight with himself. Jim had finally decided that a man's past need have nothing more to do with him than an old garment that has been cast aside forever. He would tell Ruth he cared for her and they would begin a new life together. But this was his idea before reading the letters from the Rainbow Ranch.
Jim now rowed on in complete silence, while Ruth idly wondered when he was going to make up his mind to talk and what special thing he could wish to tell her alone. As Jim always took a long time to put his thoughts into words she felt no impatience.
"I had a letter from that Harmon man," Jim remarked abruptly. It was so different a speech from anything she expected him to say that Ruth felt irritated. Wasn't it rather stupid for Jim to have brought her out alone on the lake in the moonlight to talk of the Harmons?
"Did you?" she returned indifferently, slipping her white fingers in the water to see if she could touch one of the yellow water lilies that floated near.
Jim heaved a sigh so deep that Ruth laughed. "I never did want to rent our Lodge to the fellow," he protested bitterly. "I knew nothing but trouble could come from a New York money grabber."
"Why, Mr. Jim, you are unfair," Ruth declared. "You know you were as anxious, after the first, to come on this caravan trip as the rest of us. And we couldn't have come without the Harmon money. I am sorry you haven't enjoyed it."
"I have liked it better than anything I ever did since I was born, Ruth Drew," Jim replied so solemnly that Ruth was frightened into silence. "But I suppose we might have managed it somehow without introducing the plagued Harmon family onto our ranch. What do you think this Harmon man has written me?"
"I am sure I don't know—what?" Ruth asked a little irritably.
"Oh, nothing but a cool offer to buy Rainbow Ranch off our hands at any reasonable figure we choose to sell it for. He says hehas gotten so interested in the ranch, and thinks it such a fine place for his daughter and son, that he would be willing to pay what our neighbors might think a fancy sum for the place."
For just a half second Ruth's heart stood still, or felt as though it had. She saw Rainbow Ranch, which had been saved for them once by Frieda's discovery, slipping away again, the girls scattered, herself back in the old Vermont village away from this wonderful western life, and Jim—she wonderedwhat wouldbecome of Jim.
Then Ruth came to her senses. "Well, Mr. Jim, I don't see anything so dreadful in Mr. Harmon's offer. I don't wonder he is in love with our ranch, but we don't have to sell it to him because he wants it, do we? Jack would never think of it."
"It isn't all just what Jack wishes, Miss Ruth," Jim answered sadly. "It is because living on the ranch with you and the girls means more than everything else in the world to me, that it kind of sinks into me that we oughtn't to turn Mr. Harmon's offer down without thinking and talking it over. The ranch don't pay such an awful lot these days—just barely enough to keep things going; andmaybe the girls ought to have advantages like schools and traveling. You know better than I do, Ruth. Won't you try and help me think this thing out and decide what is best for them?"
For a moment Ruth was silent, knowing in her heart why Jim took Mr. Harmon's offer so seriously. All his own hopes and plans depended on his refusing it. If he were no longer the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch he would have nothing to offer the woman he loved, not even a bare support. The money he had saved for himself in the past years would not keep them six months. Therefore, since Jim Colter's sense of honor was stronger than any selfish desire, he feared that his own wish to turn down Mr. Harmon's offer without wasting a moment's consideration on it was simply because it would serve his own purpose and not because it was best for the ranch girls.
"I don't believe it will be best for the girls to sell the ranch, I don't honestly," Ruth replied. And then under her breath, "I promise you I am not thinking of us."
What Ruth meant by her use of the word "us" Jim did not know. Of course she too might lose her occupation if the girls gaveup the ranch. But whatever she meant the word sounded pretty good to him.
"Of course it would do no harm to talk over the proposition from Mr. Harmon with the girls," Ruth added indifferently; "but I am as sure as I ever was of anything in the world just how they will feel about it. Don't let's speak of it now, though, Mr. Jim. Mr. Harmon can't expect you to reply to his letter at once, and we don't want any business to interfere with our first days in wonderland. Was there anything else in Mr. Harmon's letter that annoyed you?"
"Yes—no," Jim answered shortly. "At least Harmon wrote that he had some private business with the fellow who came junketing around in a gypsy cart to our ranch one day, and he presumed I wouldn't mind the man's staying on the place. Can't imagine what Harmon can want of a tramp like 'Gypsy Joe.' He never would have written me about him, I suppose, if he hadn't known the boys at the ranch would tell me as soon as one of them could get up the energy to write." Jim again relapsed into silence. The moon went behind a cloud and the island was hardly visible ahead. Ruth decided that the evening had been a disappointing one. She wonderedwhy the thought of this half-gypsy, half-gentleman tramp should give Jim the blues. She had relieved his mind of the idea that it was his duty for the girls' sake to sell them out of house and home.
"Let's row back to shore, Mr. Jim," Ruth said coldly, in the aloof manner she still knew how to use when things did not please her. "I am getting tired and sleepy, and I don't want the girls to worry about me."
Jim silently turned his boat to shore. After all, perhaps he had been mistaken in the idea that a man can rid himself of his past. If Ruth knew why this fellow, whom she heard spoken of as "Gypsy Joe," could send the cold shivers up and down his spine, would she ever use the tiny word "us" in the tone that she had spoken it a while before?
When Jim and Ruth said good night, instead of feeling a closer bond of affection, they were colder in their manner toward one another than they had been since the hour the caravan first rolled away from the Rainbow Ranch and the days of their good comradeship began.