A DINNER PARTY
DINNER at Rainbow Lodge on the evening of Frank Kent's arrival was sufficiently gay and delightful to make up for many preceding weeks of quietness.
For not only was Frank's appearance an unexpected pleasure to the entire family, but a few hours before sundown Ralph Merrit had returned home with an old friend of his, whom quite by accident he had met in a nearby town and persuaded to come with him for a short visit at the ranch. Henry Tilford Russell was to be a new experience to the four girls, since never in their wandering either at home or abroad had they met any other young man in the least like him.
Before bringing his guest up to the Lodge for dinner Ralph had managed to escape from him for a few moments in order to see Ruth privately and to explain to her a few of his friend's peculiarities, so that no member ofthe family need be unnecessarily surprised. For one thing, the stranger was inordinately shy, disliking girls more than anything in the whole world. In fact Ralph was at last obliged to confess that had his friend guessed how many maidens he would be obliged to face at dinner, gladly would he have preferred starvation to joining them. But since Russell had asked no uncomfortable questions, Ralph had not felt in duty bound to forewarn him. Then, as his guest was about thirty years old, according to Frieda Ralston's calculations he was much too elderly anyhow for the Ranch girls' consideration.
Yet notwithstanding all these drawbacks Ralph Merrit had been exceedingly anxious to bring his friend to the Rainbow Ranch. For in spite of the young man's shyness and social awkwardness, he was exceptionally brilliant, and was regarded almost a genius in his chosen line of work. Henry Tilford Russell was the assistant professor of ancient languages in the University of Chicago and Ralph had known him there in his own student days. However, he had recently suffered a breakdown from overwork and was now in the West on a trip for his health. But the fact about his former friend overwhich Ralph Merrit was particularly enthusiastic and desired to have Ruth impart to the girls, was that of his own free will Professor Russell had chosen the life of a student. His father was a wealthy and prominent Chicago lawyer, at one time the American Ambassador to Greece, so had the son desired he might have followed the idle existence of most other rich young men.
In the midst of seeing that the baby was safely stored away in his silk-lined crib and that the table was set for extra guests, and that Aunt Ellen prepare a specially good dinner, Ruth had no time for extended conversation with the girls. She did manage to mention to Jean and Frieda that Ralph had brought home a stranger to whom they were to try to be agreeable. But this bit of information was almost swallowed up in the more important news that Ralph had at last succeeded in getting hold of a new set of men and that work on Rainbow Mine was to begin again within the next day or so.
Then, soon after, Frank appeared, and everything else was forgotten in the welcome to him.
Just as though he had been her older brother and Frieda a little girl, Frank kissed her,insisting that she had grown, although at eighteen Frieda certainly considered herself quite past the growing stage.
Introduced to the new baby, Frank did not seem in the least nervous or abashed as most men are by such very tiny persons. Indeed, he apparently had overcome all his old reserve and shyness and without this was simple and charming, as persons of high birth and breeding are most apt to be.
Fifteen minutes before dinner Ruth had positively to force the four girls to dress. Then, as Jim was getting ready at the same time, she had a few moments alone with Frank Kent.
"You know what I have come for, don't you, Mrs. Colter—Ruth?" Frank began with the directness that the woman had always admired in him.
Ruth made no pretense of not understanding. "It would be hard for all of us, and I don't see how Jim would be able to get along on the ranch without Jack," she replied. "For you see he and Jack really are like 'partners,' their old name for each other. But if it is for Jack's happiness you know how we should all feel. But, Frank, I feel I must warn you that Jack won't be easy towin, and it is because I care for you so much that I hope you will not be discouraged. She is not just like most girls, and——"
Frank nodded. "I have understood that all along," he interrupted. "Still there is one thing, Ruth, that you do not know. Last summer I persuaded Jack to confess that she did care for me. Yet she insisted that there was something, she could not explain to me what it was, that stood in our way—some barrier that had to be broken down before she could consent to marry me. What it was I don't know and that is one of the things I have come half way across the world to find out. Can you guess of any possible obstacle to Jack's feeling for me?"
In a puzzled fashion Ruth Colter drew her delicate brows together. Frank's remark had startled and surprised her. "No, not unless it is her affection for us and the ranch," she replied.
Before another confidence could be exchanged, Jim had stamped into the living room, looking bigger and more splendid than ever, suggesting the strong wind from his own beloved prairies. A few moments later Ralph Merrit and his guest followed, and afterwards Olive, Jean and Jack.
Perhaps because she remembered that Frank had always liked her best in white, Jack wore a plain white silk dress cut square in the neck and with no trimming but the girdle and little ruffle of lace. It was a dress which she had owned for over a year, and Frieda was annoyed with her for wearing it on the evening of Frank's arrival. Notwithstanding, as there was no time to change after her sister's protest, Frieda finally conceded as Jack left the room that she did look fairly well. For the truth was that no one of the older girl's more elaborate toilets could have suited her half so well.
Jack was pale and not altogether sure whether she was the more happy or unhappy over Frank's presence, yet somehow her unusual pallor was not unattractive, with her burnished brown and gold hair and the healthy scarlet of her lips. Then in some indefinable fashion Jack's expression had recently grown gentler, indeed tonight her manner held a certain timidity, giving her one of the charms that she sometimes lacked.
Both Olive and Jean were also simply dressed, since their dinner party was an impromptu one and entirely informal. Olivehad on a lavender muslin with a bunch of Frieda's violets at her waist, while Jean was dressed in a pale yellow voile frock with primroses embroidered upon it.
Ralph Merrit frowned and then tried to smile as Jean came forward to shake hands, congratulate him and meet his guest, "What right had a poor fellow even to dream of a girl so fitted by beauty and grace to every high position? Suppose by some miracle Jean should in time learn to care for him, what would he have to offer her? Here was Frank Kent (and Ralph was perfectly aware of Frank's intention), and if Jack cared for him she would have all the things of this world that Jean so frankly loved, wealth, a high social position and one day an old English title."
But while Ralph Merrit was continuing to pursue this wholly futile train of thought, Jean was every now and then glancing toward him demurely from under her heavy shaded brown eyes with a look which he perfectly understood.
"What in the world is the matter with your friend, Mr. Russell?" the look said plain as any words. For Jean was doing her level best to talk to the stranger and in returnfor her efforts he would not even turn towards her.
On first being introduced to Jacqueline the Professor had turned crimson to the tips of his large ears, though in a measure he had been prepared for one girl, since Ralph had mentioned a "Miss Ralston" in connection with the ownership of the Rainbow Mine. Later the meeting with Olive had added resentment to his confusion. Why had Merrit not warned him of what he would have to endure? Jean was an impossible third. Why, no such misfortune as meeting with three girls had overtaken him since he reached the great womanless West! For though the West did have its tiresome quota of females, so far he had managed to escape speaking to any of them except on strictly business matters.
Well, he was in for it now, and would have to endure the evening as best he could; yet already he had made up his mind to escape as soon as daylight came in the morning.
Jean's well-meant efforts to make herself agreeable to Ralph's friend were entirely wasted; yet after dinner was announced the young Professor found himself more at ease. For fortunately he had been placed onMrs. Colter's left and next him was an empty chair—evidently for some member of the family not at home he thought with a suppressed sigh of relief.
Overhearing Frank Kent ask some question of interest in regard to the mine, Professor Russell forgot his embarrassment sufficiently to add several questions and comments of his own. And it happened to be during one of his own speeches that an unexpected movement near him made him glance toward the empty chair.
"Great Scott! Was this a big wax doll about to take her place next him?"
Yet, though the doll was struggling with the chair and evidently trying to draw it out from under the table, it never occurred to Henry Tilford Russell to render her the slightest assistance, in spite of the fact that she was smiling at him appealingly out of the very largest and bluest eyes he had ever seen.
The lateness of Frieda Ralston's entrance did not appear to have surprised her family, who were entirely accustomed to it; however, the magnificence of her dinner toilet plainly did. For whatever had inspired Frieda to dress up as she had? It was small wonder that she was late.
Even in the midst of her duties as hostess Ruth Colter's gray eyes widened and it was on the tip of her tongue to scold Frieda for her foolishness. Yet, recovering herself in time and recalling the presence of their guests, she said nothing.
With a faint suggestion of reproach Jack shook her head at her sister, while Jean and Olive openly smiled at each other. So the situation would have passed off without any unpleasantness if it had not been for Jim Colter. When would Ruth teach Jim that he was not to tease the Ranch girls before strangers just as if they were tiny children?
With real astonishment and some mock admiration Jim stared at the latest comer, at the same time giving a characteristic chuckle and low whistle. Then, in spite of the fact that Jack, who was sitting near, gave his foot a warning pressure, he exclaimed:
"What in heaven's name, Baby, does all that finery mean? You aren't going to a ball later on this evening, are you, and forgotten to mention it?"
Then, with everybody at the table staring at her, Frieda felt her lips beginning to tremble and her eyes fill with tears, as atlast she slipped into her place. Why should her appearance create so much comment? She had dressed up because she wished to and for no other special reason.
Often in the past year when things at the Lodge had been dull for a long time she had amused herself in trying on her pretty clothes. No one had ever objected before, but now, just because there were strangers, or at least one stranger, present, she had to be made the object of family criticism and ridicule. If only they were alone Frieda felt that she would like to tell Jim and everybody just how hateful they were. For of course there had been no thought in her mind of Ralph's guest when she had put on her bluecrêpe de chînedress with its low neck and elbow sleeves and floating chiffon draperies. The costume had been a present from her sister, Jack, who always could save more of her income than she or Jean. She had only wished to find out whether it was becoming to her and that was why she had also taken so much time and care in fixing her hair. Certainly she knew that Ralph's guest would be as old as the hills—Ralph had plainly stated that he would be.
Frieda gave a little start, which shepromptly repressed so that no one should notice it, when she heard a pleasant voice whispering unexpectedly close to her ear:
"Don't mind their teasing you; I think you look—just jolly."
And in reply Frieda smiled tremulously upon the newcomer.
He was old, just as she had expected—his hair was already beginning to grow thin upon the top of his head. He was slender and delicate looking and of only medium height, yet his eyes were certainly the brownest and almost the kindest that she had ever seen, in spite of the fact that they had a kind of absent, far-away expression even while they seemed to be fastened upon her.
"Thank you," Frieda returned a second later, having by this time regained both her lost dignity and self-possession. But this time the younger Miss Ralston found their latest visitor displaying a curious eccentricity. Now he was plainly laughing at her. Naturally Frieda could not have dreamed that Professor Russell, whom Ruth had finally concluded to introduce to her, considered her a little girl of about fourteen. Otherwise, not for anything in the world, would he have made the speech which he first addressed to her.
The truth was that this old-young Professor was extremely fond of children and only objected to girls after they had grown up. Then because he was so shy himself he had a keen sympathy for embarrassment in other people. So it was to these two causes that Frieda owed his friendliness.
Nevertheless, as she was entirely unconscious of this fact, Frieda continued to talk to him very calmly and comfortably during the entire meal. He did appear surprised over an occasional remark of hers, but as he hardly ever answered, Frieda guessed that this might be his method of revealing his appreciation of her attentions. Actually the two of them were out on the porch with every one else vanished from sight for the moment before Professor Russell entirely awoke to the fact that, though his companion was still extremely young, she could not exactly be regarded as a baby.
TWO CONVERSATIONS
"JACK, you have not played fair with me; what is it that has happened?" Frank Kent asked quietly.
It was an hour since dinner time at the Lodge and Frank had so insisted upon Jack's taking a walk with him that without rudeness she had not been able to refuse. It was an enchanting June night, warmer than usual in that part of the western country, and with a moon that shines perhaps nowhere on this earth with exactly the same wide radiance.
Jack and Frank had walked down the tall aisles of cottonwood trees near the house and were now standing a few yards on the farther side of them in a clear and revealing light. At Frank's words the girl flinched as he had known that she would. For just that reason he had chosen them, since nothing could hurt Jacqueline so much or make her come so immediately to her own defence as any suggestion that she had not played fair.Other girls might not suffer so greatly from this accusation; but honesty, candor and a kind of straightforwardness, which some persons are pleased to think as masculine traits, had always been Jack's leading characteristics. Now, however, though her companion waited impatiently for her reproach or her denial, for a moment he heard neither.
"I am so sorry, Frank, that you feel in that way about me," Jack began finally. Then, almost in a whisper: "I have not intended to be unfair to you. I—I had not promised you anything."
Jack was not looking into Frank's face as she spoke, but at the silvery whiteness of the ground beneath her feet.
"But nothing has happened, if you mean that I have become either angry or disappointed in you," she added timidly.
Difficult as the girl had anticipated this conversation might be, it was more trying than she had expected.
What could she say? How could she truthfully present the situation to Frank, as it appeared to her, without putting Olive in an impossible position? Because in spite of Olive's denial through the message to Jean at the close of the last Ranch Girls' book,Jacqueline was still firmly convinced that her friend felt so great an affection for Frank Kent that it was influencing her whole life. Did it not explain why she absolutely refused to consider Donald Harmon's proposal of marriage, in spite of Don's devotion and her grandmother's expressed desire? Moreover, even if Olive did not like Donald sufficiently well to consider marrying him, why should she insist that she intended devoting her future to teaching the Indian children?
To Jack Ralston such a career suggested pure martyrdom. Olive might do anything else in the world that she liked, even if her grandmother left her no inheritance. For there was Miss Winthrop, who regarded Olive almost as a daughter and who would do everything possible for her. She might have almost any happiness and yet Olive actually talked as if she meant to do what she had so long said she intended as soon as she was a few years older and the proper arrangements could be made.
Jack bit her lips until they positively hurt. Actually she felt a shiver of repugnance at the idea of going away with Frank to every happiness if her going involved leaving her dearest friend to such a fate. Could she everreally be happy with this thought in the back of her mind?
No, Jack decided once again that she was far stronger than Olive and better able to look after herself and to bear, if need be, both loss and loneliness. Besides, had she not had many joys in the past and Olive for many years so few? Surely if Olive still cared for Frank, as she believed, in a little while there need be no further doubt of it. In that event it must be her duty to tell Frank that she did not love him and would never consent to leave the ranch for his sake. After that Frank would undoubtedly turn at once to Olive, who had always been his friend and upon whose sympathy he could surely count. Olive, too, was so much prettier, her nature so much gentler and sweeter, she would make a far better wife. Frank might be angry with her at first, Jack acknowledged to herself at this moment, but he would be more than grateful in the end.
Jack laid her hand pleadingly on the young man's coat sleeve.
"Frank," she asked more wistfully than she herself realized, "won't you promise not to talk about your feeling for me for a time? Won't you just stay on here with us at theRainbow Ranch as you used to do and let us have a happy time together? I am worried about such a number of things. Perhaps the money in Rainbow Mine is going to give out and we may have no further income from it. Then there is this strike of our miners. Jim and I don't say a great deal about it to the others, but we are so afraid the old men may resort to violence when we try to get things to running smoothly again and that Ralph or some one else may be seriously hurt. Don't you see that I just can't think about anything else now?"
"No, Jack dear, I can't honestly see why your having all these worries and annoyances can affect your knowing whether or not you return my love. It is not as though I had never spoken of it—you have had a whole year to decide. But if you wish me to wait longer, of course I shall do as you ask. Only please don't let it be too long."
Then before the girl could reply she and her companion had both started, and instinctively Jack clutched at the young man's arm.
The next moment she gave a relieved laugh.
"I don't see why I should jump in that fashion just because we heard a slight noise behind us," she apologized. "I suppose otherpeople have just the same right that we have to be outdoors enjoying the moonlight."
Jack then turned around, looking back into the grove of cottonwood trees. "Jean, Olive, Frieda," she called lightly, but when no one responded, thinking no more of the incident she moved on a few steps.
"Come on, Frank, let us have a real walk, it is too lovely to go back to the Lodge so soon. I want to ask you such a lot of questions and about your mother and father and Kent Place," she pleaded.
Frank's attention was not to be so easily diverted. For several moments he continued staring at the spot where undoubtedly he had heard the noise of light footsteps only a few seconds before. The sound had come from the neighborhood of the trees nearest them; but why did no figure emerge into the light or move off again in the opposite direction? The night was so bright and the air so clear that no one could have escaped without being either seen or heard. But Frank was too interested in the prospect of a longer time in the moonlight alone with Jacqueline to waste a great deal more thought upon a possible intruder. Once again he glanced back, but as no one was in sight, he and Jackwere soon deep in an intimate and happy conversation.
Notwithstanding, neither the girl nor the man were mistaken in their original impression that some one had been in their neighborhood during at least a part of their conversation. For when they were both safely out of sight a slender figure stole from behind one of the largest cottonwood trees and ran off with the fleetness and noiselessness of a wild creature. There was an ugly expression on the face—one of resentment and suspicion and yet of so great unhappiness that the other emotions might have been forgiven.
For the Indian boy, Carlos, fifteen minutes before had just concluded a conversation with the only person in the world for whom he felt any real affection. And foolish and mistaken as his dream had been, it hurt no less to find it shattered.
A few minutes after dinner, when all the family were together on the veranda at Rainbow Lodge, Olive had several times noticed Carlos hovering about in their vicinity, now on a pretence of bringing a message to Jim Colter which might as easily have waited until morning, then asking some perfectly unnecessary question of her. And finally with thepersistence and stoicism of his race he had planted himself like a slender and upright column against a side of the house, deliberately to wait until he could have his way.
There was not the slightest use of pretending that Olive did not understand what his intention was. Carlos wished to talk with her, wished to have an immediate answer to the letter which he had lately written her. Moreover, she feared that unless she gave in to him he might show some trace of his feeling before the assembled company.
Quietly Olive slipped over to Ruth Colter.
"Ruth," she whispered, when no one was paying any especial attention to either of them, "I have something rather important that I must say to Carlos. He is here now waiting. Do you think it would make any difference if I go and talk to him for a few moments? We won't go any distance from the house, just to some place where no one may be disturbed by us."
And Ruth agreed to the girl's request without considering it seriously. To the older woman Carlos was only a child, sometimes rather a difficult one it was true, but at any rate only an idle, mischievous boy, whom the Ranch girls in their usual impulsive generosityhad befriended and in a measure adopted. But that Carlos should think of himself as a man and actually have the impertinence to consider himself in love with Olive, Ruth simply could not have believed had she been told the truth at this moment.
So Olive, pretending to go to her own room for a scarf, had afterwards stolen out of a side door and come close up to where the Indian boy was standing.
"Carlos," she said kindly, "I would rather you did not linger about the veranda because you wish to speak to me. If you will come away with me for a little distance we can talk. I received your letter and you want to know what I think of it?"
Without a word the boy nodded, but he followed the girl for a few yards until they were standing ankle deep in the shimmering green foliage of Frieda's violet beds which were not far from the Lodge. And although in the path a few feet away there was a small bench where the girls often rested after their work among the flowers, Olive would not consent to sitting down.
Slowly and patiently as she could, she explained to Carlos the utter impossibility of his feeling for her. In the first place, hewas a boy while she was a number of years his senior. Then he was completely mistaken in his idea that because she had been raised among Indian people she cared for their life or habits. Not for anything on earth would she return to their simple and primitive existence. Because Olive was essentially gentle and because her sympathy and understanding of the Indian boy's nature was a matter of experience as well as kindness of heart, she did try to take the sting away from the present situation so far as she could; yet she felt obliged to be firm, for there must be no repetition of Carlos' foolish letter to her. He must appreciate that she was fond of him because he had once befriended her in a difficulty, and that she was grateful and would always be interested in his welfare. But to care for him in any other fashion was absolutely out of the question. Never again must he even dare to refer to the subject.
Notwithstanding her resolute attitude and the arguments which she had used so forcibly, at the end of their conversation Olive did not feel sure that Carlos was as entirely convinced of the absurdity of his desire as he should have been. For she had spared him the one course open to her that might have brought him tohis senses—sheer ridicule. Therefore when Olive was back in her own room alone and undressing for the night, since she had not felt in the mood for rejoining her friends, she wondered if she had been altogether wise. Certainly she had not liked Carlos' manner, and two remarks of his near the conclusion of their talk had left her very angry.
"It is Miss Ralston who has turned you against me," he had muttered sullenly. "She don't like me, she don't understand. She thinks I am no more than a servant about her place. If it had not been for her you might have stayed always in the wilderness with me when both of us were children. Then you would never have known of your people nor learned to love the stupid white man's world. Miss Ralston is my enemy; therefore I hate her." And with these words Carlos had drawn up his lean, boyish frame with the majesty of a deposed king.
Olive's sudden wrath had humbled him for the moment at least; yet just before she turned to go he had said again with equal passion, although his manner was quieter and more subdued.
"Then if it is not Miss Ralston who has come between us, there is some one you carefor. I wonder if it can be the far-away guest and friend, who arrived this afternoon by the iron trail of the prairies?"
When Olive did not answer but walked quietly back to the Lodge, Carlos stood for a time like a bronze statue, silent and unmoving; then swift as a shadow he threaded his way between the cottonwood trees, actually observing Jack and Frank from the beginning to the end of their conversation, although hearing little of what they said.
A VISIT TO RAINBOW MINE
TWO days later, as things were once more in working order at the Rainbow Mine, Ralph Merrit suggested that Jim Colter bring Ruth and the girls and Frank Kent down to see how things were going. And soon after luncheon the little party started.
A trip to the mine was actually like an expedition to a foreign place, so long a time had passed since the family had been allowed in its vicinity, and so of course everybody was in especially fine spirits. It was well to have Rainbow Mine running again and a relief to find that the striking miners had yielded to circumstances so much more readily and peaceably than their first threats suggested. They had influenced the mine workers near at home to have nothing to do with Ralph Merrit's management; nevertheless since the arrival of his new force the atmosphere about Rainbow Ranch had remained serene anduntroubled, so that evidently the strikers were not to be heard from.
True, a single ugly letter had mysteriously appeared at daylight this morning left before the door of the new foreman, but except for mentioning it to Ralph, the man had paid no further attention to it. And Ralph, in the interest and excitement of getting things into working order at the mine, had given it less consideration than it deserved. For the annoyance was not so much in the threat of trouble that the letter contained, as in the puzzle of its being found at the quarters built for the Rainbow Mine workers, which were not far from the old Ranch house. No outsider had been seen anywhere about the great ranch either on the preceding day or night.
Jim and Frank and Jack walked on ahead in order that they might have a few moments' conversation with the new miners; for no one had yet gone down the shaft into the mine. Before lunch they had been going over the machinery and seeing that the elevators for the men and for the ore were in good working order.
Now Ralph Merrit was insisting that he be lowered first into the mining pit and thathis new men with their hammers and chisels and other mining paraphernalia follow after him. However, observing that Ruth and the other girls were coming nearer he went forward to speak to them. Not since the evening when he and his friend had taken dinner at the Rainbow Lodge had he seen any one of them.
"We are awfully pleased, Ralph, that affairs are straightening out so comfortably," Ruth began. "I think we owe you a vote of thanks." She had not known what had been making Ralph Merrit so unlike himself for the past few months, since neither Jim nor Jean had seen fit to confide Ralph's weakness to any one else; but she did recognize the change for the better in him today. She had never before thought of Ralph as specially handsome, yet he looked so fine and capable; his expression was so full of energy and ability that instinctively Ruth held out her hand.
"Go in and win, Ralph," she added, half laughing and half serious. "I don't just know what it is that you are fighting for, except to make more money for the girls who don't deserve it. But whatever it is I am going to put my money on you, even though betting is against my Puritan traditions; for you'llwin in the end. Why, Ralph, you look like the famous statue of 'The Minute Man' near Boston, except that you have not his gun or knapsack. You're just as typical an American fighter and just as ready for action."
Crimsoning like a small boy at unexpected praise, Ralph crushed Ruth's hand in reply until she had to repress a cry of pain.
"I'm not worth the powder to blow me up if you really knew the truth about me, Mrs. Colter; but just the same any kind of fellow likes a compliment now and then, and I don't remember when I have had one," he returned.
A movement of Jean's graceful shoulders and a single glance from her demure dark eyes made the young man swing half-way around to face her.
"You are not disputing that statement, are you?" he demanded. "Why shouldn't a fellow like a compliment as well as a girl?"
Jean slipped off the big pink straw hat she had been wearing and with the velvet ribbon about it, swung it on her arm like a basket.
"Oh, I am not disputingthatpart of your statement if you please, sir," she answered. "I am only regretting that you have forgotten all the other compliments which you have received in the past. For when I rememberhow many I have bestowed upon you lately, it is discouraging to think what a failure I have been in trying to make myself agreeable."
Just why recently, indeed ever since their conversation together that afternoon on the veranda at the Lodge and later here in the shadow of one of the great rocks, Jean Bruce had been trying to make herself particularly agreeable to Ralph Merrit and to win back his former attention and friendship, the girl herself did not know. On her return from Europe, after a few months at home, she had certainly discouraged Ralph's devotion, feeling instinctively that his affection for her had now become more serious than in the past when he had looked upon her as only a half-grown girl. For Jean did not wish to be unkind or unfair, and assuredly Ralph had none of the things to offer her which she desired. Perhaps because of this she had talked more of wealth and of worldly ambitions than she might otherwise have done. And Ralph had either understood her intention or else had recovered from his former affection, for in the past few months, during his foolish and futile struggle for money through speculations, he had entirely ceased making love to her or treating her in any way differently from the other girls.
At heart Jean was essentially a coquette, one of those girls and women who, having once gained a man's admiration, cannot bear to find themselves losing it. And surely Jack and Frieda and Olive had often accused her of this vice.
Now, knowing that Ralph cared at present more for the successful working of the Rainbow Mine than for anything else, Jean pointed with apparently the deepest concern toward the group of new men.
"Tell us about the new miners, won't you please, Ralph," she asked, "their names and where some of them came from—anything you know? They are a splendid-looking lot of fellows!"
But at this moment Frieda interrupted the conversation to ask a question. "Who is that thin man over there all by himself in the blue overalls and old hat? Why isn't he with the others who are being introduced to Jim and Frank and Jack? I wonder if Jim knows him?"
Then, quite unaccountably, Ralph Merrit appeared extremely uncomfortable.
"See here, Frieda, I might as well tell you, for you would be sure to find out anyhow if I didn't. That fellow isn't one of the newminers. He is Russell, the friend I brought up to the Lodge with me to dinner the other night. You see——"
But Frieda's eyes were widening and in truth the other three women seemed almost equally surprised.
"But I thought Professor Russell had gone away from Rainbow Ranch," Frieda protested, "why he told us good-by the night he left and said that he would have to be off so early the next morning that he could not see any of us again."
Ralph nodded. "I know," he conceded in some embarrassment. "And you're still to think he has gone if you please. Don't any one of you go near enough to Russell to speak to him or he will probably die of confusion before your eyes. I am afraid I forgot he was around and he is under the impression that he is safely disguised. You see the truth of the matter is this. When Russell got me away from the Lodge the other night there is nothing he did not say to me for having taken him unprepared to a place where he had to meet four girls. He declared it nearly killed him and he had every intention of sneaking away from the Ranch house the next morning on foot rather than suffer thechance of meeting any one of you again. He is an awful ass, but just the same he is a tremendously clever fellow and I was awfully anxious to show him the mine and he wanted to see it almost as much. So I persuaded him that he could just stay on at the Ranch house with me for a few days, letting you believe he had disappeared until he saw how things down here looked and worked. I assured him no one of you ever came near the men's quarters, but now he is hanging around the mine waiting for me as I promised to take him down into the pit as soon as we start work. Don't scare him to death beforehand."
Ruth and Jean and Olive laughed, and Olive said sympathetically:
"Poor fellow, I can feel for him. I used to feel so shy that nearly all strangers made me wretched. But I don't see just why he should be so specially severe upon girls?"
"Because he is a goose," Frieda returned so sententiously that every one else laughed. So plainly was she offended at her own failure to charm their strange guest a night or so before.
It was time for Ralph to say good-by. Arrangements at the pit shaft had been made so that the first elevator could be loweredinto it. He then waved his hand in farewell to his friends, as he and the new foreman of the mine and the odd-looking figure of Henry Russell climbed on to the elevator.
"I shall go away before they come up again, so that foolish fellow won't even have to look at me," Frieda remarked scornfully, as without any hitch or delay the car slowly disappeared into the bowels of the earth.
THE EXPLOSION
THE new crowd of miners were anxiously waiting about the mouth of the pit shaft, which led down into the deepest excavation that had yet been dug in the neighborhood of the Rainbow Creek.
There were other openings, but because this was the largest, Ralph Merrit had desired that his workmen begin their labor here. For by extending and deepening the passages in the lower part of this shaft he hoped to make important discoveries of new veins of ore. And once convinced that a quantity of new gold was actually to be found under this ground the young engineer had no idea of giving up before he had devised some intelligent and not too expensive method of bringing more wealth to the surface of the earth.
Not many feet from the company of men Jack Ralston and Frank Kent were standing together talking of some detail in connectionwith the work, while Jim Colter was hanging over the pit opening in company with the men who had charge of the lowering and raising of the mine elevator.
Evidently Ralph Merrit and his two companions had made a safe landing below, for shortly after their disappearance there was a signal, and slowly the lift traveled up into the daylight again, now ready to take on another lot of passengers.
"Steady, no crowding," Jim Colter called out as the next relay stepped hastily forward. "Merrit will want to start things going in the tunnel before you descend."
One man had already gotten aboard, while another had one foot extended toward the platform, when suddenly from underneath them there came a tearing, splitting noise and then a muffled roar like the instantaneous explosion of a thousand guns.
The passengers in the elevator fell on their knees and all around the opening of the pit there was powder and blackness and a fall of stones like a swift rain of meteors.
By accident Ruth Colter's back happened to be turned away from the scene at the mine, so that the first sound she remembered hearing was her husband's hoarse shout ofhorror and then as she turned the sight of his great form lying prostrate on the ground with Jack and Frank trying to drag him away from danger.
But when Ruth would have rushed toward him, Olive and Frieda held her fast, and the next instant a wave of weakness and darkness so overwhelmed her that she had no strength to move.
When she opened her eyes she could see Jean's face, white as a sheet, dancing before her and hear her saying:
"Jim isn't hurt, dear; only stunned by his fall. See, he is on his feet again giving orders. And Jack and Frank must be all right, they were not so near. But what could have happened, what caused the explosion? It's the men down inside the mine who must be horribly hurt. Ralph——"
But Jean shook with such nervous terror that Frieda's arm encircled her, and the next moment the four women moved nearer the place of the disaster.
They were just in time, for at the moment of their approach, although Jim Colter's face was so black that you could hardly distinguish him, with his forehead bleeding from an ugly wound and his clothes torn andburnt, he was giving orders like the general of an army and like trained soldiers the miners were obeying him.
"I'll take four of you men who will volunteer to go down inside the mine with me. I don't know what has happened, but we are pretty apt to find things serious. It sounded like a dynamite explosion and there may be another. Fortunately for us the elevator is above ground and we can lower it. Some of you see that stretchers are brought here. Jack, keep your head and get hold of a doctor at once. I hope we may need him," the man added grimly, as he swung his great length aboard the small car, his companions crowding close against him.
Unmindful of the awed silence that had followed the noise of the explosion, unmindful of the two score of rough strange men, Ruth breaking away from the girls now ran forward crying:
"Jim, you can't go down into the mine first. I can't let you. There is the baby and me, you must think of us and of the girls. You may be horribly hurt."
She was near enough now so that she could look straight into her husband's blue eyes and something in Jim's expression calmedher instantly. Then for the time he too seemed conscious of the presence of no one else.
"Don't be frightened, Ruth, I shall be all right, dear, and back again with you in ten minutes perhaps. But in any case, girl, don't you see I have got to go down before the others? This is our mine and two of the men down there are almost boys."
Some quiet order Jim then gave and slowly for the second time the lift sank down toward the dark abyss under the earth. For Ruth had made no other sound or protest, only keeping tight hold on Frieda's and Jean's hands. Olive had gone with Jack and Frank Kent in the direction of the Rainbow Lodge.
To the watchers at the pit opening after the elevator had landed the second time there was a moment when they believed that they could hear voices below. Then the waiting seemed interminable. In point of fact only a few moments more had passed before the signal indicated that the car must be drawn up again.
And this time it was Jean Bruce who covered her eyes with her hands.
There was a grinding of the cables and thenan unmistakable groan, so it was not only the faces of the women that blanched whiter. Many of these miners were middle-aged men who had been in mining disasters where many hundreds of lives were at stake. Now, since no further disturbance had followed the first brief explosion, they realized that only the three men who had first gone down into the pit had been injured. Yet it was nerve-racking not to be able to foretell whether these three men would be brought up alive or dead.
Jim Colter and one of his helpers were standing upright in the car and Jim held in his arms a limp, crumpled figure, unconscious, his blue overalls charred and blackened, his absurd old hat quite gone. Indeed, the grave and learned professor of ancient languages looked like a broken slip of a boy in the big man's keeping.
There on the floor of the car another figure was resting. The face was upturned to the light and though the eyes were closed the expression of the mouth showed that the man had not fainted but was suffering great pain.
Frieda touched Jean Bruce on the arm.
"It is not Ralph, but the new foreman who seems to be very badly hurt," she whispered."Look, the other men are carrying him off. I can't tell about Ralph's friend, Mr. Russell. But where is Ralph? Why hasn't he come up with the others?"
And this last question of Frieda's was being echoed in the minds of the waiting woman and girl.
Why had Jim brought up two of the wounded men and left the third, their oldest friend, still in the depth of Rainbow Mine? It was impossible not to believe that Jim had done this because these men were not too badly injured to be helped.
For he had now placed his burden on the ground and was examining the young man with the skill and care of a surgeon, while some one else bathed the face. A stretcher had been secured for the foreman who was now being taken to his own quarters to await the coming of a surgeon.
"Jim," Ruth Colter put her hand on her husband's shoulder and her face was almost as white and strained as it had been during her last speech with him, "the elevator is going down again and you are not going with it. Tell us, please, what has happened to Ralph?"
Without waiting to hear her guardian'sanswer Frieda suddenly burst into tears. Of course she had been dreadfully unnerved by the recent accident and now this uncertainty about their friend, besides the sight of their new acquaintance stretched out there at her feet as though he were dead when the last time she had seen him he had been eating his dinner, was more than she could bear.
"Ralph? Great Scott, I am a brute, Ruth, Jean, Frieda!" Jim Colter exclaimed. "Why didn't I tell you at once? Ralph isn't badly hurt at all; he is bruised and burnt and shaken up, but nothing more, so far as I could tell. So of course he insisted that we bring up the two other fellows first. It's a plain miracle that there's anything left of the three of them. So far as I could understand somebody had fixed a bomb down at the end of the pit shaft, but the thing was clumsily made and only half went off. Ralph said they were blown about a good deal and the atmosphere was pretty thick, but unless the new foreman has been injured internally there was no great harm done. I think this young man has nothing more serious the matter with him than a broken leg. And I expect we shall be able to mend that for him at Rainbow Lodge."
At these words Henry Russell opened his eyes, but whether because of Jim's suggestion or the pain he was enduring, or whether because the sight of the girls, he groaned aloud and then closed his lips again.
"I don't think he wants to be taken to the Lodge," Frieda suggested mournfully. "You see he wants us to think he has gone away."
Then possibly because Ruth's and Jim's nerves had both been strained almost past endurance for the past half hour they laughed aloud at Frieda's speech.
Jean had slipped away and it was her white and yet happy face that Ralph Merrit saw first as he came back into the world of daylight again. There, though he was staggering and nearly blind and covered with blood and grime from the shock he had just received, he found Jean's hands before any others and held them close for a moment while she murmured:
"I am so glad, so glad; it is because you have some big work to do in the world that you have been saved, I am sure, Ralph."
A moment later Ralph was quietly accepting the congratulations of his workmen, while he tried to explain to them just how theexplosion had taken place. That the bomb had been placed down the shaft by one of the former miners there could be no shadow of doubt.