FRIEDA AND THE OTHER GIRL.
THE apparition drew near enough for Frieda to see that it was a stranger with straight black hair. She was barefoot and wore a short, ragged skirt, a bright red jacket, and a red scarf twisted around her throat. In her startled glance at the girl, Frieda beheld a pair of immense black eyes, set in a thin, pointed face, with cheeks flushed crimson, perhaps from the swiftness of her flight. Her breath came in short gasps. Frieda thought of a fawn she had once seen pursued by some hunters, with its great soft eyes transformed into staring pools of terror and its soft sides quivering as though its heart were breaking in its final effort to evade its pursuers.
"Oh, what is it?" Frieda cried, with quick sympathy.
The girl looked at her hopelessly and ran on. But Frieda now understood. An old Indian woman armed with a stick, trotted out of the screen of the trees. Shewas running more slowly but her face was terrifying. Her small black eyes were red with anger and she waved a long arm at the girl.
Frieda Flung Herself Valiantly in the Path of the Indian Woman.Frieda Flung Herself Valiantly in the Path of the Indian Woman.
Frieda wanted to help, but what could she do? "Jean! Jack!" she called again. She could see that the hunted girl had no chance of escaping. She was nearly dropping with exhaustion. There was no place for her to hide, for the plain stretched on, covered only with grass and low sage brush.
Frieda flung herself valiantly in the path of the Indian woman. She was used to the Indians. Ever since she could remember she had been making trips to their villages, and a number of half-breed Indian boys had worked on their ranch. But the girl had never seen one of them so furiously angry as this old squaw. She was frightened and at the sametime wantedto laugh. The woman was so fat and in such a temper, "that she shook when she ran, like a bowlful of jelly," Frieda thought to herself.
The squaw did not lift her beady, black eyes until she was within a few feet of Frieda.
"Ugh," she grunted. "Git out."
She tried to push Frieda away with herstick, but Frieda stretched out both arms and danced up and down in front of the old woman, until she did not know which way to turn.
Old Laska had not run all this distance and gotten out of breath to be stopped by a pale-face chit of a child. She struck Frieda with her staff. Frieda gave a sudden, sharp cry and looked quickly around. She saw that the Indian girl had fallen only a short distance beyond them and was vainly struggling to get on her feet again. Frieda shut her eyes; in another moment she knew that she would hear cruel blows being rained down on the defenseless girl by the furious old woman.
At this moment, a golden brown head, wearing a soft, round Mexican hat, appeared above an opening in the gorge. "Frieda, what's the matter? Didn't we hear you call?" Jack's voice rang out unexpectedly. She jumped lightly from the rocks to the ground and ran toward her sister, guessing at once that the Indian woman had frightened Frieda.
"Stop," Jack ordered imperiously.
The woman hesitated. Something in Jack's commanding tone impressed her and at the same instant Jean crawled slowly into sightabove the ravine, swinging a string of trout over her shoulder.
The Giant's Cañon seemed suddenly alive with girls.
Jean gazed at the scene in bewilderment. Jack's hands were clasped behind her and her head was thrown back in a fashion she had when she was angry. Frieda was in tears and between the two sisters stood a fat squaw.
Jack and Jean looked so ready to do battle at a moment's notice, that the Indian's manner changed.
"I want not to hurt the little Missie," she mumbled. "I try to catch my own girl. She run away from her good home. She ver' bad." The old woman's head with its straight black hair, plaited in small braids, bobbed fiercely up and down and she shook her stick threateningly ahead of her.
During the whole scene Jack and Jean had had their backs turned to the hunted girl. Jack was blocking the way of the Indian woman. Only Frieda had been able to see and through her tears she had discovered that the girl, who had been lying helpless on the level ground only a few seconds before, had now vanished completely.
Frieda smiled at Jack's and Jean's puzzled expressions. "Indian girl! What did the old woman mean?" The two girls looked about. There was no one in sight. Evidently the squaw had not intended to hurt Frieda and Jack and Jean were anxious to get rid of her. The next instant the Indian waddled on, though she, too, had lost sight of the fragile figure she was pursuing.
Frieda walked over to the fire and stirred it into a blaze without a word. She winked mysteriously at Jean and Jack, but neither of them had the faintest idea of what she meant.
"Let's fry the fish, before we go down into the cave," Frieda whispered. "I don't want the Indian to come along this way and find out where it is."
Jean and Jack knew that Frieda wished to keep her playhouse a secret from all the world, so they thought nothing of her odd manner.
Frieda was bending over the glowing ashes, humming softly, with her cheeks rosy and her two long blonde plaits fairly trembling with excitement when she noticed the Indian woman coming back toward them. She wasalone. Evidently she had gone on for half a mile or more before she decided it was useless to hunt any longer.
Frieda never looked up. The woman sidled up to Jean and Jack with a wheedling expression on her broad, stupid face.
Jack and Jean paid no attention to her. They were making a pile of shiny fish scales into a silver hill at their feet, as it was their part to clean the trout, while Frieda did the cooking.
The Indian eyed the two girls doubtfully. She firmly believed that one of them had helped the truant to escape, yet they had not stirred from before her eyes, in the time when the runaway girl threw her off the scent.
"You know where my girl is, you hide her from me," the woman said accusingly.
Jean glanced at her in a bored fashion. "Will you please go away?" she demanded. "We are busy. We do not want to talk to you. I told you that we had never seen any Indian girl."
Frieda did not move, but her rosy cheeks burned a deeper red from the heat of the flames.
The squaw waddled slowly out of sight.What did it matter if she had not caught Olilie? The girl would soon have to return to the hut. She could not live long alone out on the plains and when she came back she should be taught her place. Olilie was only a squaw in spite of the nonsense she had learned at the white people's school. She should do the work and be the slave of the man chief, like all Indian girls had from the beginning.
"Jean, Jack," Frieda hissed softly. She came over toward her cousin and sister with the fish still sizzling and popping in her frying pan.
"Oh, do be careful, Frieda," Jean begged. Some of the hot fat sputtered out of the pan into Jean's lap and she slid backwards off the rock where she was seated.
But Jack saw that something unusual was the matter with Frieda.
"What in the world has happened to you, child? Your eyes are as big as saucers!" she exclaimed.
Frieda set down her pan and though the Indian woman was now well out of sight, she whispered a few words that made both girls jump to their feet.
"Then there was an Indian girl all the time?" Jean murmured.
Frieda nodded. "We must find her," she argued quietly. "She slipped over the side of the gorge not far from here, when no one was looking at her except me. She can't be very far away for she was too tired to have gone much further."
"All right, Frieda," Jack agreed. "We will look for the Indian princess as soon as we have had our lunch. We must eat the fish first, it is so brown and delicious. Really we will have more strength to search if we have some food," Jack pleaded, seeing Frieda's injured expression.
"She will get away, Jack," Frieda answered. "Then she may be lost on the plains and starve and nobody will ever find her. She was so pretty and so frightened that I am sure you would have been interested if you had only seen her."
Jack heaved a deep sigh. "Come along, Jean," she insisted. "Frieda wants us to look for the will-o-the-wisp, so look we must."
Frieda was not tempestuous like Jack and Jean, but, just the same, like a great many other gentle people, she always had her way. "Little Chinook," Jim used to call her, because "Chinook" is the Indian name for asoft, west wind, that blows so quietly, so persistently, that it carries everything before it. It even wafts all one's troubles away.
Jack, Jean and Frieda crawled down into the great cañon, among the giant rocks, poking their noses into every opening, where they thought it possible that anybody could be concealed. There was no sign of any one, though Frieda called and called, assuring the runaway that the Indian woman had gone back home.
"I am afraid she must have fallen and gotten hurt somehow, Jack," Frieda suggested, when the three girls had explored for half an hour.
Jean turned resolutely upon the two sisters. "I am very sorry, Frieda Ralston," she announced firmly, "but I decline to look for that tiresome girl another minute. I will be fed. I don't see for the life of me, why you are so worried over the fate of an unknown Indian maiden, when your own devoted cousin is perishing before your eyes."
Frieda's cave was soon spread with the luncheon dishes and the girls sat down Turkish fashion, with their long-delayed feast in front of them.
Frieda's face was half buried in a ham sandwich when Jean gave a sudden exclamation of surprise. "Look, girls, there must have been an earthquake or something around here. There is a hole in the rocks back of Frieda's cave, nearly as large as this one. Funny we never noticed it this morning!"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Frieda remarked indifferently. "I was banging away there, trying to make my pantry larger, when a huge stone fell out and rolled into the gorge. Lo and behold, there was another cavern! I found some queer Indian relics in it. Come see."
Frieda led the way over to the new pit and dropped down on her knees in front of it, with Jack and Jean on either side of her. "I was afraid to go inside until you came," she said, "but it is quite empty,—look!"
Frieda's breath gave out. She stared and stared, clutching at her cousin and her sister. The three girls were spellbound!
Gazing at them from out the black darkness, was what Frieda had feared at the first moment of her discovery of the mysterious cavity, a pair of burning, glowing eyes. Theymight belong to some wild animal, though they were not fierce, only timid and pleading.
The ranch girls were not cowards, but not one of them wished to enter the obscurity of that strange hiding place.
The figure stirred. The girls were now more used to the darkness.
"Why it's the Indian girl!" Frieda cried. "Do come out, please. We won't hurt you and the Indian woman has been gone a long time."
But the girl seemed to be afraid to move. Frieda crawled fearlessly into the hole and gave her little, white hand into the girl's thin, dark one.
As the Indian maid came out into the bright, invigorating air, she tried to stand up, but she swayed in the wind, like a scarlet poppy that is trying to oppose its frail strength to the blast of a storm.
Before Jack and Jean could get to her and in spite of Frieda's efforts, the girl took a step forward, staggered and fell at their feet.
As they picked her up, they discovered that she was flushed with fever. But while Jean washed her face with cool water and Jack held her in her arms, she opened her mournfulblack eyes. "I am sorry to have troubled you," she said, without a trace of an Indian accent. "I have run away and I am tired. If you will please give me some water and let me stay here for a few minutes I am sure I will be all right."
But she was not all right, even though the ranch girls persuaded her to eat something, as well as to drink a cup of hot tea. She did not seem to be able to move, but sat perfectly still with her lovely dark head resting between her slender hands. She did not try to explain to them why she had run away from home or when she expected to return.
Jack glanced anxiously upward. They had solemnly promised Jim to be back at the ranch house before dark and the ranch girls could tell the time of day from the position of the sun in the sky. This was one of the things they knew instead of French or drawing. Unless they left the cañon pretty soon, Jack knew they would never get home in time; yet what could they do with Frieda's Indian girl? They could not leave her in the gorge alone, and yet she did not seem to have the strength or the desire to go.
Jack once had seen a copy of a wonderfulpicture of Ishmael in the desert, whom Abraham had cast out with his mother, Hagar. Hagar had gone to find some fuel and the child is alone. Around him is a great, grey plain, with nothing else alive on it. There was something in this Indian girl's position, her fragile grace, and dreadful loneliness, that recalled this picture to Jacqueline Ralston's mind. She put her arm gently over the other girl's shoulder.
The Indian maid looked up. Perhaps it was the difference in her appearance and in Jacqueline's that made her eyes fill with tears. Jack's proud, high-bred face was softened to pity. Her grey eyes were tender and the usual proud curve to her lips was changed to an expression that she seldom showed to any one but Frieda or Jean since her father's death.
"We must go back to our home now," Jack explained kindly, "but we can't leave you here alone. Tell us why you ran away? Don't you think you could return; or is there anything we could do for you?"
The girl shook her head. She was as tall as Jean, but so thin that she might be only an overgrown child. She seemed very young toJacqueline; almost as young as Frieda and as much in need of some one to take care of her.
The three ranch girls were gazing intently at the stranger.
She flung her hands up over her face again. "I can't go back, I can't," she insisted. "You are to go away. I am not afraid. Only let me stay in this ravine, until I can find some place that is further away, where no one can find me. I shall not be hungry, I can hunt and fish. Only to-day I am tired." She shook, as though she were having a chill.
Jacqueline dropped down on the ground by her side. Frieda and Jean were trying not to cry.
"You poor little thing, you know we can't leave you here," Jack declared. "Won't you? Can't you?" Jack looked appealingly at Jean and Frieda. She was the oldest of the ranch girls, but she never decided anything without their advice. Both of them nodded. "Don't you think you could come home to the ranch with us, until you feel better and can tell us what troubles you? You are ill now and worn out. Why you might even die if you stayed here alone."
Jack did not wait for an answer. Shealmost lifted the Indian girl to her feet and brought her out of Frieda's cave. She helped her upon her own pony, and getting up behind Frieda, she led Hotspur and his new rider to the beloved Rainbow Ranch house, whose doors opened to admit not three girls, but four.
THE RESCUE.
WHEN Olilie, the Indian girl, came back to consciousness, after being put to bed at the ranch house, three days had passed. She lay between broad sheets smelling of violets and whiter than anything she had ever seen, except the new snow on the prairies.
Over in the corner of a big empty room sat a strange little girl. She was sewing on some small doll clothes and humming softly to herself. Two braids like plaited silk of the corn hung over her face. Olilie did not recall ever having seen her before and had not the faintest idea how she happened to be in this wonderful place, instead of the dirty hut of Laska the Indian woman and her son Josef.
Some one else tiptoed softly into the chamber. Olilie half closed her eyes. She remembered this other face faintly, but where and when had she seen it?
"Hasn't she spoken yet?" a voice asked in a disappointed tone. "I am so sorry, but I simply have to ride over the range with Jimthis morning. Some of the cattle keep disappearing. If our patient wants to talk, please don't let her tell you everything before I get back. She must be kept pretty quiet."
Just for a second, Olilie felt that a face bent over hers. But she gave no sign of being awake, although she now knew where she was and how she happened to be there. It had flashed across her memory—her flight, her hiding and the meeting with the ranch girls. She understood that she had been ill but was going to get well again. The hot, uncomfortable feeling had left her head, she had no pain, only she was very weak and she did not think that she could bear to go away from this beautiful place. If only she could have been ill a little longer!
Olilie's wistful, black eyes were wide open, when the bedroom door unclosed the second time. She caught a glimpse of a tall, dark figure and a wave of terror swept over her. Already had Laska come to take her home?
But the woman walked quietly up to the bed, took one of Olilie's thin hands and gazed at it earnestly, turning it over in her own brown palm. She shook her head, smoothed up the covers and nodded to Olilie not to try to talk.
"This girl has been brought up among white people, hasn't she, Frieda?" Aunt Ellen inquired softly.
The blonde plaits moved slightly.
"I am sure I don't know," came a faint voice from between them. "We know nothing about her, except what Jack told you. She did not talk like an Indian, so I suppose she has been to school. Her mother, from whom she was running away, was a full-blooded Indian but she don't look a bit like her." Frieda lowered her voice still further. "Has the Indian woman been here to inquire for her daughter? Jack was afraid she would find out who we were and come over here."
Aunt Ellen gave her head a warning shake and said something to Frieda that the sick girl on the bed could not hear. But Frieda jumped up and her bits of doll dresses scattered about on the floor. "When will Jack and Jim come back?" she demanded quickly. "If we had only known before they went away!"
"Known what?" Olilie asked, as naturally as though she had been taking part in the conversation all the time. "I am quite well now, thank you. If you don't mind, I should like to get out of bed."
Frieda's face turned quite red and her blue eyes were round with surprise. She ran to Olilie and threw her arms around her. "You are well now, aren't you?" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad. Just wait until I run and find Jean. She won't like it unless I tell her at once."
"Child," Aunt Ellen queried, as soon as Frieda went away, "is the Arapaho woman who makes baskets and strings beads at the end of the Wind Creek valley your mother and is the lad Josef her son?"
Olilie nodded. "I think so," she replied. "At least I know of no other woman who is my mother. I have lived with her always."
"But you are not a full-blooded Indian girl," Aunt Ellen argued, "although your hair is so black and straight and your skin is dark. Look," Aunt Ellen picked up the girl's hand again. "See, your finger nails are pink and that is not the case with the red or brown-skinned people." Aunt Ellen opened the girl's gown, and where her skin was untouched by the sun and wind, it was a beautiful olive color.
Aunt Ellen lifted her up, wrapped her in a blue dressing gown and sat her in Frieda'svacant chair. "It's a hard time ahead of you, child," she murmured to herself. "Mixed blood don't never bring happiness, when one of 'em runs dark."
Jean's and Frieda's faces both wore strange expressions when they came back to their guest. But Olilie did not know them well enough to guess that anything unusual was the matter.
She stretched out both hands humbly and took one of Jean's and one of Frieda's in her own. "Won't you let me thank you for keeping me here and let me tell you why I ran away?" she asked gratefully.
Jean shook her head nervously, her brown eyes fastened on the tight-closed door, against which Aunt Ellen stood like a body-guard. "No, please don't try to tell us anything now," Jean begged. "I am sure you are not strong enough. And Jack, she is the oldest of us, she would like you to wait until she comes back this afternoon."
The ranch house was built on one floor. A long hall led straight through the centre of it. There were four bedrooms beside the living-room and Aunt Ellen's room, which opened off the kitchen. Aunt Ellen and herhusband, Zack, slept on the place and the old man helped Frieda and Jean with their violet beds. To-day he had ridden over to the nearest village to see about the building of the new greenhouses.
A tramp of heavy feet echoed out in the passageway. Jean kept on talking, as though she wished to drown the sound. The Indian girl did not seem to be disturbed. She was too happy and too weak to care much what was going on outside her room.
"Don't you think I might tell you my name at least?" she begged. "It is Olilie, an Indian name. I don't know just what it means. I—"
There were no locks on the doors inside the big hospitable ranch house. What need was there of locking people either out or in, in this great open western land?
Yet Aunt Ellen kept her hand on the doorknob. "You are not to come in here," she insisted fiercely. "I told you to leave our ranch."
The door burst rudely open. The squat ugly figure of Laska appeared inside the room, followed by a young Indian boy, who looked sheepish and ashamed.
"Ugh," grunted the old squaw. "Did you think we no find you? Come, git up. You go with me." She pushed aside Frieda and Jean, who were trying to guard the sick girl.
Olilie's face was so white that no one could have thought her an Indian. She could not speak, she only clutched at the arms of her chair as though nothing could part her from it.
Jean stamped her foot angrily. "Go out of this house at once," she ordered angrily. "How dare you thrust your way in here? Your daughter is too ill for you to move her. Besides, we are going to keep her here until we find out whether you were cruel to her and why she won't live with you."
"No, no, I shall not live with her again," Olilie burst out passionately. "I do not mind the work or the blows, but I will not be a squaw woman. I will not light the pipe, clean the gun, hew the wood and fetch the water for her son. At the school they have taught me that a girl is a boy's equal. I will not, because I am a girl, be a slave. Please, please go." The Indian girl looked not at her mother, but at Josef, the Indian boy. He kept his head down and mumbled somethingthat only Laska and Olilie could understand.
Laska pointed toward the girl. Then her eyes held her son. "Take her to the tepee of her own people," she commanded. "I know the laws of the white race are many and strange, but they take not the child from her mother, while she is yet young."
Josef went toward Olilie, but Jean's body covered her and he did not dare to thrust the white girl aside.
Frieda flung herself half way out the open window. In front of the ranch was a grove of cottonwood trees, to one side ran a long, winding creek. There was no one in sight, even their watch dog had followed Jack and Jim across the range.
Jean was trying bribery and corruption. She had slipped her hand in her pocket and brought out two bright silver dollars. She held one up before the boy, the other before old Laska. "I will give you these if you will leave the girl with us for a few days longer," she suggested.
The Indian boy did not lift his hand. He was gazing at the figure of his sister in the chair. "I no take her, she sick," he said."I no want her to work for me. It is Laska who make her. She not like other Indian girl. She different somehow. She read books. She talk like teachers at school."
Laska seized the boy by the arm and shook him roughly. "You no talk foolish," she declared. "You bring girl home. We take not white money. Always you try to make the Indian sell big things for little."
"Oh, if somebody would only come to help us," Frieda thought despairingly. She saw that Josef had picked Olilie up in his arms. She felt like Sister Anne in the dreadful story of Bluebeard. If she could see a little cloud of dust arising somewhere down the long road that led through the trees from the far trail of the plains, she knew that help would come to them! If only she could catch sight of one of the cowboys returning to the ranch!
Frieda did spy a little dust along the trail on the upper side of the creek. She seized a white scarf from the table near by and waved itfrantically outthe window. "Help! Help! Jim! Jack! Somebody come quick! We need you!" she cried.
The Indian boy and woman waited, puzzledand alarmed by the noise that Frieda was making.
Frieda saw a rider catch sight of her signal, plunge down the trail and through the muddy creek, straight to the ranch house door. She knew that it was some one whom she had never seen before in her life, but it did not make the least difference to her.
"Won't you come in here?" she begged. "The door is open. There are some Indians trying to steal a girl away—" Frieda drew her blonde head back inside the window, just in time to see the stranger stalk into their room.
"Put the girl down," he commanded Josef in a tone of authority. Nothing loath, the Indian boy returned Olilie to her chair. The newcomer then spoke to the surly Indian woman. "You and your son leave this ranch at once. It was fortunate that I learned that you were coming here this morning. I rode over just in time."
The young man had brown hair and eyes. His face was quite pale. He did not look in the least strong, but there was something in his quiet manner that showed he was accustomed to being obeyed.
"We come back to get my girl, when she well," the Indian woman threatened, as the door closed behind her.
There was an awkward silence when the Indians had gone. The young fellow immediately lost his grown-up manner and seemed very uncertain and shy. He colored and held his new cowboy hat in his hands.
"I am awfully glad I turned up in time to help you drive those people out of the house," he declared. "I happened to hear that they were coming over to your ranch to take the Indian girl away from you to-day. If there had been anybody to send over to tell you, I wouldn't have come myself," he ended. "Will you please tell the older Miss Ralston this. I won't intrude on you any longer. Good-bye."
Jean laughed and held out her hand. "Please don't go quite yet," she said. "At least stay until we thank you. I know who you are and Jack will be just as grateful to you as Frieda and I are. You must not think she is always so unfriendly. Aren't you Frank Kent, the English fellow who is the guest of the Nortons? Jack told us about you But you see the Nortons are—"
"Yes, I understand," Frank Kent answered quickly. "At least I have been told what the trouble is between you, but I hope it may be a mistake. I can't believe Mr. Norton and Dan—" Frank stopped. Jean's and Frieda's cheeks were crimson. He realized that he had no right to talk about their private affairs. Aunt Ellen was looking at him suspiciously.
Frank Kent bowed. "I think I had better go," he announced. Just as he started out of the room, Jacqueline Ralston marched into it. Every bit of color left her face and she stared at him in blank astonishment.
SEEKING ADVICE.
JEAN giggled. Frank Kent and Jack were so funny. They both turned and glared at her with reproachful eyes.
"I hope you don't think I have intruded," Frank protested hotly.
"Oh, no, certainly not," Jack answered with frozen politeness. "That is, at least,—I don't understand."
The scene was enough to have bewildered almost anybody. The quiet room where Jack had left the Indian girl half unconscious and guarded only by tranquil Frieda, was now in a state of suppressed excitement.
Olilie lay back in her chair with the same expression on her face that she had worn on the day she was discovered. Aunt Ellen had her eyes rolled back so that only the whites were showing. Frieda was bouncing up and down, she was so agitated, and Jean looked as though she had been through the war. And in the midst of the family group stood the strange young fellow whom Jacquelinehad met on the Norton ranch and most cordially requested not to make their acquaintance.
Frieda rushed into the breach. "Oh, Jack, the most awfullest thing almost happened!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands and forgetting her grammar in her hurry. "That dreadful old Indian woman and a boy came here and tried to drag Olilie away. I hollered and hollered out the window for Jim or you or anybody to come drive them off, and he came," Frieda bobbed her head at their visitor.
She was so excited that Jean and Jack laughed. But Frank Kent did not smile the least bit. You see he was English and English people don't see jokes quickly. Besides, he was angry at Jack's first suspicion of him. He guessed by her high and mighty manner that she thought he had come to the ranch against her wishes.
He looked so stiff and unfriendly that Jacqueline did not know what to say first.
"Your cousin will tell you how I happened to be near," he said icily, backing out the door.
Jack rushed after him, nearly tripping over the spurs on her riding boots. "Please don'tgo quite yet," she begged. "At least let me thank you for whatever you did." Jack had a way of smiling suddenly that changed her whole expression, and made people forgive her almost anything. "Won't you please come into the living-room and one of you tell me calmly exactly what has happened, or I shall simply die of curiosity."
Jack led the way into the big, sunlit room, followed by Jean and more slowly by Frank Kent.
"O! dear here's a kettle of fish," Jack sighed, when Jean finished her story. She didn't think of her slang till she saw Frank's puzzled expression, then she blushed. "I am afraid we can't keep this little Indian girl at the ranch, Jean, if her own people will have her," Jack went on. "You see I had a long talk with Jim this morning. He says we must not make the Indians in the neighborhood angry with us. They will say we kidnapped the girl, or something horrid. And we have troubles enough without that." A second after Jack was ashamed of having spoken of their difficulties before a perfect stranger.
To tell the truth affairs were not going verywell at Rainbow Ranch. The big creek which ran along through Rainbow Valley for nearly a mile and supplied their ranch with water was almost dry in the middle of October. There might soon be nothing for the cattle and horses to drink until the winter snows fell. Jim had confided to Jack that he suspected some one was draining their creek by digging a channel for the water lower down the valley. He could not find out, but if it were true, it meant ruin for the ranch girls! There was another, even more serious difficulty, that might be in store for them, but of this the girls would not speak.
"Has anything happened, Jack?" Jean asked hurriedly.
Jack shook her head. "Nothing unusual," she replied. "Only I shall feel dreadfully sorry if we have to send the Indian girl back to her people. You and Frieda must not think I am hateful if we find we have to."
Frank Kent forgot his English shyness.
"You girls are just bully to be fighting this strange girl's battles," he broke in. "I wonder if you wouldn't let me help you! I believe there is something queer about her parentage anyhow. Even an English dufferlike I am, can tell by looking at her that she isn't a full-blooded Indian."
Frank's face turned red as a beet and he stammered hurriedly. "Of course if you let me help you in this, we need not know each other afterwards."
Jacqueline was as fiery red as her guest and Jean giggled again.
"We couldn't be as horrid as all that," Jack declared in a straightforward fashion, exactly like another boy would have done. "We would not make use of you and then cut you afterwards. And please don't be angry with us, if I tell you again, that we simply can't be anything but just acquaintances with the Nortons' relatives or friends. You understand, don't you?" Jack held out her hand as though she did not know just what to do or say. Jean wouldn't utter a word to help her.
Frank Kent shook Jack's hand warmly and this time he did not seem offended.
"All right," he answered sadly. "But if there is ever anything I can do to help you, I am going to do it, whether we are friends or not."
And though Jack and Jean did not see howthis strange fellow could ever be mixed up in their affairs, they were comforted somehow by what he promised.
"I am going over to Mrs. Simpson's this afternoon, Jean," Jack announced a few minutes after their guest's departure. "I know people say that we ranch girls never take anybody's advice, but just the same I am going to ask Mrs. Simpson what we had better do about this Indian child. Will you come along?"
Mrs. Simpson, the ranch girls' most intimate friend, and her husband were the wealthiest ranch owners in that part of Wyoming. She was a typical Western woman, with a big heart and a sharp tongue. She used to lecture the girls and at the same time was awfully proud of their courage and independence.
"I'm game, Jack," Jean agreed, "but I haven't any proper riding habit. I wouldn't mind a bit if that wretched niece of Mrs. Simpson's wasn't there. I wish you had seen how she stared at me the other day when I called Mrs. Simpson, Aunt Sallie, as though we hadn't called her Aunt all the days of our youth. Do you think Aunt Ellen could mend this for me before we go?" Jean heldup a green broadcloth riding habit very much the worse for wear, with a long ugly rent in it.
"You need a new habit dreadfully, Jean," Jack declared. "I am afraid we haven't any really proper clothes. The worst of it is, I don't know just what we ought to have or where to get them. I wonder if we are too much like boys?"
"What's the odds, Jack, so long as we are happy," Jean sang out cheerfully. "Besides, Jim says that money hasn't been flowing in to Rainbow Ranch any too plentifully lately. It takes pretty much all he can get hold of to run things, so I thought I wouldn't trouble about another habit. But the idea of that fashionable Miss Laura Post, from Miss Beatty's school, New York City, staring at me with her china-blue eyes does rattle me. She and her mother treat us exactly as though we were a Wild West show. Besides it is my unpleasant impression that I had this same tear in my skirt when I rode over to Aunt Sallie's the last time."
"Jean, you are lazy; why didn't you mend it yourself?" Jack scolded. "You know Aunt Ellen can't sew a bit. Isn't it dreadful that little Frieda is the only one of us who evertouches a needle and she has no one to show her how to sew, poor baby. Come along, I'll see what I can do with your old skirt. Let's go in the Indian girl's room while I do my worst, best, I mean."
Olilie had very little to tell her rescuers of her history. She could not explain why Laska wanted her to live with her, because she had always hated her and been unkind to her. Olilie had but one friend, a teacher in the Indian school in the Indian village in Wind Creek valley. The sick girl did not talk so freely before Jack, as she seemed a little afraid of her, but she begged the girls to find her a home at one of the ranch houses where she might earn her living, for she declared that she would never go back to the "Crow's nest," as old Laska's hut was called.
Jack and Jean galloped swiftly over the ten miles that lay between their ranch and the Simpson's. No one could grow tired, no matter how long the ride, in this glorious October air in Wyoming, as clear and sparkling as crystal. The girls forgot their difficulties, also they quite failed to remember the languid young lady from the East who was Mrs. Simpson's adored niece.
A mile from the Simpson ranch house, Jean stood up in her saddle and waved a challenge to Jack. "Beat you to the veranda!" she called back, loosening the reins on her pony's neck and giving him a light cut with her quirt.
Jean was off like a shot before Jack could get a start. She reached the porch several yards ahead of her cousin. But Jack was determined not to be outclassed as a rider. Just in front of the house was a row of hitching posts about five feet high. "Clear the track," Jack shouted.
She thrust her feet forward in their long, loose Western stirrups, threw her body back and her pony rose in the air like a bird, straight over the posts, and she landed at Jean's side with a small Indian war-whoop of triumph.
A languid clap of hands from the front porch and a horrified exclamation, made Jean's cheeks burn and Jack's grey eyes kindle.
"Buffalo Bill at his best! I congratulate you," a soft voice exclaimed. "I wish you had more of an audience."
Jack laughed lightly. "Oh, we can do ever so much better than that, when we try, Miss Post; perhaps if you stay out West for awhile we may show you how to ride. We would be glad to do anything for Aunt Sallie's guest." Jack's tones were sweetly innocent, but Jean snickered.
Laura Post bit her lips angrily. "Teach Laura to ride?" her mother protested indignantly. "Why my daughter has been trained in the best New York riding academies. I am afraid they would not care for your Western riding in Central Park."
Jean did not see how in the world Jacqueline could appear so undisturbed by the vision of elegance which confronted them. Laura was dressed in a soft cream flannel skirt and coat with a pale blue blouse and wore a big felt hat with a blue pompon on it, to shade her delicate peaches-and-cream skin. Jean felt Laura's eyes fasten on the long rent in her riding skirt, which Jack had mended, with such an expression of superior amusement that she wanted to pull her hair or to scratch her, or to do something else that was violent.
Laura Post was a very pretty girl, all daintiness and fluffiness. She had very light curly hair and blue eyes, and she looked as though she had never done anything for herself in her life. Her mother was just like her,only a more faded and dressed-up edition. Jean did not know why they both made her feel so awkward, as though it were dreadfully inelegant to have one's skin tanned and hair blown by a long, glorious ride across the open country.
Mrs. Post and Laura would not go when Mrs. Simpson came out and sat down by the ranch girls, holding Jean's hand in one of hers and Jack's in the other, and wondering why Jean, who was her favorite of the three ranch girls, looked so hot and uncomfortable.
"The first thing for you to do, Jacqueline Ralston, is to bring this Indian girl over here for me to take a look at her," Mrs. Simpson announced at the end of Jack's story. "I was going to send a note over to you this very afternoon. I want you children to come over to spend a few days with us. I would like Laura to have some real Western parties and good times, and I think the best way is to have you stay right here with us. There isn't any other way to manage with you young people so far from one another, so bring your Indian girl to our house party. I confess I am curious to see her."
"You are awfully good, Mrs. Simpson, but I am afraid we can't come," Jack answeredgratefully. In spite of the fact that Laura and her mother were both staring at her, Jack went on: "You see we have not the right clothes to stay on a house party. I am afraid we don't even understand just what we ought to have. Father did not know much about girls' things and we have never had any one else to tell us, and besides I don't think your niece would like to have an Indian girl for her guest. Olilie is awfully shy, and I don't expect she would know how to behave."
Mrs. Simpson gave Jack a little shake.
"Nonsense, Jacqueline Ralston, what perfect foolishness you are talking! When did you begin to worry about clothes? You know that you and Jean are belles wherever you are. As for Laura, I am sure she will be glad enough to have the Indian girl and I'll look after the child. I want to study her. If she is a regular Indian, she would probably be hard to manage."
Laura shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Oh yes, please do bring the Indian maiden with you," she remarked with an innocent, babyish expression that fooled her Aunt but not her visitors. "I am sure the Indian can't be any queerer than the other people one meets out West."