OLIVE.
Someone Crept Up Behind Her With the Stealthiness Possible Only To an Indian.Someone Crept Up Behind Her With the Stealthiness Possible Only To an Indian.
ON the day when Jacqueline Ralston's pony ran away so unexpectedly, and Frank Kent commanded Olive to get out of danger, Olive had watched them both for a few minutes in a kind of daze. She had then moved slowly backward, keeping them both in sight, until she dimly saw Jack's leap from her horse. She then continued alone along the trail which she and Jack had traveled that morning, until the men and the cattle at the round-up were entirely out of sight, supposing that Frank and Jack would follow her as soon as they crossed the field.
Olive stopped her horse finally. She was not looking about her, nor thinking of anything in particular except her joy in Jack's safety. She heard no sound.
Someone crept up behind her with the stealthiness possible only to an Indian. Suddenly Olive felt her hands drawn behind her and she was forcibly dragged from her horse.
Two or three times only she cried for help,but before she could do more, a handkerchief was tied tightly about her lips and she was half dragged and half carried to one of the very tents which she and Jack had passed that morning on their way to the fateful round-up.
Old Laska sat stolidly smoking a pipe. "Ugh," she grunted, but her small, beady eyes flashed like coals in the sunlight.
Although Olive was the last person she expected to see at such a moment, she took the girl from Josef without a word, and held her so that she could not get away. Josef disappeared immediately. He must have gone to hide Olive's pony from sight.
Olive struggled, but she could make no outcry, and in a little while Laska bound her so that she could scarcely move. The girl was a captive inside the tent at the moment when Frank Kent and Jack passed it, unheeding, on their return to Rainbow Lodge.
The Indian woman and her son had not thought to capture Olive at such a time and place. But they had vowed to get hold of her by any means they could. From the instant Josef discovered that Olive had come to the round-up, he had not lost sight of her and when he found her alone, he was ready.
All afternoon she lay in the tightly closed tent with Laska, neither one of the women moving, Olive being in a stupor from terror and pain. By and by, when the dusk fell, Josef appeared silently at the tent entrance, leading Olive's pony and a horse for his mother. He bound Olive to her horse, and the two women set off across the prairies, Laska with her bundle across her back and two jugs of water swung over her saddle.
Through all the long, cold night, Laska traveled across the barren plains with her hand on Olive's bridle. At first there were shadowy fences that marked the division of one ranch from another. These were soon lost and the way lay through a trackless waste, unbroken by a trail of man or animal. Laska had gone into the desert where there was no drop of pure water.
In the morning the Indian woman rested, built a fire, untied Olive and fed her, knowing that if the girl ran away from her now she would not be able to go back the way they had come. She must be lost and could not fail to perish from hunger and thirst. Still Laska guarded her closely.
On the morning of the third day of theirjourneying, Olive saw on the far horizon some curling wreaths of smoke. Nearer there were a few lean horses grazing on the scanty sage grass. A dozen Indian tepees were set up in what seemed a small oasis in the desert. She knew that Laska had brought her to the winter quarters of a small band of Indians who would not stay in a village overlooked and regulated by the United States Government. These Indians lived the old nomad life, wandering from place to place, setting up their tents like gypsies, wherever they could remain unmolested.
Olive almost gave up hope. Here in the wilderness she would never come in contact with any one from the outside world. When the spring came, the Indians would gather up their belongings and wander farther away, taking her with them, where she could have no chance of return.
Laska and Olive had a tent of their own. In it they lived for some time, rarely speaking to one another. Nobody was unkind to her and for some reason Laska left her alone. It was growing bitterly cold and the old woman used to sit smoking all day by the fire, either in her own wigwam or one nearby.She did not try to watch Olive, knowing that she could not get away. Laska had told her that she should never leave the Indians again; that they would return no more to the neighborhood of the white men and Olive seemed quietly to accept her fate. Even Laska, who had trained the girl in her own school of silence, was deceived by her. She thought that Olive no longer cared enough to go back to dare the perils of the trip.
At first it did appear utterly impossible to Olive. She had not the faintest idea in what direction she and Laska had traveled and on arriving among the Indians, her pony had been taken away from her. She had no food except the little bit she was allowed each day, barely enough to live on and knew that at any time now, the swift and bitter snowstorms of the prairies might fall. Any traveler caught out in one of them would surely perish and not be found until the snow melted.
There were many hours, when Olive thought she would run away anyhow and take whatever fate came to her. But the memory of Jack, and Jean and Frieda, Cousin Ruth and Rainbow Lodge sustained her. A little time before and she had not known any happiness.Now the thought of the joy she would feel if she ever got home again, gave her patience and courage to wait.
Few of the older Indians paid much attention to the captive. Whatever story old Laska had told them, they had accepted without question. They spoke very little English and rarely stirred, except when the men went off on long hunting expeditions to return with whatever deer they managed to slay.
Olive had only one friend, one person, with whom she talked in the weeks she spent in the Indian camp. This was Carlos, a young Indian boy, about twelve years old. He was as slender and straight as a young pine tree, the fastest runner, the best rider and shot in the tribe. She had paid little attention to the boy at first, but he followed her like a shadow. Often when she came out of her tent, she would find him sitting like a brown image on the cold ground. The boy was like an Eskimo and appeared to feel neither hunger nor frost.
One day Olive set out for a walk. She did not wish Carlos to go with her, but before she had gone many rods the boy appeared at herside and quietly marched beside her, looking neither to the right nor the left.
"Go back, Carlos," Olive commanded quietly.
The boy shook his head. "You travel not alone over the prairies, you do not know your way," he answered stolidly.
Olive's patience gave out. She seized the boy by the shoulders, tears came into her soft black eyes and her face quivered. "You are hired to spy on me, Carlos," she said accusingly. "I thought I had one friend in you."
Again Carlos shook his head. "Why should I spy on you?" he asked. "What is it you would do?"
Then Olive told the boy what had happened to her.
Very quietly he listened. "I knew you were not of our people," he answered. "I will find the way for you to get back home. You are a woman and timid. Have faith in me."
Olive smiled, and from this day she called the Indian boy, "Little Brother," but she had no hope of his helping her and she saw him far less often. Carlos was away from the camp nearly every day, returning withrabbits that he shot on the plains. Olive saw him drying the skins and sometimes he brought her their meat to eat, but he never referred to his promise to show her a way of escape from the Indian camp.
The days were long, but the nights were far longer and the long twilights the saddest time of all. Olive sat often in the tent alone.
One evening Laska had departed earlier than usual to the wigwam of a neighboring squaw and Olive was huddled up on the dry grass in front of their fire, trying to keep from freezing. The air was filled with smoke. The girl looked scornfully at the two beds of straw, covered with coarse Indian blankets, where she and Indian Laska slept. Before her eyes came the vision of the splendid living-room at Rainbow Lodge. She could see the ranch girls and their cousin before the great fire and wondered if they ever thought of her now. Olive did not know how long a time had passed since she was stolen.
Sticking out from under Laska's bed was the bundle which she had borne on her back across the plains. Until this moment she had kept it hidden from Olive, except during their trip, when she had gotten their food from it.
Olive was not particularly interested in her discovery. But it occurred to her that this bag might have something to eat in it, which would aid her, if she could manage to get away. She drew out the dirty sheepskin bag and thrust her hand into it, shuddering at the things she touched. There were some odd bits of soiled clothing and a small package, tied up in an old, red cotton handkerchief. Olive had seen the package in the handkerchief before, in Laska's hut in the village. But she had never been interested to find out what it contained. To-night she cared for anything that would break the monotony of the long hours ahead of her.
Olive looked cautiously at the tent opening. The place was entirely still. There was not a sound in the lonely tepee, save the blowing of the winter winds across the desert. The girl crawled to a spot where the fire cast its brightest glow. Patiently she worked at the hard knots in the handkerchief. There was a roll of money in it tied up with a cord. Olive tossed the money impatiently aside. What use was money to her in this wild land? Olive had known always that Laska got money from some unknown source. Shealways had more than the other Indians in their village, and Jack had explained to Olive that this money was sent to Laska for taking care of her. Olive searched for a bit of paper, something to show from what place or from whom this money came. But there was no scrap of anything of that sort.
Beside the money, there was a small box in the handkerchief. It was of delicate, carved wood and smelled very sweet. Olive saw at once that the carving had never been made by Indians. It was far too fine.
She was so intent on opening this box that she did not hear a stealthy noise just outside her tent.
The lid of the sandalwood chest slid gently off. Inside, Olive beheld some trinkets, which she knew in a moment of swift rapture, must belong to her. One was a curiously wrought old silver chain, with a beautiful cross hanging from it. A watch, large enough to belong to a man, had a girl's picture painted in it which made Olive catch her breath. The picture she knew looked like her, only it was far lovelier. This girl had the same brilliant yet soft black eyes, the same straight, glossy hair and the deep, olivecoloring. She was not an American, but Olive knew there was no trace of Indian blood in this woman. Whatever Indian blood ran in Olive's veins, she guessed she must have inherited from her father. Beside the watch and chain, the carved box held but one more treasure. It was a little book about four inches square, written in a language that Olive could not understand.
The noise at the tent opening grew more distinct. Some one was peering through a tiny opening, yet Olive seemed to have neither eyes nor ears. Her face was flushed with happiness and she held the odd, sweet-smelling box close against her cheek.
Someone entered the tent. At last Olive awakened and springing to her feet, thrust her treasures inside her dress. With her eyes flaming, she turned to face her enemy; for Olive had not lived all her life among nearly savage people without learning something from them. She meant to fight now to save her possessions, as a real Indian girl would have fought to the last moment of her strength.
But instead of the ugly face of old Laska staring at her, Olive saw the slight figure of Carlos, the Indian boy.
Olive held out her treasures eagerly. "Look what I have found," she exclaimed. "I know they must be mine."
The Indian boy regarded the pieces of jewelry gravely. To him they appeared like any other trinkets that the Indians loved.
"I have come to tell you how you may return to your white friends," Carlos announced proudly. "I told you that a man would find a way. It is only women who give up."
Olive shook her lovely head, her thoughts still dwelling with her discovery. She did not understand exactly what the Indian lad said.
He caught at her dress and pulled it impatiently. "Listen, woman. I have found a way for you to get back to your ranch-land. Do you hear me, or is it that you have changed your mind like all women and do not now wish to go?"
Olive laughed. It was so funny to hear this small boy take the patronizing tone with her that the men of his race used toward all women. She put her arm about him and drew him down on the floor by her. The flickering lights of the fire played on the two dark heads, her hair fine and soft as silk, his stiff and straight as a young colt's mane.
"Of course I want to go back to my friends, Little Brother," Olive sighed. "But let's don't talk of that to-night, I want to be a little bit happy in thinking that I have found something that must once have belonged to my mother."
But the boy would not be persuaded. "We must talk of your getting away to-night, for the time is ready," Carlos declared, in the solemn tone of a young Indian chief making ready for battle. "You know I have been out on the prairies for many days together and no one knew where or for what I had gone. I have wandered in many directions seeking for the home of some white man, for I know that however much the Indian pretends he is in a wilderness, he is always to-day on the border of the white man's land."
"Well, have you found a friend to help me?" Olive demanded fervently.
"I have found no friend," Carlos replied, refusing to be hurried or disturbed. "But I have found an iron trail that stretches across the desert. It must bring you to where the white people dwell."
"An iron trail," Olive repeated wonderingly. "I am afraid I don't know what you mean."
The boy gazed at her with slow, unmoved patience. "It has an iron carriage on it that flies along the trail more swiftly than any horse can run," Carlos explained. "There is great heat and noise and smoke like a prairie fire."
Olive caught the boy's hand in hers. "You mean an engine and a railroad track, don't you, Little Brother?" she queried. "You have seen a train somewhere out on the desert. You will take me to it and somehow I will find people to help me to get back to Rainbow Lodge." Olive flung her arms about Carlos and hugged him as she might have hugged Frieda. She poured out such a flood of questions, that the boy was convinced he was right in his scorn of her sex, but he listened with deep gravity.
"I do not know all things," he replied finally. "Only I have laid all day on the ground near the trail. I know the hour when the iron carriage passes over it. The walk is a long one, but if you will follow me, I will take you there. I will come for you to-night just before the dawn breaks. When you hear an owl hoot, you will know that Carlos is outside your door. You will creep softly,so that we may have several hours before old Laska wakes. I will bring food and the skins of many wild rabbits that I have sewed together in the evenings, that you may not freeze."
THE WAY OF ESCAPE.
IN the darkness Olive kept tight hold of Carlos' hand. They ran swiftly and softly, like frightened hares, each moment dreading to hear footsteps behind them. But the darkness hid their tracks and a wind was blowing, which shifted the sand and whirled it into hills and hollows, so that not even an Indian could find the print of any passing foot. Besides, old Laska slept soundly and she had not stirred when Olive stole out from her tent.
Carlos marched toward the east, where the sky looked less dark, until the cold dawn broke. Before the sun was well up the boy saw something glinting and glimmering ahead of them like a long steel serpent. He gave a cry of victory. Breaking away from Olive, Carlos ran ahead. For a moment he stood balancing himself on the track rails, waving his thin brown arms and crowing like a young chanticler.
"We will rest here by the iron trail," heannounced happily. "I will build a fire and we will eat. By and by the great wagon will pass by, roaring and snorting like an angry buffalo. It will take you with it." For a moment the boy's face clouded. Then, as Olive reached his side, he laughed at the thought of her joy.
"But, Carlos," Olive whispered. She was weary and almost frozen from her long tramp across the plains. "You have brought me to the railroad track, but where is the station? Did you not know that the white man's trains will not stop unless there is a little house set up by a wooden platform, where a man at a window sells you small squares of paper?"
Carlos shook his head in confusion. He had no idea what Olive was talking about, for he had never seen a railroad depot in the twelve years of his wandering life. But he saw Olive's disappointment and knew that something in his beautiful plan for his friend was wrong.
"Never you mind, girl," Carlos insisted, shaking his straight, black hair, like a little foreign king, "I will see that the wagon stops for you here, where we wait."
Olive dropped down on the ground, too tired to argue or to explain any further. Carlos ran along the track, finding a few odd sticks and pieces of wood. He made a little fire, into which he stuck one long stick, like a staff, which he had carried from the camp; but he saw that only the end of it burned.
Hungrily Olive ate. She believed that she must follow the railroad track until she came to a depot. She had no way of guessing how many more miles she must walk, nor how many trains passed over this iron pathway through the desert; but she did know that she must save whatever strength she had, as her only hope was to reach a city somewhere. She had not Carlos' faith, that the train would take her straight into the arms of her beloved friends, yet she knew that once in a town, she could probably find a way of communicating with them.
Carlos and Olive did not dare to talk. Olive was listening for the sound of a horse's hoofs, knowing that the journey, which had been so long on foot, could be made on horseback in a little while, if old Laska ever guessed the route they had taken. ButCarlos listened for a louder noise and one to him far less familiar.
The boy and girl heard it at the same instant and both sprang to their feet. Olive's face grew white and rigid with disappointment; but the boy's eyes flashed with excitement. The train was coming along the track past the spot where Olive and Carlos rested. Olive feared that her only chance of escape for that day was gone. She had hoped to reach a depot before a train went by them.
Nearer the roar of the engine sounded. It was in sight far off across the desert, but a very few minutes brought it close.
Olive stepped quickly back to be out of danger and seized Carlos by his woolen shirt to drag him with her. The boy jerked away, and before Olive could dream what he intended to do, he grabbed his burning stick from the fire. "I'll stop the train for you," he shouted valiantly. "Only be quick. You must get on when I command it."
Like a flash, the brave, brown figure ran along the track, waving his tiny torch and facing with all his feeble strength the great monster of iron and steel that was driving toward him. The blood of many centuries ofIndian chiefs must have been back of little Carlos. He dared the unknown force of this engine to-day, as his ancestors had the bullets and powder of their white enemies, with the same blind belief in his own power against the forces of civilization.
Olive saw Carlos go, with a feeling of sickening horror. The boy was so small, so stupidly audacious. Olive's, "Come back, come back!" was lost in the noise of the train, but Carlos would not have heeded her. What Indian chief has ever obeyed a woman? There seemed to be but one fate for him,—he would be crushed to death in an instant.
The engineer saw the boy running toward his train, and the fire which Olive and Carlos had built near the track. He had but one thought: there must be danger somewhere ahead of them and these children had come to warn him.
Fortunately for Carlos, the train which he had chosen for Olive's escape was not one of passenger coaches, but a freight train. The engine was going at far less speed, and quickly slowed down and stopped.
"Come, come, Olive," the boy shoutedtriumphantly, this time waving his burning stick like a conquering hero.
Olive ran toward the car, dazed, breathless, hardly knowing what had taken place, nor what she was doing. The Indian boy's spirit had somehow seized hold on the situation.
"What has happened, imp?" the engineer roared out of his car window. "Is something wrong ahead on the track?"
Carlos danced up and down, as though he did not understand what the engineer asked. He had only a dim idea of the man's meaning as he knew so few English words. Olive was slipping by him and Carlos saw that she meant to do what he had planned. The engineer was climbing out of his cab, his back being turned, so that he did not see Olive swing herself up into the next car. In an instant the girl had hidden herself in the midst of great piles of boxes, unobserved by the other trainmen, who were also interested in Carlos.
The engineer was determined to find out what the Indian lad had to tell him. If the boy had fooled him and there was nothing for them to fear ahead, he should get the punishment he deserved.
Carlos guessed the engineer's meaning from the expression of his face. The boy made a dart that was almost as swift as the first plunge of an arrow from a bow. He was a small brown spot some distance off, when the engineer made up his mind to run after him. The man did run for a few rods, but the idea of catching the boy was ridiculous. He was like a breath of wind, blowing this way and that across the prairie. He could lead the engineer off into the desert, so that he would not know how to return, and the man realized this. He climbed slowly back into his engine, determined to watch out himself for trouble along the track; believing, however, that Carlos had played an ugly trick on him. It would have gone hard with Olive if she had been discovered at this time.
The train went tardily on. Olive could hear the men moving on the top of the coach over her head. Once or twice a dirty-faced trainman stuck his head in the open door of the freight car, but he saw nothing of the frightened girl huddled between the boxes. Olive of course had no knowledge of where she was going. Her plan was tocrawl out of the car as soon as it stopped at a town and then try to find some one to help her.
But the car did not stop and Olive finally fell asleep.
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT.
A ROUGH voice aroused Olive. She sprang up in terror and stood pressed close against the piled up freight in the car. It was an odd-looking figure she made, as though she had stepped out of a world several hundred years younger than the present one. The coarse man who watched her dimly felt it.
The girl's shoes were ragged and hardly covered her slender feet, her skirt was torn and old. Over her shoulders hung a strange fur garment, shapeless, save that a hole had been cut in the center for her head. Her beautiful black hair was braided and one long plait hung over each shoulder; her head was uncovered and her delicate face, with its pointed chin, was deathly pale. She was trembling. Dark shadows encircled her great black eyes and there was a look not of defiance but of pleading in them.
So picturesque a passenger had never before stolen a ride on a modern freight train.She belonged to the days of the pioneer settlers in the new land of America.
"How did you come here?" the man demanded gruffly.
Olive's voice shook. She had thought it would be easy to tell her story, if she could only get away from the Indians, but this fierce man frightened her more than any one of them could have done. What must she say? Where could she begin with the tale of her misfortunes.
"I stole in, when the train stopped a while ago, I don't just know when," Olive answered vaguely. She could not tell how long she had been asleep.
"Then you'll git out the next time it stops, young Missie," the trainman announced harshly. "I'd put you off right now, but we are already behind time, because of a rascally Indian boy a piece up the road. Better stay hid and not let our engineer catch sight of you, or he'd make it good and hot for you. Maybe he would turn you over to the police."
Olive could not realize it, but her appearance had already touched her discoverer. She crouched in her corner again and bowedher head in her slim brown hands, as she had the day when the ranch girls brought her out of Frieda's cave. She did not try to defend herself.
The trainman climbed up on a box and sat whittling a stick and watching Olive out of a pair of shrewd Irish blue eyes. He was not a fierce man. He had a wife and five tow-headed children, living in one of the little frame shacks along the line of the railroad. The man was clever enough to see that Olive was not an ordinary thief or impostor.
"Are you sick, girl?" the man inquired, surprised by Olive's silence.
The girl shook her head. "Oh, no, I am not sick, thank you," Olive answered gently, "but I am very tired. I ran away from an Indian encampment before dawn to-day. Would you mind tellingmewhere this train is going?"
Little by little Olive told the whole history of her strange life to the Irishman, who sat on the box in the freight car and never ceased his whittling for a moment.
"By St. Peter!" he muttered, when Olive finished replying to his last question. "This girl tells a story that might have come out of apoetry or a history book. The funny thing is, her story must be true! Oh, well," he announced to himself, not to Olive, "there is one thing certain. Nobody can ever make up in their heads such all-fired queer things as happen every day."
But the man had not answered Olive's question as to where this train was going. She had not the courage to ask him again.
By and by Olive saw little houses along the road and knew that their train was nearing a small, western town. She got up and touched the Irishman timidly on the arm. "May I get off at the station myself, please?" she begged. "You won't have to put me off."
The man shook his head severely. "No, you are not going to get off yourself," he returned gruffly, "and I ain't going to put you off either. If you can keep on making yourself small, and you are a pretty thin kind of a girl, I am going to take you farther down the road with us. I have an idea this here freight train will run along somewhere near Wolfville in the course of the afternoon. You have had such bad luck in the past, Missie, that maybe your luck has changed. Anyhow, when you butted blindly into this freight car,you found a coach going in just about the way you needed to travel. Don't worry your head any more about what you are to do. I'll put you off at Wolfville, and though it looks a bit cloudy, as though it might mean to blow up a bit of snow, I expect you'll manage to get back to the Ralston Ranch, somehow, before night."
Olive, satisfied that this kind-hearted stranger would look out for her, dozed on, half waking and half sleeping. Neither she nor her new friend knew how exhausted she was. She had passed through several weeks of dreadful hardship, exposure and unhappiness, and now she felt too happy to think or care because her head ached dully, and her legs shook so she could hardly stand on them. She would be home soon with Frieda and Jean and Jack!
Several hours went by. The trainman left the car and attended to his duties. But Olive had entire faith that he would not forget her.
At a little past five o'clock in the afternoon the freight train came to a stop near the little town of Wolfville, which was only a matter of ten miles from Rainbow Ranch. The windwas blowing with a queer, ominous rattling sound and a few flakes of snow were falling.
Olive's new friend gazed at her a little queerly, as he lifted her out on the platform. There were no people in sight except the station master, for it was almost dark and the stopping of a freight train was of little interest.
"Sure you know how to get to your friends from here?" the Irishman asked Olive. She took time to nod and wave her hand, then ran swiftly away from the station in the direction of Rainbow Ranch.
If Olive had gone into the town, someone would have driven her to the Lodge, or else sent word to Jim Colter or the Ralston girls that she was in safe-keeping for the night. A prairie snowstorm was approaching and few people would have cared to trust themselves to a ten-mile drive at this hour of the winter evening.
But Olive did not think of further danger. Ten miles seemed to her to be so near home that she could not bear a second's delay in trying to reach there. For the first few miles she ran swiftly along, as she knew the trail and it was not too dark to follow it. The stingingwind cut her face and at times the snow blinded her. But the distance was only a short walk for a girl who had spent all her life out of doors in the great West. Yet Olive should have known what a snowstorm in Wyoming, with a heavy pall of gray clouds and a scudding blast, meant.
After a while, her feet in her worn shoes felt like wooden pegs stumping on the frozen earth. Her hands had lost all feeling, although she managed to draw the rabbit-skin furs that Carlos had given her, over her head and to keep her hands under them. The snow no longer fell in flakes but in white sheets, lashed and driven by the force of the storm.
The trail across the plains to the Ralston Ranch was quickly hidden. Mountains of snow piled up in front of Olive, deep gullies appeared at her feet, where the land was usually as level as a table, and she had no idea in which direction she should try to travel. But she fought her way on, thinking perhaps that another wanderer might overtake her, or that she might catch a glimpse of the lights of some ranch house. If she could find an objective point ahead of her, she felt that shemight get to it. But to move blindly in a circle of snow, brought no hope of any relief.
Yet Olive knew she must keep moving if she wished to live. She did not suffer the same agony from the cold, that she had at first. The wind blew her about, as though she had been a bit of paper. She staggered and fell in the snowdrifts, got up and pressed on wishing that even a wild animal would scurry past her on the way to its retreat. But animals are always wiser than human beings before the approach of a storm. Every head of cattle, every horse on the plains, every beast in the forest had found a rude shelter. Olive felt herself entirely alone in a savage, white world.
But in quiet natures like Olive's, there is a wonderful power of resistance. She had endured so much, she had learned the fortitude that comes with misfortune.
She prayed silently through the hours she struggled. There were moments when she believed she spied the light of Rainbow Lodge gleaming on the cruel surface of the snow. She would fight her way to this place, only to discover that her own blind desire had led her astray.
Night came on, but there was little change from the twilight. The few stars that broke through the clouds only made the way more blinding.
Olive's patience, Carlos' planning seemed to have been in vain.
Again Olive dreamed she saw some lights ahead of her. Her mind was no longer clear. She could not remember why she was out alone in the snow. She cried for Jack, when she had the strength, but the tears froze on her face.
Olive reached out her arms toward her vision of the lights of Rainbow Lodge. She was either too blind or too utterly spent to see the snowbank in front of her, as suddenly it shut out her mirage of home. The girl gave a cry of despair with all the feeble strength that was left in her and tumbled headlong into the cold embrace of the snow. But the snow was no longer cold. It was strangely warm and she was shut away from the cruel winds.
JACK IS HAPPY.
"CHILLUNS, it's time for bed," Cousin Ruth announced softly. "Frieda has been asleep in my arms for the last ten minutes. Perhaps I can tumble her in bed without waking her, she is so frightened at the storm."
Jean glanced up at the clock over the living-room mantle. "Do let's wait a little while longer?" she begged. "I am just at the most thrilling part of my book and I am bound to finish it before I go to bed. Jack, you stay here with me, if Cousin Ruth is going with Frieda. I don't like to sit up alone. This storm is a terror! Listen how the wind howls down the chimney. I hope our stock won't be frozen to death to-night."
Ruth led Frieda gently out of the sitting-room while Jack got up and wandered to the window. But the frost covered the glass. She scratched a little space away with a hairpin, but there was nothing to see outside save the snow.
Jack walked restlessly up and down theroom for a minute. It was just nine o'clock and she did not feel like going to bed. She could not read as Jean was doing. These terrible western storms, that came once or twice every winter, always filled her with foreboding. Jack was too good a rancher not to understand that they caused great suffering and loss among the cattle. The rude corrals, which the ranchmen built for their stock, could not save them on a night like this.
Jack dropped down on her knees before their book shelves and began to look over the collection of volumes that had once belonged to her father. The books were the same ones that Jean had found in her uncle's trunk and brought to the living-room to impress their new governess on the day of her arrival at Rainbow Lodge. Shep got up from his warm place by the fire and trotted over to lie down by Jack, seeming to know that she was worried and wishing to offer her his subtle sympathy.
Jack turned over the pages of half a dozen books, shaking them, so that every leaf fluttered apart.
Jean glanced over at her cousin. Jack was quieter and older than ever to-night. "Whatare you doing, Jack, want me to help you?" Jean asked lovingly.
"No, Jean, I am not doing anything special," Jack replied quietly. "I am just killing time."
But Jean knew that her cousin was searching once more for the lost title deed to Rainbow Ranch and she had gone to the window to gaze out on the snow with the thought of Olive on her mind. Even light-hearted Jean sighed. It was only a few days before Christmas.
Jack was getting up off the floor, when a sound startled her. She jumped quickly to her feet. Old Shep gave a long howl.
"What is the matter with you, Jacqueline Ralston?" Jean demanded pettishly, partly because she had just been so sorry for Jack. "You almost scared me out of my wits."
Jack was pointing toward the window. "I heard a noise outside in the snow," she exclaimed excitedly.
"You did no such thing, Jack, it's only the wind howling. It has been making a racket for the last four hours. I don't see why you are so surprised all of a sudden. I heard nothing unusual," Jean protested.
"But it wasn't the wind I heard, Jean. This noise was quite different. Shep heard it too, see how queerly he is acting," Jack argued.
Old Shep had gone to the front door of the ranch house and was stretched against it with his fore paws resting on the door.
"Well, if you didn't hear the wind, it is some animal that has seen the lights in the Lodge and stolen near here for protection. Do sit down, Jack, you make me dreadfully nervous, staring like that. You know you haven't heard the sound a second time. Let's go to bed."
Jean slipped her arm about Jack's waist, but Jack pushed her gently off. "I am going out in the snow to find out what that cry meant, Jean," Jack announced decisively. "Suppose it was an animal, I can't allow anything to die just outside our home to-night."
Jean clung to her cousin's skirts. "You shan't go out that door, Jack," Jean avowed. "You will be blown off your feet by the wind. You will be frozen. If a wild animal has come out of the woods for shelter, you'll be torn to pieces." Jean pictured every horrible fate that she could imagine overtakingJacqueline. But Jack was quickly buttoning up her overcoat and tying a thick woolen scarf about her head.
"I won't stay out but a minute, Jean dear," she returned. "Shep will go with me. He will keep me from getting hurt."
"I'll call Cousin Ruth, Jack, you are the most obstinate person in the world!" Jean exclaimed passionately, but Jack had wrenched open the big front door of the ranch house, and plunged out into the night. A gust of snow swept into the wide hall. Straining with all her might, Jack closed the door back of her, so that Jean should not feel the fury of the storm. With Shep by her side, Jack faced the white wilderness of snow.
Jean ran down the hall toward Ruth's room, but Ruth had already heard the noise and joined her. For an instant the two women awaited Jack's return. They believed that she would come into the house as soon as she saw what lay ahead of her.
Jack seized the lantern, that swung always above the door of their Lodge. The light was out, but by crouching down and turning her back to the wind, Jack managed to relight it. She knew the light would soon blowout again, but for a minute it would serve a purpose.
Jack climbed off the porch. Shep ploughed in front of her. Jack swung her lantern once, twice it flashed, then the wind blew it out.
But in that space of time she saw something dark in a mound of snow not far from the house. Jack felt her way toward it, guided by an overwhelming instinct. Shep shook all over, not with the cold, but with the foreknowledge of what was ahead of them.
When Jack reached Olive, Shep had already covered the still body with his own warm one. Jack pushed Shep away. She had to feel under the drifting snow before she knew the object she touched was a human being, but it was not until her hand touched the delicate frozen face, that she realized that Olive was found at last.
Jack's cry for help brought Ruth, Jean, and from the kitchen, Aunt Ellen and Zack. There was such agony in Jack's tones, that they all believed some horrible thing had happened to her.
The women got Olive inside the house, not one of them having an idea that she was alive, but no one dared to tell Jack so. Theystripped off the girl's clothes and found the little sandal-wood box hidden inside her dress.
If Jack had not already learned to love Ruth Drew, she would have begun to care for her to-night. For Ruth knew exactly what to do for Olive. She would not let the girls and Aunt Ellen carry Olive too near the fire. She sent Uncle Zack off to find Jim Colter. Ruth and Jack rubbed Olive's stiff body with snow, until their hands felt almost as numb as hers and forced hot tea between her clenched teeth. By and by Aunt Ellen and Jean were allowed to bring warm blankets and hot irons.
At last the blue, stark look left Olive's face. It was Jack who discovered a tiny bit of color in her lips. Jack flung herself on her knees and hardly knowing what she was doing, breathed all the warm, vibrant breath of her own vigorous body into Olive's almost frozen lungs.
After another hour, Olive stirred and moved one hand. She half opened her black eyes. "I am all right, Jack," she whispered. "I have got home at last."