The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge

Jack looked so proud and at the same time so generous and fine that Frank Kent, who was standing near enough to overhear her, wanted to shout with delight, but managed to appear perfectly indifferent, though Laura did think she heard him say "Ripping!" under his breath.

Mrs. Simpson was crimson with vexation. "Very well, Jack Ralston, do as you like," she replied coldly. "Understand I wash my hands of the whole affair. You will live to regret this piece of Quixotic foolishness and when this Indian girl gets you into trouble, don't come to me."

"We won't, Aunt Sallie," Jacqueline returned gently. "And I hope you won't think we are ungrateful to you. We saw lots of real Indian girls at the village yesterday, perhaps Miss Post will have one of them as her maid. I'll ask Olive to recommend one."

Jack walked quietly away from the group on the veranda, holding Frieda by the hand while Jean murmured more apologies to Aunt Sallie, being as careful as possible not to look that lady in the face. Miss Bruce hardly wished Mrs. Simpson to see how her brown eyes were dancing with pleasure and pride, but when Aunt Sallie had gone away, Jean made no effort to conceal her satisfaction from Laura Post and Dan Norton.

Jacqueline marched straight in to find Olive. She was not in her room. She was not in the maids' room, nor in the big kitchen. Hong Su, Mrs. Simpson's Chinese cook, explained that the 'Lil Mlissie' had gone out in the back yard.

To one side and behind the Simpson ranch house was a large kitchen garden, at only a short distance from the house itself.

Jack and Frieda could not find Olive at once. There was nothing to hide her and she could not have gone down to the stables that were some distance away, yet she was nowhere in sight.

Half an acre of Indian corn was ripening and yellowing in the sun. It rustled and its long dried leaves crackled and swayed, and they soon saw the Indian girl walking through it with her head bent and tears falling fast. Straightway Jacqueline thought of the Song of Hiawatha and the Indian legend of the corn. Poor little Olive was the Minnehaha, after her laughter had been stilled! Frieda ran straight to her friend and threw her arms around her. "Oh, Olive, it isn't true," she cried. "You are to come home with us to Rainbow Lodge."

But Olive shook her head. She could not understand.

Jacqueline took the girl's slender, brown hand. "Olive," she asked gently, "do you think you could be happy if you came to live with us at the ranch? I am dreadfully cross sometimes and you may not like me, but Frieda and Jean are dears. We are only girls like you and perhaps we may make mistakes, but you won't mind, if we all do our best together."

Jacqueline was frightened at the expression of the Indian girl's face. "You want me to live with you like one of you?" she gasped. "Oh, it can't, it can't be true."

"But it can be true, Olilie," Jack answered lightly, using the girl's pretty Indian name. "And there is nothing so remarkable in our wanting to have you. Suppose when mother and father came out here to Wyoming from the East, something had happened to them and they had left me somewhere for a stranger to find me. Then the same thing might have happened to me that has happened to you, and I am sure you would have come along and rescued me if you could."

"Then you don't think I am an Indian girl?" Olive questioned eagerly.

Jack hesitated. "I don't know, Olive, I'm sure," she returned. "Of course I was only talking. Come, let's pack up our things, I think we will go home to-morrow."

"But if Laska and Josef come back for me?" Olive pleaded, unable to believe in her wonderful good fortune.

Jacqueline's face sobered. She was thinking of what Jim Colter would say when he learned of their adoption of Olive. She knew that Jim was troubled about something; had the ranch girls any right to offer a home to any one when their own future was so uncertain?

But Jack's lips closed firmly. "Never mind, Olive," she answered. "We won't worry over things until they happen, when they do we will face them the best we can."

Rainbow Lodge had never looked more dear and homelike than it did when the four ranch girls arrived before its open front door. Jim had sent one of the cowboys to drive them home and Jack wondered why he had not come himself. But she forgot to ask what had kept him, when she saw Aunt Ellen's smiling face and smelt the odor of ginger cookies coming from the kitchen back of her.

"Isn't it great to be at home, children?" Jack exclaimed triumphantly. But Frieda had flown to look after her chickens and Jean was shaking hands with old Zack, who was building the frames over her violet beds.

"This bandage is cutting my arm off, Olive," Jack went on, noticing Olive's wistful face as Jack said the word "home." "Won't you come in and fix it for me, please? I am going to make you and Jean and Frieda wait on me all I can, now we are away from Aunt Sallie's. Of course I had to pretend my arm didn't hurt over there, because I knew that that abominable Laura Post and Dan Norton would say 'serves her right,' every time I had a twinge of pain."

Jack was talking nonsense to keep Olive from thinking and as the two girls passed under the arch of the door, Jack kissed her lightly. "Good luck to Ranch Girl Number Four. May you live long and prosper at Rainbow Lodge," she whispered.

CHAPTER XI

BREAKING THE NEWS

JEAN and Jack came down the wide sunlit hall with their two heads close together. It was three days since their return from the house party to their own home.

Outside a half-opened door they stopped. "Listen, Jack," Jean whispered, swallowing a giggle. "They have been doing it every single day."

"If three fifths of a number is fifteen, what is the number?" Frieda's voice read slowly and solemnly. She paused fora long moment. "The number is fifteen, isn't it Olive? The sum said so."

Jean would not have swallowed her giggle this time, except that Jack pinched her on the arm. "Do be quiet, Jean," she entreated. "You will hurt their feelings."

"No, Frieda," Olive explained patiently. "You see one fifth of fifteen is five – "

Jack knocked lightly on the door. "May we interrupt the school a minute, please?" she begged. "I have to go away in a little while with Jim and I do want to see what is going on. I think it is perfectly sweet of you, Olive, to be trying to teach Frieda. It makes Jean and me awfully ashamed."

Olive laughed shyly: "Oh, I am not teaching," she answered, "Frieda and I are just studying together. There are such a lot of things I ought to know so you won't be ashamed of me, and I am trying to learn the few that I can. Frieda likes to study too."

Frieda was chewing the end of her stubby pencil and making queer figures on a crumpled piece of paper. Her little round face wore such a virtuous and studious expression that Jack laughed. Jean went over and pulling Frieda's hair said: "Since when, Frieda Ralston, have you developed into a student? Far be it from you ever to get your lessons for me without a fuss; something must have come over the spirit of your dreams."

Frieda shook her head impatiently. She was a very matter-of-fact person at all times. "No such thing, Jean, dreams haven't anything to do with it, it is only that Olive really takes an interest herself and is awfully patient and does not laugh – "

But Jean had put her fingers in her ears and slipped out the bedroom door.

Olive and Frieda were in their own room at a small table drawn up near the window, and looking out, Jack saw Jim Colter come up the drive to the door on horseback, leading a horse for her. Jean ran out in the yard and stood for a moment talking to him.

Jim had been away from Rainbow Ranch since the day of the girls' return, and Jack could see that he looked tired and serious, not like his usual self.

Jack kissed Frieda. "Perhaps Jim and I won't be back until late, little sister, don't worry. You know we are going to ride along the side of Rainbow Creek to see about some of the cattle and horses. Maybe the poor ponies and calves haven't any water to drink in some parts of the ranch. Don't study until your pigtails turn grey."

Frieda laughed, but the Indian girl looked at Jacqueline closely. There was something odd in Jack's manner, as though she were trying to hide a secret that she was not sure whether or not she wished to tell.

"Good-bye, Olive," Jack called lightly, "don't talk about our being ashamed of you, child. If you knew all I do not know, you would be quite the wisest person in the world. Maybe Jean and I will have news for you to-night. You have got to think it is good news, for Jean and I hope it is. Anyhow, you two good, industrious children have made me make up my feeble mind. Auf wiedersehen. That being about all the German I know, I will translate it for you: 'Till we meet again.'"

Jack stamped out on the porch to Jean and Jim.

"Morning, overseer," she said brightly.

Jim lifted his Mexican hat. "Morning, boss," he returned gravely. "How is the wounded member?"

Jack shrugged her sprained shoulder the least little bit. "It's not first class yet, pard," she stammered, mimicking one of the cowboys on the ranch. "But I think I can get over a good piece of ground by catching hold on the reins with this here one good arm, if it's the same to you. Is that the horse you mean me to use now, Jim?" Jack asked, her voice and manner changing.

"Best I can do at present," Jim replied soberly. "Tricks ain't up to Hotspur and you may have to watch him a bit."

"Jean," Jack whispered, just before she mounted her horse. "We have made up our minds to it, haven't we? Do you think we will be able to endure it?"

Jean cast her brown eyes up to heaven. "Bear it?" she groaned. "Well I suppose if we must, we must. Only tell Jim, maybe he will say we must not, then think of the relief!" Jean sighed, half in fun and half in earnest, and watched Jim and Jack scamper out of sight.

"Wonder what old Jim and Jack are up to?" she murmured. "If they only were going to see how nearly dry Rainbow Creek is, they would have taken one of the cowboys with them. They are sure to have to pull a cow or a calf out of a mud hole, before they are through. Jim looks as sober as a judge. I hope he hasn't heard anything about the – " Jean broke off her musing, with a stamp of her foot. "Of course not, I am a goose to think of it," she told herself sternly.

Jim Colter and Jack galloped on in silence, Jim riding high in his saddle, standing nearly erect, with his feet well out in the Western cowboy fashion. He wore a pair of fringed trousers, with a cartridge belt around his waist and two big Colt's revolvers were stuck in the holsters on either side. A forty-foot rope was coiled and hung at the pommel of his saddle. Jim's Irish blue eyes were black with anger this morning and his lips set in a firm, hard line.

The two riders had followed the bed of Rainbow Creek for two miles through the ranch before either one of them spoke.

Jim wheeled and looked Jack straight in the eyes. "You have a piece of news for me, haven't you, Jack?" he asked.

Jack nodded. "My news will keep. What is it you have to tell me? I know it is important."

"Can you bear it, girl?" Jim asked abruptly. "It's pretty bad."

Jack lifted her eyes without speaking. A moment later they filled with tears and her lips trembled. "It isn't true though, Jim, is it?" she entreated. "He can't prove what isn't true."

Jim squared his shoulders. "That is just the point, Miss Jack, and what we have got to fight. Daniel Norton says he can prove that he is the rightful owner of Rainbow Ranch. He has papers to show it and we haven't a sign of anything. What we have got to establish is that his claim is a lie and that Rainbow Ranch don't belong to nobody on this earth but John Ralston's daughters."

"But how, Jim?" Jack asked. "You know we have lost the title to the estate. We have never been able to find a sign of a paper to show that the ranch is our property. I have looked through every one of father's papers a thousand times. The deed is gone!"

"Then it will have to return before January first," Jim answered coolly, snapping his fingers in the wind. "That is the date Mr. Norton means to bring suit. Remember the game we used to play with a bit of paper, when you were a little girl, Jack, 'Fly away Peter, Come back Paul'? Paul used to come back, so don't you be frightened. Daniel Norton hasn't gotten our ranch from us yet, and before he does, he will see some pretty tall scrapping. But I am afraid we have got to find our deed. I was one of the witnesses when your father's title to this ranch was drawn up. The other witness was a fellow from the East, who just happened to be passing through the country. He stayed with us a few days and then goodness only knows what became of him. He may be living in New York or New Mexico for all I know."

"But you can advertise for him, can't you, Jim?" Jack pleaded, her face looking white and drawn. "Maybe if he would swear that father bought our ranch and that Mr. Norton couldn't have any right to it, it might do some good. What was his name?"

"Will Corbin," Jim answered shortly. "But don't build your hopes on that idea. I have been advertising for the fellow for months. Not a word from him."

"But the court records," Jack continued. "Of course I don't know anything about law or business, Jim, but I am sure that I have heard that if a person buys or sells a piece of property, some kind of record of it is kept in a big book. Can't you get hold of that?" Jack begged faintly. "If Mr. Norton brings suit and makes us leave our ranch in January, what can we do? Where will we go? It will be so hard for Frieda and Jean." Jack choked and could not go on for a moment.

Jim was looking in every direction except at his companion and cleared his throat once or twice. Jack was gazing out over the sweep of low country bordered by the distant hills. To one side was an open field, where a herd of wild horses was munching the dried buffalo grass; on the wooded slope of the ravine on the further bank of the creek, cattle were leading their calves to drink. It was all their own, hers and Jean's and Frieda's; their beloved Rainbow Ranch! Jack could recall no fairer picture than the scene before her. Her eyes had looked out only on the western lands since she could remember. "Well, Jim, don't you think it would be a good scheme for us to look up this court record?" Jack inquired more hopefully. "Mr. Norton couldn't say it was false."

"Look here, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim answered more gruffly than he had ever spoken to her before. "Do you think that you are the only member of Rainbow Ranch who has any business head? What have I been doing these last few days but looking up that very record of the sale of Rainbow Ranch to John Ralston, Esq.? But I have wasted my time. It wasn't any use. The court record is gone, same as our own deed."

"But that isn't possible, Jim," Jack argued faintly, feeling the world begin to spin round faster and faster, so she could hardly sit on her horse. "I thought nobody ever dared touch anything that belonged to a court of law."

"Jack," Jim demanded severely, "will you kindly remember that we are living in the State of Wyoming and that we haven't been a State but a powerful few years? When your father first came to Wyoming, this country was pretty well filled up with wild beasts, wild Indians and some pretty wild white men. There weren't but a few towns and they weren't slow towns either. Things used to go on in them that a girl don't need to know about. One of the tricks the bad men used to play was to change the county seat over night, just for their own convenience. A band of men would ride up to the courthouse, gather up the court records, the law books and anything else that came in handy, and carry them off to a new town. Next morning when folks woke up, they would find the county seat moved and maybe a new judge and a new sheriff. In one of these here little midnight excursions, they must have carried off the court records which showed your father bought our old ranch fair and true. The book must have been lost, for the record has disappeared, same as our own title to the place. You can kind of see that old man Norton has got us in a tight place, can't you, Jack?" Jim ended gloomily.

"We don't have to tell Jean and Frieda yet, do we, Jim?" Jack pleaded wistfully. "It won't do any good to make them miserable so long as we can keep the news from them."

Jim shook his head. "No sense in your bearing the whole burden alone, Jack. You ain't much older than Jean, you know. Besides, maybe little Frieda will be the very one of us to find our lost title to the old ranch. Ain't things often revealed unto babes that are hid from the rest of us?" Jim quoted reverently, not remembering exactly the great words of the text, but sure enough of its meaning.

"Wait here a minute for me, please, Jack," Jim remarked suddenly, "there is one of our calves stuck in the mud in the creek bottom. Funny how the farther we get away from the Lodge the slower our creek runs! It didn't used to be that way. Ought to be five or six feet of water along here and there's only about one, and that silly calf has sunk to her knees in mud and slime."

Jim rode away from Jack, a few feet into the creek, feeling his way cautiously for fear of quicksands. The calf bleated and struggled, but with a skillful swing of his lasso, Jim caught the mired animal securely and dragged her back safe to dry land. When he joined Jack again, the worried expression had disappeared entirely from his face.

"Cheer up, pard," he resumed affectionately. "You have got the best head on your shoulders of any girl on this side the great divide. We will straighten things out some way and have one of the jolliest Christmases that ever took place at Rainbow Lodge, as a celebration. But didn't you and Jean have something on your minds that you meant to ask me about? Out with it! We don't want to do any talking when we get along toward the end of our creek. Sure as fate, some way the water is being drained from our creek and I have got to find out how it's done."

"Oh, my news doesn't amount to anything now, Jim," Jacqueline announced. "After what you have just told me, there wouldn't be any point in trying to carry out our plan. Indeed it is entirely out of the question."

"Tell me the plan just the same, Jack," Jim insisted, anxious to get Jack's mind off the subject of their troubles.

"You will be awfully surprised, Jim," Jack declared, her face crimsoning, "but Jean and I had just about decided that we ought to have a chaperon to come to live with us at Rainbow Lodge."

Jim gave a long drawn out whistle. He gazed meditatively up at the blue sky. "Good thing it ain't night," he replied slowly, "because if it had been, the stars would have fallen at that remark of yours. You and Jean think you ought to have a chaperon! Well, my word!"

"Don't be silly, Jim," Jack remonstrated. "You know we have talked over our having a chaperon at the Lodge dozens of times since father died. And even when I haven't talked, I have been thinking. We did hate the idea of one and I am afraid I do still. But since our visit to Aunt Sallie," Jack's beautiful straightforward face colored hotly, "Jean and I believe we ought to have an older woman to live with us. You see it is this way, Jim; we don't want to do things that even look wrong, just because we don't know any better; and then we don't want to grow up into perfect dunces. Jean and I don't seem to study at all with no one to teach us, and Olive and Frieda are so anxious to learn that they make us ashamed." Jack sighed. "What's the use of telling you all this? Of course we can't think of sending for a chaperon now when we do not know how long we will have a home to live in ourselves."

Jack had been crying a little, but now she threw her head back with a familiar gesture and winked bravely. "Let's don't talk about our troubles any more, Jim. Mr. Norton hasn't taken possession of Rainbow Ranch yet by any means. Who knows what may happen in two months?"

"Shall I go to Laramie to-morrow and order out a chaperon, Miss Ralston?" Jim queried calmly. "Suppose I put an ad in the paper. 'Wanted: a long-suffering lady, who knows everything, to chaperon and instruct four young ladies who know nothing, but have difficult and unmanageable tempers, particularly the eldest.' Sounds an attractive advertisement. Ought to get a lot of answers."

Jack gazed inquiringly at their devoted friend and counsellor.

"You mean, Jim, that you think we had better go on and have a chaperon, just as we planned, as though there was no danger of our losing the ranch?"

Jim nodded silently. He placed a cautious finger on his lips. He was leaning forward in his saddle, intent on something ahead.

Jack did not notice. "We don't want to have any one to live with us whom we know nothing about," she went on, "so I expect we had better send for mother's cousin, Ruth Drew. She is a fussy New England old maid, and terribly prim, but she wrote she would come out to us, and if she can stand for us, why, – what was that, Jim?" Jack finished breathlessly.

"Shsh!" Jim whispered softly. "Keep perfectly still until we know."

CHAPTER XII

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DIVIDE

JIM COLTER and Jack had ridden to the lower end of Rainbow Creek, where it widened into a kind of natural reservoir. Some yards beyond it, a line of upright rails divided the Ralston ranch from that of the Nortons. The earth dipped slightly on the farther side and a thicket of low sage brush covered the rise in the land beyond.

Jim and Jack saw nothing moving in the sage brush or beyond it and there was no one in sight. Their impression must have been a mistake, for the only living thing in view was a flock of wild geese which flew over their heads uttering their shrill clamor. Jim sat erect, silent and watchful as an Indian, on the back of his equally motionless pony, his hand shading his eyes.

Jack waited on her horse gazing at the quiet waters of Rainbow Creek. Suddenly there came a low rumble inside the earth, like a note of warning, and then the land began to rise in sandy billows as though wave on wave were seeking some distant shore. The two horses with their silent riders shook as with the ague; the face of Rainbow Lake shivered, then her waters lashed the shores as though they had been parted asunder, and a moment later receded and began to disappear. It was as if old Father Neptune had deserted his home at the bottom of the sea to play his mighty games in the shallow waters of Rainbow Creek. It seemed as though he had blown a great blast through his sacred horn and caused the water to spurt upward, then had drawn it slowly back into his horn again.

The noise and the movement died away.

"Was it an earthquake, Jim?" Jacqueline managed to murmur, as soon as she could get her breath. She had slipped quietly off her pony and was patting it softly, for the broncho was terribly frightened at the strangeness of his experience.

Jim nodded solemnly. "A human earthquake, I guess. Don't be alarmed, it won't occur again, but get to cover quickly."

Jacqueline Ralston knew as well as though she had been a pioneer woman trained to warfare with the Indians in the early days in the West, what Jim's mysterious words, "get to cover," meant. She and Jim used to play, long years before, that they were travelers across the plains, being hunted down by bands of roving Indians. This was when Jack was a small, bronze-haired tomboy, riding bare-back over the prairies, swimming with her father in the clear, cold mountain streams, afraid of nothing and of no one, the pride of every cowboy on Rainbow Ranch. Later she had learned the value of hiding in ambush in stalking wild game. But, even if Jack had not understood the importance of Jim's advice, she had been trained to obey instantly the word of a superior officer in the moment of action.

It was not an easy matter to seek shelter with a broncho fourteen and a half hands high in the particular part of the ranch where Jack and Jim happened to be at this moment. There were no trees, no underbush of any kind. The trees that are usually found near the beds of streams in the western country, were on the far side of Rainbow Creek. There was no time to wade across. Jack dropped her reins, hoping her pony would wander quietly away. She bent forward and ran as swiftly and silently as possible toward the straggling rail fence. Then she lay down in the short brown grass, as motionless as a frightened partridge who tries to make the hunter believe he is a part of the still landscape. Jim Colter crawled after Jack, bringing with him his long rope.