The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold

"We only went to the rancho to look for you, Jim," Jack replied lightly. "I wanted to ask you why you sent those gypsies away from the ranch so soon this afternoon. I didn't care about the people and I hated the man, but the poor horses were so tired I thought you would let them stay all night so the horses could rest."

"Miss Ralston, am I running this ranch, or are you?" Jim demanded angrily. "When I see a pack of tramps getting ready to take up their residence with us, have I the right to send them away, or must I ask your leave?" The overseer's tone was wrathful. He knew just how angry Ruth was with him and now Jack would be equally offended; but fate had played Jim Colter such a strange trick in the last few hours that he did not care what he said or did.

Frieda's surprised "Oh!" was the first word spoken. A few seconds later Jack faltered, "I am sure I beg your pardon, Jim; I didn't mean to question your right to do whatever you think best." Jack's voice trailed off brokenly and Ruth gave her an indignant and sympathetic squeeze. Jean slipped around on the other side of Jack, and if Jim could have been injured by burning glances he must have perished on the spot, for Jean's brown eyes and Ruth's darted flashes of lightning at his broad back.

At the Lodge door Jack slipped away from the others. Jim saw her start and made a step toward her, but before he could speak she had vanished, with Olive following her. Neither Ruth nor Jean would ask Jim to be seated, and Frieda was too sleepy to think, yet Jim lingered calmly on the porch. "Don't you think we had better go indoors? It's fairly cool," he said at length.

Ruth drew her coat closer about her and sank into a chair. "No, I don't care to go in," she replied coldly. Jean took Frieda's hand and faced Jim boldly. "Jim Colter, there is something the matter with you to-night," she said. "I don't know what it is, but you were rude to Cousin Ruth and horrid to Jack, and if I were in their places I wouldn't speak to you."

The light from the big porch lantern shone full on Jim's strong, sun-tanned face. Jean and Ruth were both surprised at the change in his expression, for suddenly he looked like a repentant boy. "I say, Jean, do tell Jack for me that I am awfully sorry I was such a beast to her to-night," he pleaded. "Tell her I really didn't think for a minute that she meant any interference by her question. I was a bit upset and I – "

Jean shook her head severely. "I shall not apologize to Jack for you, Jim Colter, so you just needn't ask me," she answered cruelly. "You were a wretch to her and you've hurt her feelings dreadfully. You can do your own apologizing."

"But I won't see Jack again to-night, Jean, and I can't have her go to bed thinking hardly of me," Jim expostulated.

Jean glanced up at him demurely. She was an artful young person and it had just occurred to her that it might be a good idea to get Mr. Colter under her thumb by doing him a favor. She had not been able to speak to Ruth and Jim of her plan for the summer that evening, but she was only awaiting an opportunity.

"If I make up with Jack for you, Jim, will you promise to listen to something we have to tell you in the morning and not say it is utterly impossible before you even know what it is?" Jean demanded.

Jim groaned, though his eyes twinkled. "Go to bed, Jean Bruce. I'll not make you any rash promise, for there is no telling what you mean to let me in for," he answered.

Jean gave her head a toss. "Oh, very well, Jim; just as you like," she agreed suavely. "Only I suppose you saw poor Jack was crying when she went indoors, and she doesn't cry once in a thousand years, so I am sure she will have a headache in the morning and not be able to speak to you."

"I surrender, Jean," Jim replied meekly, holding up both hands. "I will listen to anything you have to say in the morning if you will make my peace with Jack to-night. I must have hurt her feelings if she was crying, for I have seen her nearly kill herself a dozen times and never shed a tear."

The last of Mr. Colter's speech was addressed to Miss Drew alone, for Jean, having gotten her own way, had hurried Frieda off to bed.

Jim sank down comfortably on the porch steps and took off his big Stetson, as though he did not mean to leave just yet. Ruth yawned openly once or twice, but still her guest showed no intention of going. She frowned at him coldly, but he was not looking at her.

Jim had sent an emissary to make his peace with Jack; but he had made no pretense of apologizing to her, and every bit of Ruth's New England pride was up in arms. Yet there was no doubt that Jim did look very handsome as he lingered on the steps in the moonlight. Ruth tried to convince herself that it was only his western costume that was picturesque, the soft shirt with the loose handkerchief knotted at the throat.

"I don't want you to think, Miss Drew, that Jack and I have ever quarreled before about who was the boss of this ranch," Jim explained regretfully. "To tell you the truth, I am a good deal worried about something and it has turned me into a bear." Jim rose up, smiling gently at Ruth. "I expect I had better be going," he said. "I am sorry I was rude to you too to-night, but I will wear sackcloth and ashes with pleasure to-morrow if you will only forgive me, and I can find them anyways handy about the ranch." Jim laughed and bent over, suddenly taking Ruth's hand in his to say good night, and she could but wonder if it was because he was so big and strong that he held it in such a tight grip.

CHAPTER III

CAUGHT IN THE TRAP

JEAN and Jack and Olive were cantering slowly through the fields about an hour before breakfast the next morning. The spring air was so delicious that they had not been able to resist it. Jack had waked before dawn and had kept quite still to listen to the silvery song of the wood thrush outside her bedroom window; she had not wished to go to sleep again, for her mind was too busy with Jean's plan for their summer holiday. When daylight came Jean was aroused by the noise of Jack's movements in the room, and opened her eyes to find her cousin slipping into her riding clothes. She too was eager for a ride, and when they softly called to Olive to join them the three girls stole out together.

"Jack, you will have to broach the subject of our caravan trip to Jim to-day; I am sure you will be all powerful," Jean suggested, as soon as they were fairly on their way. "The more I am out of doors the more I think of how utterly rapturous it will be to spend our summer in traveling around and camping wherever we like. Tell Olive and me something about the people who want to rent our ranch, Jack," Jean ended curiously.

Jack shook her head slowly. "I am afraid I don't know very much about them, Jean," she answered. "Mr. and Mrs. Harmon are New York people; he is a stock broker and they are friends of Mrs. Post's and Laura's. Aunt Sallie does not know them personally, but she says they have one son and a daughter. The daughter is lame and an invalid; I believe they want to bring her out west to see what the climate will do for her." Jack gave an unconscious shudder of horror and sympathy and touched her pony lightly with her whip. The girls were galloping over a part of the ranch that was carpeted with wild prairie roses.

"Where are we going, Jack?" Olive queried, riding close beside her.

"If you and Jean don't mind, Olive, we are going over on the other side of Rainbow Creek," Jack replied apologetically. "Jim and one of the men set a trap over there yesterday to catch some animal that has been worrying our sheep. You know I don't mind when the poor thieves are killed outright for their bad behavior, but sometimes they catch their legs in the traps and nearly pull them off." Jack flushed, but neither Jean nor Olive smiled at her; they knew that she was like a boy in many ways and was too good a sportsman to want anything to suffer unnecessarily.

The girls crossed the creek at a spot where the water was lowest; the spring rains had fallen and it was quite deep in many places. They rode in silence along the familiar path that followed the creek bed, each, in her own way, yielding her senses to the influence of the enchantment that the rare summer morning had created.

Click! click! A curious noise came from somewhere farther down the bed of the creek; it seemed to sound from behind a huge rock that rose up alongside the stream and split into a small ravine. Click! click! The sound was repeated.

Jack reined in her pony so suddenly that Jean almost ran into her. "What was that?" Jack asked quickly, but Jean put her finger cautiously to her lips and signaled for silence.

Click! click! click! The echo was louder and more puzzling, and Jack slid softly off her horse, threw the reins to Olive and crept along the path until she came to the far side of the great rock. The noise was more distinct, but still she could see nothing; then she clambered up the rock and peered over. A man stood with a little hammer in his hand, chipping out small pieces of stone; a big pan filled with sand and gravel and water from Rainbow Creek was resting on the ground by his side.

A little murmur of surprise escaped Jack, and the intruder glanced up at her; he had been so intent on his work and so sure of not being discovered at that hour of the morning that he had not been disturbed by Jack's approach.

"So it is you, is it?" he said calmly. "I hope you don't mind my having a few pieces of these rocks as a souvenir of my visit to your ranch. I know you and your overseer objected to my prospecting for gold about here. That is the reason I pretended to drive away last night."

Jack at once recognized the speaker as the driver of the gypsy caravan of the day before. "I don't see how I am going to prevent your having the stones and pebbles now that you have already taken possession of them," she answered indifferently. "But please don't let our overseer find you lurking about, or he will be dreadfully angry."

The stranger laughed and shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and Jack noticed that he seemed very sure of himself. "Oh, don't you worry about John, Jim Colter I mean," he returned coolly. "I am not afraid of him, though I won't trouble you any more than I can help."

"Did you ask the man if he found any signs of gold in our creek, Jack?" Jean demanded eagerly, as the three girls rode off together again.

Jack shook her head. "No, silly, of course I didn't," she replied. "There are lots of people out west who are crazy about finding gold. Don't you suppose if there had been any gold on our ranch father would have made the discovery years ago?"

"I don't know," Jean returned quietly. "But you might have asked just the same."

Jim had set his animal trap in some thick underbrush and covered it with twigs and evergreens, but Jack remembered the exact spot, and the girls now rode directly toward it. Jack carried her rifle with her, for if they found an animal that had been caught and not killed she intended to put it out of its misery.

Within a short distance of the trap, but before the girls could see it, they heard a queer moaning that made them turn pale. The cry was not like a child's and not like an animal's; it was a queer combination of both.

Jean stopped her pony instantly. "I sha'n't go on any farther with you, Jack," she declared resolutely. "Jim has caught something in that wretched trap of his and it is suffering horribly. It won't do any good for me to see it. Olive, please you go on with Jack; I simply can't, I am such a wretched coward."

Olive and Jack both looked rather miserable at the prospect ahead of them, but Jack would not turn back and Olive would not desert her. By this time the strange sobbing had ceased and there was no further sound of movement or struggle in the neighborhood of the snare until the two girls rode up in plain sight of it.

"Good gracious, Olive, what is that?" Jack called quickly, almost falling from her horse in her amazement.

Instead of discovering a wild animal staring at them with ferocious, frightened eyes, the riders spied a small, brown figure crouched on the ground in front of the wicked steel cage, as mute and motionless as a hare when first startled by a hunter. The boy's back was turned to Olive and Jack and he would not condescend even to look around at his captors.

Jack guessed at once what had happened. The child must have been starving, for he had thrust his arm inside the opening of the trap for the bait that had been put inside, and the spring had closed on his arm. Both girls ran toward him, but Jack did not hear Olive's quick exclamation. Fortunately she knew the trick of opening the trap, for the moment the wires released their cruel hold on the boy, he fainted quietly in Olive's outstretched arms. He was about ten or twelve years old, incredibly thin, with coal-black hair that fell in straight lines to his shoulders, strange, dark eyes with the look of far places in them, and a skin the color of burnished copper.

"It is Carlos, little Carlos!" Olive exclaimed wonderingly. "Jack, don't you remember my telling you about the Indian boy who helped me to come home to you when I was stolen by old Laska? I wonder how in the world he has managed to find us."

Jack did not wait to answer Olive. Running at once to the creek for water, she signaled Jean to join them, and together the girls bathed the boy's face until he returned to consciousness.

Then Carlos calmly explained to Olive that he always had meant to find her some day. With her image ever before him and the names of the Ralston girls and the Rainbow Ranch ever sounding in his ears, the lad had remained quietly in the desert with his own people until the coming of spring. When the nomad tribe started south, Carlos had journeyed with them until they again struck camp, then he had traveled on alone, asking hundreds of questions and covering more miles than he was able to count. Unconscious of the fact he had come at length within the limits of Rainbow Ranch, and when he most needed her, Olive, like a good angel, had appeared to him. Yet Carlos took her coming calmly. Miracles are every-day occurrences to the Indian. Wiser than the wisest of us, he knows that, in spite of all the explanations of science, the rising and the setting of the sun, the life of a flower, most of the things he sees in his world, are nature's miracles. So the miracle of Olive's discovery seemed to Carlos only another mysterious gift from the unknown Father.

Scorning to have his wounded arm bandaged, the boy soon started homeward with the girls. Jim and Frieda were waiting in front of the Lodge for them to return to breakfast. Jim laughed and Frieda stared when they beheld four figures on horseback instead of three.

"Well, Jack, who is your latest find?" Jim called out cheerfully, waving his hand to Jack in token of peace and good fellowship.

The horses stopped, and the Indian boy slid off from behind Olive's saddle and stood erect, facing Jim squarely. "I am Carlos, of the tribe of the Blackfeet," he answered proudly. "Are you the Big Chief of this ranch?"

Jim Colter shook his head gravely, although his eyes were smiling. "No, I am Big Chief of nothing, sonnie," he replied kindly. "But you had better come into the house with me; that is an uncommonly ugly wound you have on your arm, and I've an idea you might be persuaded to eat a little something."

CHAPTER IV

THE WAY TO ARCADY

"IT can't be, Jim, that you think maybe we will be able to carry out our scheme," Jean murmured, her voice hushed almost into a whisper from sheer surprise. She held her fork in the air, hovering between her mouth and her plate, while the other three girls leaned back limply in their chairs at the breakfast table. To win a battle without a fight when all your forces are drawn up for action is unsettling.

"Oh, well, I didn't exactly say I would agree to this caravan trip," Jim hedged. "I don't know that it is a good plan for you to give up your home and take to the woods; but I did say that the idea was worth considering if Miss Ruth favors it. The thing that troubles me most is who is to be the leader of this female cavalcade?" Jim frowned and buttered his fourth hot biscuit. "Don't tell me, Jack Ralston, that you can go it alone, for you can't. It is a good thing you were born in Wyoming, the first state to declare for woman's suffrage, for if ever I met a real natural born female suffragette, it's you. There isn't a thing on this earth that a man does that you wouldn't try if you could. I don't know, Miss Drew, but that we are a little more advanced on the woman question out here than you are in Vermont," Jim drawled slowly. "Kind of seems like it ought to help reconcile you to living among us."

Ruth laughed girlishly. She had on a white piqué frock and looked as dainty as a Dresden china shepherdess; she had plenty of color now and her lips had lost their disapproving curve. "I don't need the vote to reconcile me to living with the ranch girls, Mr. Colter," she insisted sweetly. "And please understand I am just as anxious for the caravan trip as I can be."

Jim looked thoughtfully at his plate without answering, until Jack gave a little tug at his sleeve. "See here, Jim, dear," she argued quickly, "even I haven't suggested that we undertake our trip without a man for our guide. You know we want to follow one of the old, almost forgotten trails across the state to the Yellowstone Park, and of course we don't want to get lost; but Jean and Olive and I planned the whole thing out this morning just perfectly. We know some of the horses we want to take with us and we have chosen the very man for our escort."

Jim shook his head obstinately. "You know I am not talking against the boys on our ranch," he answered solemnly; "they are as good a set of fellows as can be found anywhere in the business. But there isn't one of them that's fit to trust with the finest girls in this country."

"Oh, our guide is all right; don't worry about him, Jim," Jean announced, with the calm assurance of a priestess of the Delphic oracle. "I know you will thoroughly approve of him as soon as you hear who he is." Jean tried her best to wink at Ruth, so that she might guess their meaning, but Ruth was completely in the dark.

"I am pretty sure not to approve of him, you mean," Jim interrupted gloomily. "I have thought of every man on the place, and there isn't one of them I would even consider."

"Oh, yes, there is one, Jim; just one, and you haven't thought of him yet," Jack argued unhesitatingly.

Frieda snickered, Olive smiled and Jean shrugged her shoulders, but Ruth looked as puzzled as Jim.

"Well, out with your man's name, children," Jim demanded firmly. "You must not set your heart on this excursion until I know who he is. I am sorry now that I ever listened to your scheme."

Jean, who was sitting next Ruth, leaned over and whispered something to her, and Ruth gave a happy laugh and then blushed furiously without rhyme or reason.

"Jim, there is but one person in the world we want to go with us, and you certainly ought to know who he is," Jack suggested at this moment. "Surely you know that it's you. Of course it couldn't be anyone else."

"Me – me!" Jim Colter exclaimed helplessly, the tired, thoughtful expression which his brown face had worn all morning changing suddenly to one of joy at Jack's proposition. "Why, you are mad as a March hare, Miss Ralston. I know you thought of renting Rainbow Lodge for the magnificent sum of one hundred dollars a month, but I took it that bargain did not include a thousand or more acres of good Wyoming land, and I would like to know who would look after the ranch while I was away."

"Oh, Jim, you are tiresome," Jean protested. "Do you think the ranch would go to rack and ruin if you left it for a little while? You know one of the other men could take charge of things for you. Why, you haven't taken a holiday from this place in years, and when you went away last time I suppose it was business, for you never said where you went nor what happened to you while you were away."

Jim's face turned so red that Jack was afraid Jean's idle speech had hurt his feelings, for he probably did not like the idea that they thought anyone as capable of running their ranch for them as he was. She slipped away from her place at the table and put her arm over Jim's shoulder as simply as though she were six instead of sixteen. Jim had always been a kind of big brother to the ranch girls. "Dear old Jim," Jack whispered affectionately, "don't be offended. Of course, Jean does not mean that anybody can really manage the ranch except you, but she does think, and indeed we all do – Cousin Ruth most of all, though she hasn't said anything yet – that you could come away with us for a while, even if you just take the trip with us to Yellowstone Park and then return to the ranch as you think best. O, Jim!" Jack's words tripped over each other in her eagerness, "you know you would love our caravan excursion better than anything in the world! It was just because you knew how much you would adore it yourself that you agreed so readily to our scheme when we proposed it to you. Don't you remember how we used to plot and plan just such a journey years and years ago, when Jean and Frieda and I were little girls? You used to tell us stories about your long ride all alone across the great desert when you had no one but your horse for company, no money, no friends, and no place to go until you found us." Jack paused for an instant.

Jim Colter was looking out the window, but his eyes were not on the landscape before him.

"Don't you recall, Jim, how you said that even then you learned to love the romance of the silent places, even the great loneliness that made you feel as though the world were created just for you?" Jack went on pleadingly. "And you said that some day you would take us for a trip across the prairies, and father promised that we might go when we grew up. Now everything is getting so civilized out west, do let us start on our pilgrimage while there is some of the wilderness left." Jack's next words to her friend were spoken in such a low tone that no one else could guess what she was saying: "I think father would like you to keep the promise to us, if you could, Jim, and it would be the most wonderful opportunity in the world for you with Ruth."

Jim gazed slowly about the group of girls without the least indication that he had understood Jack's suggestion. "Well, I will think things over for a few days and kind of see how the land lies," he announced aloud, "and if there is anybody around who can look after the ranch for me, I think maybe I had better see that you don't come to harm."

Jack gave Jim a little shake and Jean pulled him up from the breakfast table. "Don't talk in that tiresome, dutiful fashion, Jim Colter; we will not stand it," Jean protested; "for you know perfectly well that you are as crazy about our jaunt as the rest of us and you wouldn't miss it now for worlds!"

The entire breakfast party had gotten up from the table and were fluttering about the room. A little pine fire burned in the fireplace, but the windows and doors were wide open. Some one walked across the front porch and knocked, and when no one answered, followed the sound of the voices indoors. Frieda gave the first exclamation of surprise at their visitor, tripped over a rocking chair in running to him and landed in the arms of Frank Kent. "Oh, I am glad to see you!" she exclaimed happily. "Why, we thought you were at home in England. What can you be doing here?"

"I have come to see you, Frieda," Frank answered immediately, "but besides you, every single other person at the Rainbow Ranch." Frank must have had half a dozen arms to have shaken hands with all his friends in the room at the same time, yet somehow, in spite of their greetings, he managed to give both his hands to Jack and to grasp hers in the warm friendliness to which she was accustomed from him.

"I declare, I feel like I hadn't seen you in a hundred years," he said simply; "and yet it has been only about six months."

"What are you doing in this part of the world again, Mr. Kent?" Jim Colter inquired rather coolly. He liked Frank Kent well enough, but the young man had gone home to England, when the affairs of the ranch girls were safely settled with his cousin Daniel Norton, who had tried to steal their home from them, and Jim had not expected nor desired to see the English fellow again. He didn't care much for foreigners, even Anglo-Saxon ones.