The Ranch Girls and Their Heart's Desire

CHAPTER III

OLD PASTIMES

One Saturday afternoon several days later Jacqueline Kent, escaping from her family, rode alone down to the great ranch house a mile or more from the Rainbow lodge. She had not had an opportunity to visit the ranch house since her arrival at her former home. Yet as a young girl she always had enjoyed slipping off to the big ranch house unaccompanied by the other Ranch Girls and usually without Jim Colter's knowledge or consent. In the ranch house lived the ranchmen, or the cowboys who looked after the livestock on the great place.

To-day as Jack rode up to the house only three or four of the ranchmen were visible and they were standing on the rough log porch smoking and talking to one another.

But the four sombreros were immediately lifted, and one of the men came forward.

"Glad to see you, Lady Kent. Is there any order you wish to give, or any message? Sorry the greater number of the fellows are not here at present. This is Saturday afternoon, you see, and a half holiday. They are off entertaining themselves, but we'll have the laugh on them when we tell them that we have had a visit from you."

The Wyoming cowboy spoke with a courtesy and self-possession Jack had often seen lacking among more distinguished persons. However, perhaps "distinguished" is not the proper adjective, since her present companion possessed, stored inside his kit, among the personal treasures in his rough, pine-wood chamber a Distinguished Service Medal presented him by the United States Government and a Croix de Guerre, the gift of a grateful France.

Jack shook her head.

"No, I haven't a message or an order. I merely wanted to see the old ranch house and be introduced to the men. But don't call me Lady Kent. I am Mrs. Kent; now that I have returned to my own country a title strikes me as an absurdity. It is hard enough to remember, these days, that I am not Jacqueline Ralston; the ranch is so like it used to be when I was a young girl. I am sorry not to find the other men, as I rode over this afternoon knowing it was Saturday and hoping I might meet them. May I be introduced to the three men who are here, if they don't mind?"

Jack spoke with a mixture of shyness and friendliness entirely natural to her, but in the present circumstances, perhaps unusual.

The man to whom she was speaking was John Simmons, one of the assistant managers of the Rainbow ranch to whom Jim Colter had introduced her shortly after her arrival at her old home.

At a summons from him, the three other men rushed forward as if only awaiting the opportunity, and leaning from her horse, holding the bridle in her left hand, Jack shook hands cordially with her new acquaintances.

"More sport this, ma'am, than lassoing a wild colt!" one of the cowboys drawled, as Jack smiled upon him. His three companions, after first shouting with laughter, proceeded to frown upon the young fellow. He was only a boy not yet twenty-one, from the Kentucky mountains, who nevertheless had served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France for eighteen months.

"But are the men practicing lassoing this afternoon? If they are, please do take me to see what is going on. Is there to be a contest?" Jack inquired. "I used to know something about the business myself, long ago when I was a girl. I have even tried using the lasso, although I was never a great success according to Jim Colter, who did his best to teach me."

"If you'll wait until we get our horses," John Simmons replied.

A few moments later Jack and her four masculine companions were galloping toward one of the farther boundaries of the Rainbow ranch.

After half an hour's steady riding they came upon from twenty to thirty young ranchmen gathered about an open stretch of country. A third of the men were employees of the Rainbow ranch, the others were from neighboring places.

The men were grouped together, some of them on horseback, others at present afoot. Not far away were a dozen western ponies still unbroken either for riding or driving, but captured and brought to this particular spot. Firmly tethered to stakes, they were now pawing the earth, tossing their pretty heads in the air and kicking and bucking if any one approached.

If the men were astonished by the appearance of Jacqueline Kent upon the scene, they were sufficiently polite to make no mention of the fact. If they exchanged glances of surprise or whispered comments, Jack was too little self-conscious and too interested in the spectacle before her and what was about to take place to consider her own position.

Apart from the group, facing a broad, flat prairie field were two of the ranchmen, a few yards separating them. Over their right arms hung their long lariats, coils of rope with a slip noose at the end.

A pony unloosed at a given signal would make a plunge for liberty. Then the two men with the lassos would be after him. The pony has a fair start in open field, and the race for freedom lies before him.

In her eager interest, scarcely realizing what she was doing, Jack made her way to the front line of the group of spectators, the men giving way to her partly from amusement and partly from courtesy. The larger number of them had no personal acquaintance with her, yet she was well enough known by reputation. One of the owners of the famous Rainbow ranch, herself a Ranch girl until her marriage to an Englishman, the fact that since her husband's death Jacqueline Ralston Kent had returned home with the avowed intention of resuming her American citizenship was already become a subject for gossip, for approval or disapproval among her neighbors.

Staring at her secretly when the chance offered, there was in all probability the usual difference of opinion concerning her among the onlookers. But with one fact they would all have agreed: Lady Kent, or Mrs. Kent, as she was said to prefer being called, looked younger than any one who had heard her history could have thought possible.

In truth, this afternoon, in her usual informal fashion, Jack was wearing an old corduroy riding habit which she had left behind her at the Rainbow lodge several years before upon the occasion of her previous visit home. It was of dust color, plainly made with a long, close fitting coat and divided skirt. Her riding boots and gloves, however, were of the softest and most beautiful English manufacture; her hat of brown felt, with a broad brim.

This afternoon Jack's cheeks were a deep rose color, her eyes were glowing, her full red lips were parted from excitement and pleasure as she watched.

Away toward the outermost bounds rushed the little untamed colt, his pursuers close on his track. Then a long rope swung through the air, coil on coil unloosed, rose beautiful as bubbles afloat, with the noose ready to capture and bring the pony to a standstill.

The first man is unsuccessful and the bystanders raise a shout of derision. This changes to applause when the second man slips his noose easily over the pony and gently draws it until the four protesting feet are held fast.

Then the pony is brought back, again tied to its stake and a second contest begins anew.

There was no cruelty in this sport, only a test of courage and skill, since sooner or later the wild ponies must be captured and tamed and taught to do their portion of the world's work.

Had she forgotten how exhilarating, how thrilling the lassoing was? Jack felt her heart pounding, her blood coursing more swiftly in her veins as she half stood in her saddle waving her applause at each victory.

"I suppose I should not dare attempt to find if I have altogether lost my skill?" she asked of her companion, the assistant manager of the Rainbow ranch, who had managed to keep near her all afternoon. "Would it bore the men dreadfully to have me take part, do you think? Of course I ought not to be willing to disgrace myself before so many people."

As a matter of fact, Jack was talking to herself, arguing with her own desire, as well as asking the advice of her companion.

"I don't know. Do you realize that if one is out of practice roping is a fairly dangerous sport, Mrs. Kent? I don't think I would undertake it," John Simmons protested.

But Jack found an unexpected ally.

Without her being aware of it, the young Kentuckian whom she had met for the first time at the ranch house a short while before, had remained as faithful an escort as the assistant manager of the ranch, and a more devoted one, since John Simmons regarded the protection of Mrs. Kent under the present circumstances as his duty, while with Billy Preston there was no question of duty but of pleasure.

"You don't mean you've got the nerve to git into the present game, Mrs. Kent?" he queried, his manner perfectly respectful, in spite of the oddity of his speech. "I've been ridin' all my days, was pretty nigh born on a horse, anyhow used to hang on when I couldn't 'a' been more'n two or three years old, 'cause there wasn't no other way of gittin' up or down our hills in them days. But this here lassoing game, I'm not on to it yet. Seems like it would be kind of worth while to see you go after one of them colts and rope her and lead her in same as one of the men. I can't come to believe a woman could ever manage it."

"Maybe I could not," Jack answered, but both her interest and vanity were stimulated. It was a curious fact that she had so little personal vanity in most things, and yet like a boy had a boy's ambition if not a boy's vanity with regard to outdoor pastimes.

Disappearing a moment, Billy Preston rode up again soon after with one of the other ranchmen, who happened to be in charge of the afternoon's contest.

"If you would like to try your hand, Mrs. Kent, and are not afraid of getting into trouble, why of course there is no objection. Any one of the fellows will be glad of the chance to ride beside you and give you the first throw."

Jack laughed, hesitated and weakened. As a matter of fact, she should have known better than to make an exhibition of herself before a group of strange young men; her instinct, her experience, her judgment, should have taught her better. They did whisper their protest, it was Jack's fault that she did not heed them, this being her particular failure in life that she could not see that things which were not intrinsically wrong in themselves were oftentimes wrong when done at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

"You don't think I would be too great a bore? Then may I borrow some one's horse? My own is not accustomed to the lassoing."

A short time after, actually unconscious of the unconventionality of her behavior, Jacqueline Kent with the lariat swung over her arm, before an audience of perhaps thirty or more amused and absorbed spectators, was awaiting the moment to ride forward.

The soft prairie winds blew against her face, bringing their familiar fragrances, the circle of mountains far away on the dim horizons had their summits crowned with snow. About her, whinnying and neighing, their slender nostrils quivering with interest in the sport, were the western horses she had loved almost as she loved people from the time she was little more than a baby. As for her audience, Jack really gave it scarcely any thought so keyed was she to the business in hand. Had she altogether forgotten her past prowess? A moment before she had not been entirely truthful, for she had possessed an unusual skill in every phase of western riding as a young girl, and especially skilful in what she was about to undertake.

Yet at present the rope hung slack on her arm with an odd feeling of unfamiliarity. An instant later Jack flung it in the air, saw it coil and uncoil, heard the singing noise it made, and then drew it back into place, feeling an added confidence.

The following instant she was after the pony, her companion riding a few feet behind her, but making no effort with his own lasso.

Jack had asked for no quarter, yet was to be afforded every chance. Once her rope rose, sailed forward and then dropped slack to the ground, the pony cantering on ahead undisturbed, and uncaptured.

In her accustomed fashion laughing at her own failure, Jack settled more firmly to her task, spurring her horse ahead.

A second time her rope shot forward and now the pony crumpled and went down upon its forelegs, Jack drawing the lasso and holding it until her companion took the rope from her hand.

Then she turned to ride back to her former place.

Now Jack felt herself blushing warmly and for the first time became aware of her conspicuous position.

Her audience was laughing and shouting their surprised applause, hats were being waved in the air. There in front of the others and on foot, Jack beheld Jim Colter, and only a few times in her life could she recall having seen his face reveal such an expression of disapproval.

"Making an exhibition of yourself, Jack?" he asked after she had dismounted and stood beside him. Then he turned to one of his own ranchmen. "Will you bring Mrs. Kent's horse back to the Rainbow lodge? She will drive home with me."

Led away as if she were a disgraced school-girl, Jack suffered a number of conflicting emotions – anger, rebellion, embarrassment, and repentance and some amusement. Surely the time had arrived when her former guardian should recognize that she was a woman and not a child. Then Jack appreciated that she should have recognized the fact herself and not made an exhibition of herself as Jim had just said.

"You won't tell the family what I have done, will you, please, Jim?" Jack asked when they were a safe distance away. "I know I have behaved badly and I suppose it does no good to say that I never appreciated the fact until I had the first look at your face. I hate to have you angry, Jim."

"You will be the talk of the countryside, Jacqueline Kent, and who knows where else?" Jim Colter answered. "It's incredible that you did not realize this. In less than an hour it will be on every tongue that Lady Kent has returned to Wyoming to seek the society of the cowboys and ranchmen and to engage in their rough sports, and please remember it also will be reported that she seeks their companionship with no other women present. Fine beginning, Jack."

"You are pretty hateful, Jim. I thought you used to tell me not to mind idle gossip."

"I did, Jack, but not when the gossip was justified by your behavior. As for my keeping your recent act a secret from the rest of the family, it is not possible. Frieda and Professor Russell, Olive and Captain MacDonnell, and your former acquaintance, Peter Stevens, are in the motor car waiting for you, unfortunately so near as to be aware of your proceedings. We motored over to Laramie this afternoon and asked Stevens if he knew what steps you should take in order to resume your American citizenship. He was not altogether sure and explained he thought it would be wiser to look the question up. As he was free for the evening Frieda invited him to motor to the ranch with us and meet you again. Finding you had gone down to the ranch house, we went in search of you. Ching Lee, who is the present cook at the ranch house, informed me you had ridden over here with Simmons, which was in itself sufficiently unconventional, Jack, without the unexpected addition I saw when I left the motor and came to look for you."

"Good gracious, Frieda will never let me hear the last of this!" Jack exclaimed. "It is rather too much to have an old acquaintance like Peter Stevens, who never liked or approved of me even in my youth, as another witness to my discomfiture. Perhaps you would prefer I return to England after all, Jim! Can't you forgive me before I join the others; I'll have sufficient disapproval to endure then without yours. I wonder if I dare face Frieda. I'll never make a mistake like this again."

But for once Jim Colter refused to yield to Jack's pleading, being more deeply disturbed by her action because of its consequent reaction upon her than he had been in some time past. Beautiful, young and daring, with unusual wealth, perhaps it might be wiser if Jack should marry again, hard as it would be for him to give her up a second time.

CHAPTER IV

A FORMER ACQUAINTANCE

"I was never so ashamed of any one in my life."

Jack flushed, but, ignoring her sister's speech, extended her hand to the young man who was seated in the motor car beside her.

"I am afraid you don't remember me," she began, "it has been a long time, and we never knew each other intimately in the past. But it is kind of you to have driven over to the ranch."

Then getting into the car, Jack sat down in the vacant place which had been saved for her between her sister and their visitor.

"Just the same, I believe I should have known you," Peter Stevens returned, looking at her with what Jack considered was certainly not an expression of admiration. "Do you think, Mrs. Kent, a fellow is apt to forget a girl who could ride and hunt and shoot better than nearly any young man in Wyoming? I was a bookworm in those days and have remained one, but that did not prevent my jealousy of you."

"Please don't refer to my dreadful outdoor accomplishments," Jack murmured, "not after I have gotten myself into such disfavor with my family." The little glance, half of appeal, half of humor which she at this instant bestowed upon her companion made the muscles of his face suddenly relax and his blue eyes less cold, so that Jack caught at least a fleeting likeness to the boy she had once known.

As a matter of fact, Peter Stevens, who was still in the early twenties, had appeared so much older than she had dreamed possible that Jack would not have recognized him without first having been told his name.

Then his face hardened again.

"Well, most of us grow up, Mrs. Kent, but perhaps you are one of the persons who do not. I am told you prefer not to use your title in the United States."

To Jack's mind, as there was plainly no answer to this speech with its scarcely courteous reference to her recent impulsive action, she turned toward her sister.

Frieda Ralston had developed into the type of matron one might have expected from her spoiled girlhood and – more important – her childish and self-satisfied temperament. She dearly loved her older sister; except for her husband and baby, she loved no one so well; but she also loved the opportunity to assume an attitude of offended dignity which usually had succeeded in making the members of her family do as she wished.

Moreover her sister's recent escapade had seriously shocked and annoyed her, not for her own sake, but for her sister's. She had wished Jack to make a charming impression among their neighbors and old friends. No one, as she believed, could be handsomer or more delightful than her sister, Lady Kent, and Frieda declined to lay aside the title. Yet here was Jack, after having probably disgraced herself by her latest performance, meeting one of the most prominent of the younger men in Wyoming, dressed in an old, discarded riding habit, dusty, her hair blown about her face, looking at least ten years younger than she actually was; in fact, as if she had never left the ranch, never been married or seen anything of the outside world.

As a matter of fact, Frieda now and then felt slightly resentful of the suggestion, occasionally made by strangers, that she was the older of the two sisters. But this Frieda thought must be because she was getting just the tiniest bit stouter than she would have preferred to be. However, she did not care seriously. This afternoon, as Jack tried to catch her sister's eye, she thought that Frieda looked prettier than usual, in her beautifully made blue cloth tailor suit and the little blue feather hat which made her eyes appear even bluer and the fairness of her skin more conspicuous.

She also considered that Frieda was partly justified in her anger, but that she must not be allowed to display her temper or to lecture her older sister before a stranger.

The next instant, leaning over, Jack whispered a few words to Olive MacDonnell, who with her husband, Captain MacDonnell, was occupying the seat in front of her own. Professor Henry Tilford Russell, Frieda's husband, was next to Jim Colter, who was driving the car.

What Jack whispered was:

"You'll stand by me, Olive, you and Bryan; as usual, I seem to have gotten into more troubled waters than I realized."

And Olive had nodded with the sympathy and understanding which Jack had always been able to count upon from the days of their earliest acquaintance when Olive had taken refuge at the Rainbow lodge and Jacqueline Ralston had sheltered and protected her.

The following moment Jack stretched out her arms toward Frieda's little girl, who was sitting in her mother's lap.

"Let me hold the baby, please, Frieda dear, you must both be tired."

Then as Peace climbed over into her aunt's lap, Jack pressed her cheek for an instant against the little girl's head.

She and Peace had a deep affection and understanding of each other. But then the child was captivating to everybody. Inheriting Frieda's exquisite blonde coloring, Peace had a spirituality her mother never possessed. She was several years old, but so frail that she seemed younger in spite of her wise, old-fashioned conversation.

"Tired?" she murmured.

Jack shook her head.

"There is nothing the matter." It often troubled her and Frieda, the little girl's curious knowledge of what was going on in the minds of the people about her without an exchange of words.

Frieda now glanced at her sister and her own little girl and her expression altered. She loved seeing them together and had no feeling of jealousy. Indeed she used to hope that some of Jack's vigor, the extraordinary and beautiful vitality which made her different from other persons might be transferred to her own little girl.

"We will leave you at the lodge, Jack, to dress for dinner, if you will come up to the big house later;" Frieda remarked with a change of tone. "Mr. Stevens has been kind enough to say he will remain all night and motor back to Laramie in the morning."

Was it natural vanity on Jacqueline Ralston's part or an effort to reinstate herself in the good graces of her family that she bathed and dressed with unusual care, brushing every particle of dust from her long, heavy, gold brown hair which waved from her temples to the low coil which she wore at the back of her neck?

Jack's evening dress was black chiffon without an ornament or jewel and was the first change she had made from her mourning. To any one less physically perfect than Jacqueline Kent, the severity of the dress might have been trying. But her skin was clear, her color, without being vivid, gave a sufficient flush to her cheeks, her lips were a deep red, her eyes gray and wide and with a singular sincerity. Moreover, Jack's outdoor tastes, into whatever indiscretions they might lead her, had kept her figure erect, beautifully modeled and well poised, and a beautiful figure is far more rare than a beautiful face.

Walking up with Jimmie as her escort to the big house, Jack confessed to herself that she felt slightly bored. Unexpectedly she had grown a little tired, or if not tired, not in the mood to endure any more family criticism at the present time, and would much have preferred spending the evening alone with her son.

She had confessed her offence to Jimmie, wishing him to hear from her what she had done. But Jimmie, not appreciating the social error she had committed, had appeared immensely proud, even jealous of her prowess, insisting that she should begin to give him lessons in the art of lassoing early the following morning.

Personally Jack wondered just to what extent her family had been unnecessarily critical in their attitude. Would her neighbors judge her action so harshly that it would interfere with their friendliness toward her? It was always hard for Jack to live in an atmosphere of unfriendliness.

So far as her former acquaintance was concerned she had no vestige of doubt. Peter Stevens had been absurdly shocked and offended by her exhibition of what had seemed to him unwomanliness. But personally Jack did not care a great deal for his opinion, she had not liked him particularly, and it had occurred to her that it might be just as well if he were shocked occasionally. He looked prim and too much an old bachelor for so comparatively young a man.

However, what really startled Peter Stevens was Jacqueline Kent's appearance, when he came into the drawing room a few moments before dinner and found her standing alone before a small fire.