The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge

CHAPTER I

THE LOST TRAIL

OVER the brown plain a shaggy broncho trotted slowly, with its head drooping.

A girl stood up in her saddle with one hand to her lips. "Halloo! Halloo!" she cried. "I wonder where on earth I am? I thought I knew every inch of this country, yet here I am lost and I can't be but a few miles from our ranch. I must have missed the trail somewhere. Jim! Jim Colter! If there is anybody near, please answer me."

Jacqueline Ralston rode astride. Her eyes and cheeks were glowing and her gold brown hair, deep grey eyes and brilliant color, formed an unusually attractive picture.

She leaned over and gave her pony a penitent hug. "Poor little Hotspur, you shall have a rest pretty soon, even if I have to spend the night out of doors. But won't Jean and Frieda be frightened? Jim will scour the prairies for me."

The pony was treading through a vast field of purple clover fading to brown in the autumn sun. It was just before sunset. Away to the right, Jacqueline could see a group of slow moving objects, which she knew to be cattle. Half a mile on the opposite side was a sparse group of evergreen trees and low bushes. But there was nothing else that broke the vision of a long line of level country, until the snow-capped peaks of the distant mountains shone like gold in the rays of the setting sun.

"We will try the trees, Hotspur," Jacqueline urged coaxingly. "Perhaps we may find a trail over there. Anyhow I believe I would rather be a solitary babe in the woods, than to wander around here in the alfalfa fields until to-morrow morning."

The girl wore a short, brown corduroy jacket and skirt, leather leggings and riding boots. Over the pommel of her saddle hung a bunch of silver grouse and a smart little rifle was suspended at her side.

"I am desperately hungry," she announced aloud. "I do wish I had a match so I could light a fire. Jolly good advice that of Jim's for a ranch girl, 'never try to find your match, always carry it with you.'"

Jacqueline laughed. She was not willing to confess that she was tired, although she had been riding since eight o'clock that morning. Against the wishes of her sister Frieda, her cousin Jean, and the overseer of their ranch, Jim Colter, she had gone off alone to inspect the corral which had been recently built to protect their sheep for the winter.

Inside the woods the way was darker and there was no sign of a road. Jacqueline let the reins slacken on her pony's neck. Really Hotspur would have to find the right trail home, if they were to reach the ranch house that night. She could hear the rabbits and squirrels scurrying back into their retreats. They were not accustomed to being disturbed at their supper time and at first there was no other sound.

"Who goes there?" suddenly a rough voice demanded, and a horse came plunging through an opening in the trees.

Jacqueline's color paled. She recognized the rider, a boy of about sixteen, nearly her own age. "I am Jacqueline Ralston," she answered quietly. "I have lost the trail. Will you please show me the way to the Rainbow Ranch?"

The young fellow laughed rudely. "Miss Ralston, is it?" he sneered. "Don't tell me you are lost on our ranch. You have been over here spying at our cattle. Just you trot along home as fast as you can. I shall report to my father what I caught you doing." The boy's light blue eyes blazed angrily.

Jacqueline had reined in her pony and waited. Her temper was not her strong point, but she replied politely: "I am not spying, Dan Norton; I wonder why you should think it necessary. I will leave your ranch as soon as I can get away from it. Will you please show me the trail?"

Jacqueline held her head very high. "Won't you tell me?" she asked again. "Because we happen to be enemies is no reason why you shouldn't believe my word." The young girl's tones were gentle, but her face was white with anger in the gathering dusk. Her firm red lips were pressed tight together to keep her from saying the things she really felt.

Dan Norton rode closer toward her and for reply struck her pony sharply with his short riding whip. Tired little Hotspur quivered with pain, but stood still under his mistress' gentle words.

"Don't do that again, Dan," Jacqueline protested, feeling the hot blood rush to her face and then leave her cold and still with anger. "There is not another person in Wyoming who would be so rude to me. But there has been trouble enough between you and us. I shall not speak of this, but I shall never be able to forgive you to the longest day I live;" and Jacqueline's grey eyes looked so proudly and so scornfully into the boy's that his own dropped.

"Your way's to the left," he muttered. "If you ride quick, you will soon be on the boundary of your own ranch. Hurry, there is some one else coming this way."

Jacqueline did not stir. A few minutes before, she would have trotted off gladly. Now nothing would have induced her to go. She would not run away from her enemy. Indeed she preferred to explain her presence on his ranch to Mr. Norton.

In the silence between the two young people another voice entered, but it was not Mr. Norton's. Some one was singing.

Dan Norton rode hurriedly out of sight and Jacqueline lifted her rifle, letting it rest in her arm.

"Oh!" the song stopped abruptly. The singer threw up both hands and burst into a merry boyish laugh. "I surrender in the name of – in the name of most anything, if you will only put down that gun," he declared. "Who would have thought of meeting a girl in these woods? Whatever are you doing here? Poaching? No, I believe you don't have game preserves in this country, so poaching isn't against your law." The stranger laughed, though he had taken off his hat and bowed courteously to his fellow traveler. "Please tell me, are you Rosalind in the forest of Arden? You look like her, although I never heard of her on horseback," he ended merrily.

Jacqueline bit her lips. The young man was evidently a newcomer in the neighborhood and at any other time Jacqueline would have liked him. He must have been about seventeen and was tall and slender, with light brown hair and clever brown eyes. His dress was that of a cowboy, but Jacqueline saw with a feeling of instant disdain that his clothes were too new and his face too white for him to have lived long in her country. Besides he did not ride or talk like a Westerner.

"I am Frank Kent, at your service," he explained, puzzled by Jacqueline's haughty silence. "I am an Englishman and I don't quite know what I ought to do or say out in Wyoming. But may I be of any service to you?"

Jacqueline's feeling of hurt and anger began to subside and she smiled in a more friendly fashion. Frank Kent decided that he had never seen such a pretty girl before in his life. Had she been a city girl, her skin would have been fair, but from her outdoor life it had become exquisitely darkened by the wind and sun of the prairies. Her hair was like bronze and her color a deep rose.

"I ought not to be asking favors of you," Jacqueline replied in her usual manner. "You are a stranger in a strange land, while I have lived out West since I was a baby. But can you show me the trail to the Rainbow Ranch? Anyhow tell me how to get off of this place. I have never been on it before, and – " To save her life Jacqueline could not keep her voice from trembling.

"Surely I can show you," Frank answered. He spoke with such a funny English accent, that Jacqueline would have liked to have made fun of him, if she had known him better.

"I have heard a lot about the girls who run Rainbow Ranch," he went on quickly. "They sound like such an awfully good sort that I have made Dan Norton tell me a lot about them. I am visiting him, surely you must know him," the young fellow concluded eagerly.

What in the world had he said? Frank Kent was startled. The girl he had just met seemed quite friendly a moment before. Now she stiffened up on her pony, her cheeks turned scarlet and her eyes flashed.

"I won't trouble you any further," she announced. "I will find my own way home from here." Without another word or a backward glance, Jacqueline gave her pony a gentle cut and Hotspur galloped quickly away.

"Whew," Frank Kent whistled, "methinks some one told me that the people one met out West were awfully friendly and informal. That girl was as touchy as you find them. But I wonder who she is? I think I will ride after her and show her the trail, even if she is so high and mighty."

Jacqueline pretended not to hear the young man trotting along behind her, and did not turn her head. She rode faster and faster until a sound like a stifled moan arrested her. Jacqueline paused and saw that the young fellow who had been so polite to her a few minutes before was ghastly white. He was swaying so in his saddle that he had not the strength to stop his horse.

Jacqueline caught his bridle. "Rest a minute," she urged gently. "You will soon be all right. You have ridden too far and you are not used to it. People always do too much, when they first come to Wyoming. My name is Jacqueline Ralston and I am one of the girls at the Rainbow Ranch. I am sorry I was rude to you a little while ago, but the Nortons are not our friends." Jacqueline was talking so that the young man could get his breath. She could not help admiring the brave fight he made. He seemed to be dreadfully ashamed of his own weakness.

"You will let me show you the right trail, won't you?" he asked. "I am sorry you are not friendly with my hosts. I thought I heard you talking to Dan, when I rode up to you, but that won't matter about me, will it? I don't know anything about your quarrel and if we were properly introduced, don't you think we could be friends? I can't tell you how plucky I think it is for you three girls to be managing your own ranch. Don't you think you might tell me a thing or two about it? It is pretty lonely out here for a stranger."

The young fellow looked so nice, and so ill, in spite of his efforts to hide it, that Jacqueline almost relented. Then the thought of Dan Norton's rudeness and the long feud between them swept over her, and Jacqueline shook her head firmly.

"I am sorry," she returned. "With any one else it would not matter, but we can't be friendly with any guest of the Norton's." Jacqueline hesitated, "I can't explain it to you, there isn't time. Good-bye. I know the way home from here."

Frank Kent watched Jacqueline ride out of sight, sitting on her pony as though she had been made on it, like a figure cut from bronze, all in soft tones of gold and brown.

It was quite dark when Jacqueline at last spied the lights of her own ranch house twinkling at her warmly through the open windows and doors.

The broncho hurried faster, forgetting his hard day and Jacqueline talked low in his ear.

"Home and supper, Hotspur! See the lights of home ahead. Soon they will hear us coming. Suppose I give our call and relieve the suspense." Three times in rapid succession, Jacqueline touched her red lips with her slender fingers and gave a shrill, clear whistle like an Indian's call.

Instantly figures moved about in the ranch house. A dark lantern was swung off its place over the front door and a man and two girls hurried down the drive. Jacqueline was lifted off her horse. Her sister, Frieda, seized her by one arm, her cousin, Jean, by the other.

"What has kept you so long?" Frieda demanded anxiously.

"If you have had an adventure and wouldn't let me go with you to-day, I shall never get over it," Jean insisted. "Come into the house this minute. Do tell us where you have been. Jim telephoned over to the other side of the ranch three hours back, but the sheep herders said you started for home long ago. We have been frightened to death ever since."

Frieda pulled at her sister's jacket. Jean, although she kept up her scolding, got a pair of soft, red felt slippers and placed them invitingly in front of the big, living-room fire.

Rainbow Lodge was built of pine logs. The great sitting-room was forty feet long and two-thirds as wide and it looked like a man's room, but the three ranch girls did not know it. The floor was covered with buffalo robes and beautiful bright Navajo blankets made by the Indians in the nearby villages, and the head of an elk thrusting forth giant antlers dominated the scene from above the stone fireplace. An Andrew Jackson table made of hewn logs, with a smooth polished top, occupied one side of the fireplace, holding a reading lamp and some half-opened books.

In another corner the home-made book shelves were filled with much-read novels and books of travel. There were low, comfortable chairs about everywhere. It was an odd room to be occupied by three young girls, but a very noble one. The ranch girls had kept it just as their father had left it when he died, six months before.

Jacqueline gave a comfy sigh. "I am glad to be at home," she murmured. "I haven't had any special adventure. Jean, I know you will be disgusted with me, but I got lost and wandered over on the Norton ranch. I met Dan Norton and he was horrid to me. Oh, Frieda darling, hasn't Aunt Ellen saved me anything to eat? I am simply starving," Jacqueline ended, anxious to change the subject.

Aunt Ellen came in at this moment bearing a waiter. She was nearly six feet tall, part Indian and part colored, and she had lived with the Ralstons ever since Mr. and Mrs. Ralston came to Wyoming from the East, bringing Jack, who was then only two years old.

The old woman was frowning and shaking her head, as she put down Jack's supper. "Ought never to have ridden off across the ranch alone, ought not to be coming back home way after dark. I am sure the master never would have liked you chilluns living here and trying to run things for yourself," she muttered.

Jack flushed, although she patted the old woman's hand affectionately and said nothing. Jack knew she deserved the scolding and that she would have another from Jim Colter, the manager of their ranch, in the morning. To-night he had led Hotspur away without a word and retired to his own quarters.

No one, excepting strangers, ever called Jacqueline Ralston anything but Jack. She never thought of herself by her pretty French name, except when she wished to appear very grown up and impressive. As for little Frieda, she had been born at Rainbow Ranch house thirteen years before on Christmas eve. She was such a fair little German-looking baby, with her blue eyes and flaxen hair, that her mother gave her the pretty German name of Frieda, which means peace. Mrs. Ralston died when Frieda was only a few months old, but the little girl had fairly earned her name all her life. Peace and War, Jean used to call the two sisters, when she wanted to tease Jack, for Jacqueline was as high-tempered and determined as Frieda was gentle and serene.

Jean was a slender, graceful maiden, with hair and eyes of the same nut brown color. She had come to live at the ranch ten years before, when her mother, Mr. Ralston's sister, died, and Mr. Ralston decided it would be better to bring up three motherless girls than two. Jean had a gentle, far-away expression, though Jack always asserted that Jean was present when she wanted to be. She only dreamed dreams and wore her aloof expression when people bored her, or when she felt sad and thought she needed sympathy. Jack and Frieda knew no difference in their feeling for Jean and for each other.

When Jacqueline finished supper, she curled herself in a big armchair in front of the fire. Frieda sat on a low stool at her feet while Jean, with an open book, was not far away. Jean was the reader of the three girls, but to-night her book was neglected.

"Out with it, Jack," Jean insisted calmly. "You know perfectly well that you haven't told us all that happened to you this afternoon. Fire away and get it over with, I want to finish my book to-night."

After much urging, Jack told her story in full and Jean flung her book down and danced about the room on her tip-toes, she was so angry, when she heard how Dan Norton had treated her. But she had a different feeling about the young English fellow.

"I really think you were rather horrid, Jacqueline Ralston," she announced coolly. "Of course we can't be having visitors or making friends with any one visiting those hateful Nortons, but I think you might have told that young fellow we would be nice to him when we met him other places. He is a far-off cousin of the Nortons, whose health broke down while he was at college in England and his people sent him over here to recover. His father is a Lord, or a Sir or something, I can't remember which. But Mrs. Simpson says he is awfully nice and – "

Jack put both fingers in her ears. "For goodness sake, hush, Jean Bruce," she protested. "You are such a snob. What difference can it make to us, whether this Frank Kent is a lord or a prizefighter? We certainly can't have anything to do with him. I shan't even speak to him again if I can help it. For the life of me, Jean, I don't see how you happen to find out the gossip in Wyoming with our ranches five miles apart."

Jean's brown eyes sparkled. She and Jack had many differences of opinion, but to-night Jack was tired and her cousin decided not to answer back.

"Have you gotten your lessons, Frieda?" Jack asked gently a moment later, kissing her hand apologetically to Jean.

Frieda shook her head. She had two long blonde plaits, like a little German girl, with a curl at the end of each one of them. Her cheeks were a faint pink, and her nose tilted just enough to curl her lips up into a smile.

"No," she replied calmly. "Jean offered to hear me recite, but I didn't feel like it. You and Jean haven't studied your French for three evenings. I don't see why I have to do all the studying, because I am the youngest. When we planned to live by ourselves this winter, you and Jean declared that you were going to study three or four hours every day."

Jack pulled Frieda's hair and Jean had just picked up her French grammar with a sigh when there came the noise of some one riding up to the ranch house.

The three girls flew to the window. It was too dark to recognize the figure on horseback. But a few moments later, Aunt Ellen brought in an envelope addressed to "Miss Jacqueline Ralston."

It was a surly note of apology from Dan Norton for his rudeness to her in the afternoon. The girls wondered what in the world had induced him to write it.

Long after Jean and Frieda were asleep, Jacqueline lay awake. She was the oldest and most responsible member of the ranch girl family of three. Frieda was right, she and Jean had been neglecting their studies shamefully. Now and then Jack could not help thinking that perhaps it was not wise for them to live without a teacher or a chaperon. They did not want to grow up perfect greenhorns, yet how they hated the idea of introducing a stranger into their home at Rainbow Ranch. Jack was still puzzling, when she fell asleep, with the familiar sound in her ears of the far-off lowing of the wild cattle across the prairie and the distant bark of the faithful sheep dogs.

CHAPTER II

IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANT'S FACE

FRIEDA walked ankle deep in purple violets. Her hands were full of them and she carried a brimful basket on her arm.

"What a picture you are, Frieda," Jack called, as she came out on the broad veranda of the ranch house at about eight o'clock the next morning.

"I don't care if we don't make our everlasting fortunes with our violet beds, they are just too sweet for anything! Jean is coming out to help you pick the flowers in a minute; I have got to go down to the rancho to make my peace with Jim."

Jack walked briskly along. It was a gentle October day with a bright sun and warm wind. You seemed to be able to see half way across the world, the horizon line stretched so far beyond you.

One of the ways in which Jean and Frieda had been trying to help to make the ranch pay was by starting a violet farm. Nearly an acre of land near the house had been irrigated and glistened with the dark green leaves and purple stars of the young plants. The flowers were to be covered with glass later on. Now the fresh morning air was fragrant with their perfume. Of course the flowers had not yet had time to pay for the expense of planting them, but Frieda was eagerly calculating how many bunches she would have to send to the nearest town, when Jean joined her.

"Don't you wish we could spend this whole day out of doors, Jean?" Frieda suggested. "I forgot to say anything about it to Jack, but you know how we have talked about riding over to the Giant's Cañon to have our lunch. Aunt Ellen can pack our saddle bags, and we can join Jack at the rancho."

After a ten minutes' walk, Jacqueline Ralston touched the brim of her broad sombrero hat with a military salute and brought her heels sharply together, when a tall figure came down the path toward her from the rancho with his hands deep in his old leather trousers. She was near the mess-house, where the men who worked the ranch had their quarters. The girls called it "Jim's rancho," to distinguish it from their own home half a mile away.

Jim Colter returned Jack's salute gravely. He was a handsome man of about thirty, with black hair and skin almost as swarthy as a Mexican's. The queer thing about his appearance was that his eyes were as blue and as gentle as a baby's, except when he was angry and then there was no harder man in Wyoming to deal with than the overseer of Rainbow Ranch. Jack would not have dared to let him know how rude Dan Norton had been to her.

Jim was a man of mystery. He came from goodness knows where; no one knew anything of his past. One day, many years before, he rode up to the ranch house nearly dead from fatigue and hunger. Mr. Ralston took him in and he never went away again. But he would not say one word about himself and no one dared to ask him many questions, because his blue eyes would suddenly grow black and angry and he would look as though he were recalling something he wanted to forget.

Jim was devoted to Jack and Jean, but Frieda was his special favorite. She was only two years old when he came to live at Rainbow Ranch, but he taught her to ride and to swim, when other babies were only just learning to walk. He and Mr. Ralston used to ride all over the great ranch, with Frieda tucked up in front of Jim's saddle and Jack perched behind her father's when both little girls were almost babies. By the time she was fourteen, Jacqueline Ralston, who was her father's shadow, knew the trick of lassoing. There was not a cowboy on the ranch who could ride faster, shoot straighter, or understood more about the business of caring for the cattle and the sheep than she did, and since Mr. Ralston's death, Jim had always consulted Jack about each new business venture.

Jack made her report of yesterday's expedition, but without a word of her meeting with Dan. Jim said nothing about the fright Jack had given them, but Jack found herself blushing and feeling like a little girl, instead of the head of a thousand acre ranch as he looked at her.

"It really wasn't my fault I was out late, yesterday, Jim," Jack apologized. "But we girls have decided to turn over a new leaf. We have made up our minds to stay at home and study, until we are regular blue stockings."

Jim laughed and at this moment glanced up the road. Jean and Frieda were riding calmly toward them. Jean was leading Hotspur and the three girls' saddle bags were packed as though they were pioneers traveling across the Deadwood trail to the gold regions of California.

Jim chuckled. "Looks like a party of bluestockings from Boston, Jack, coming this way, 'specially that there fishing tackle Jean's carrying. Where was you expecting to spend to-day?" he drawled in a funny Western fashion.

Frieda tucked a small bunch of violets in the buttonhole of Jim's khaki shirt. She wore a blue riding suit and a big Mexican hat like Jack's and her face looked very young and babyish under it. "We are going to the Giant's Cañon, Jim," she said apologetically. "It's such a dream of a day, but Jack doesn't know. We have brought her sketch book and Jean's along and I have my history, so we can get our lessons outdoors and then we can make a fire and have lunch in my own little cave in the rocks."