The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge
"We will be back early, Jim," Jean added.
"All right," Jim agreed. His eyes twinkled at the vision of Jean and Jack sketching under the shadow of the great stone peaks whose broken outline looked like the profile of a giant's face. The Giant's Cañon was five miles across the plains, but the ranch girls were in the habit of riding over to it. Between the ridges of rock, nestling in the deep gorge, were little lakes filled with shimmering trout. One of the rocky caverns in the cañon, Frieda had adopted as her very own. The girls always spoke of it as Frieda's cave.
Frieda's stone castle was really two stories high. A large flat rock jutted out over a second one about eight feet below it while a flight of natural stairs ran from the ground to the floor of the cave.
Frieda unpacked the saddle bags, while Jean and Jack tethered the ponies to a great cottonwood tree not far from the edge of the gorge. The place was entirely deserted, except for an eagle that swooped out of her eyrie and floated above the newcomers' heads. Frieda slipped down the stairs into her cave, spread out her pony's blanket and set to housekeeping, humming as cheerfully as though she had been in her own private room at the ranch. She was not in the least awed by the grandeur and loneliness of the scenery about her. Indeed Frieda was so much at home in her cavern that she kept an old frying pan hung from one of the sharp points of the rock and some broken dishes stored away in a crevice which formed a kind of natural pantry.
Jean and Jack made a fire, because no camper is really happy without one. Then they religiously got out their sketch books and set to work to make pictures of their three sturdy bronchos munching the buffalo grass in their neighborhood.
Both girls worked patiently for about ten minutes and then Jean sighed once or twice. She had used her eraser oftener than her drawing pencil. Holding her drawing out, she gazed at it critically. Finally she tore it into small bits and strolled over to Jack, to gaze over her shoulder.
"And what be those critturs you are picturing, Friend Ralston?" Jean demanded, in a familiar, Western tone. "If they are native to this here state of Wyoming, I ain't never seen 'em before. Be they mules or buffaloes?"
Jack frowned and bit her pencil. "Don't be a goose, Jean," she answered, "and please don't interrupt." Jack surveyed her masterpiece critically. "The ponies do look a bit queer," she confessed. "One of them has three legs and the other five, but then I haven't worked very long. Do go away and see if you can do any better yourself. You know we solemnly vowed that we were going to sketch an hour each day."
Jean departed to another ten minutes of labor. But the sun was shining gloriously; the day was one long, sunlit delight. She could hear the water trickling over the rocks in the gorge below, and Frieda moving about at her housekeeping. Jean picked up her fishing rod, selected a choice fly and slipped her sketch book into her knapsack.
"Au revoir, Jack dear," she announced cheerfully. "Stay here and look after Frieda. I am going down to the pool to get some trout for lunch." Jean flung some pine knots on their fire, kissed her hand to Frieda and marched off, smiling wickedly at Jack, who was drawing as though her life depended on it. She wished to be an object lesson of industry to slothful Jean.
When Jean had entirely disappeared down the side of the ravine, Jack stopped to gaze sadly at her morning's work. "I am afraid I am not a natural-born artist," she declared aloud. "It may be all right for geniuses to work from life, but I can't make any headway without a teacher. I wish Cousin Ruth had not put French and drawing into her list of what a young woman should know. They may be easy enough for girls to learn in her beloved old Vermont, but they are pretty hard work out here. I am afraid the ranch girls don't know any of the things they should." Jack's red lips parted. "But it's lots of fun to know the unnecessary things like fishing and riding. Gee whiz, I can't stand working any longer."
Jack leaned over the ledge of rock. Her drawing fluttered down to her sister. "Here Frieda, decorate your cave with that work of art. It looks like a drawing made by the Indians in pre-historic days. You won't mind, will you, if I go away for a while? I won't be out of calling distance and I won't stay long. If you need me, just sing out."
Frieda smiled. Her blue eyes looked like a reflection of the clear sky above them. She had so little idea of feeling any fear, that she did not even trouble to answer Jack's question. There were no more wild animals in the gorge. Besides, the ranch girls knew that few animals would attack them, except in self-defense.
Frieda climbed down the rocky cliff to fill an old teakettle with water from a spring not far below and then hung it over the fire on a crooked stick. If the water boiled long before Jean and Jack returned, the pleasant, sizzly sound would keep her company. Frieda's house was in order, so she set out her luncheon dishes, arranging them around in a circle on the floor of her cave. In the center, in a broken teacup, she placed the bunch of violets she had worn in her trip across the plain. Still the girls had not returned; Frieda might have studied, but she decided that it would be more fun to enlarge the crevice in the rocks, which formed the storehouse for her kitchen and dining-room utensils.
She struck the rock sharply with a large stone. A piece chipped off, then another. It was red sandstone and not very hard and Frieda was banging away with all her might, when she gave a quick exclamation of surprise. A great crack appeared along one side of the stone wall, and a big boulder crashed down at Frieda's feet. Before her, she beheld another cavern in the rock, almost as large as the one in which she played.
The little girl jumped back. At any moment she expected to see a pair of wild eyes glaring at her from the rocky retreat, believing that she had accidentally broken into the cave of some animal. But nothing happened; there was no stir, no sound from the darkness inside.
Frieda's heart beat rapidly. Her face was pale from excitement. She looked cautiously into the opening, thrust one small hand into it and drew out a round dish of hard, baked clay, engraved with queer, Indian characters. Frieda gave a shriek of delight, although she did not realize that she had accidentally discovered an important collection of Indian relics. But she was fascinated with the arrow heads and queer Indian dolls that she dug out a second later.
In the midst of her search, Frieda heard a sound that made her heart stand still. At the head of the gorge, about a quarter of a mile away, there was a dense thicket of evergreens. From this direction came a cry of pain and terror. Frieda flew up to the ground above.
"Jean, Jack!" she called. "What has happened? Is one of you hurt? Please come to me." Frieda gave the call, that was always the signal between the three ranch girls. "Oh-oo, Oh-ooo, Oh-oooo," ending in a shrill, drawn-out note, as she touched her lips with her fingers, three times in quick succession.
Then she listened, but neither Jean nor Jack answered her. The ranch girls could hear sounds from afar off, as they had spent their lives in the open country. As Frieda ran forward a few steps, she caught the echo of light feet, flying along the ground. A girl came out of the woods, rushing toward her blindly. But Frieda could not tell who it was or guess what had happened. Was it Jean or Jack?
CHAPTER III
FRIEDA AND THE OTHER GIRL
THE apparition drew near enough for Frieda to see that it was a stranger with straight black hair. She was barefoot and wore a short, ragged skirt, a bright red jacket, and a red scarf twisted around her throat. In her startled glance at the girl, Frieda beheld a pair of immense black eyes, set in a thin, pointed face, with cheeks flushed crimson, perhaps from the swiftness of her flight. Her breath came in short gasps. Frieda thought of a fawn she had once seen pursued by some hunters, with its great soft eyes transformed into staring pools of terror and its soft sides quivering as though its heart were breaking in its final effort to evade its pursuers.
"Oh, what is it?" Frieda cried, with quick sympathy.
The girl looked at her hopelessly and ran on. But Frieda now understood. An old Indian woman armed with a stick, trotted out of the screen of the trees. She was running more slowly but her face was terrifying. Her small black eyes were red with anger and she waved a long arm at the girl.
Frieda wanted to help, but what could she do? "Jean! Jack!" she called again. She could see that the hunted girl had no chance of escaping. She was nearly dropping with exhaustion. There was no place for her to hide, for the plain stretched on, covered only with grass and low sage brush.
Frieda flung herself valiantly in the path of the Indian woman. She was used to the Indians. Ever since she could remember she had been making trips to their villages, and a number of half-breed Indian boys had worked on their ranch. But the girl had never seen one of them so furiously angry as this old squaw. She was frightened and at the same time wanted to laugh. The woman was so fat and in such a temper, "that she shook when she ran, like a bowlful of jelly," Frieda thought to herself.
The squaw did not lift her beady, black eyes until she was within a few feet of Frieda.
"Ugh," she grunted. "Git out."
She tried to push Frieda away with her stick, but Frieda stretched out both arms and danced up and down in front of the old woman, until she did not know which way to turn.
Old Laska had not run all this distance and gotten out of breath to be stopped by a pale-face chit of a child. She struck Frieda with her staff. Frieda gave a sudden, sharp cry and looked quickly around. She saw that the Indian girl had fallen only a short distance beyond them and was vainly struggling to get on her feet again. Frieda shut her eyes; in another moment she knew that she would hear cruel blows being rained down on the defenseless girl by the furious old woman.
At this moment, a golden brown head, wearing a soft, round Mexican hat, appeared above an opening in the gorge. "Frieda, what's the matter? Didn't we hear you call?" Jack's voice rang out unexpectedly. She jumped lightly from the rocks to the ground and ran toward her sister, guessing at once that the Indian woman had frightened Frieda.
"Stop," Jack ordered imperiously.
The woman hesitated. Something in Jack's commanding tone impressed her and at the same instant Jean crawled slowly into sight above the ravine, swinging a string of trout over her shoulder.
The Giant's Cañon seemed suddenly alive with girls.
Jean gazed at the scene in bewilderment. Jack's hands were clasped behind her and her head was thrown back in a fashion she had when she was angry. Frieda was in tears and between the two sisters stood a fat squaw.
Jack and Jean looked so ready to do battle at a moment's notice, that the Indian's manner changed.
"I want not to hurt the little Missie," she mumbled. "I try to catch my own girl. She run away from her good home. She ver' bad." The old woman's head with its straight black hair, plaited in small braids, bobbed fiercely up and down and she shook her stick threateningly ahead of her.
During the whole scene Jack and Jean had had their backs turned to the hunted girl. Jack was blocking the way of the Indian woman. Only Frieda had been able to see and through her tears she had discovered that the girl, who had been lying helpless on the level ground only a few seconds before, had now vanished completely.
Frieda smiled at Jack's and Jean's puzzled expressions. "Indian girl! What did the old woman mean?" The two girls looked about. There was no one in sight. Evidently the squaw had not intended to hurt Frieda and Jack and Jean were anxious to get rid of her. The next instant the Indian waddled on, though she, too, had lost sight of the fragile figure she was pursuing.
Frieda walked over to the fire and stirred it into a blaze without a word. She winked mysteriously at Jean and Jack, but neither of them had the faintest idea of what she meant.
"Let's fry the fish, before we go down into the cave," Frieda whispered. "I don't want the Indian to come along this way and find out where it is."
Jean and Jack knew that Frieda wished to keep her playhouse a secret from all the world, so they thought nothing of her odd manner.
Frieda was bending over the glowing ashes, humming softly, with her cheeks rosy and her two long blonde plaits fairly trembling with excitement when she noticed the Indian woman coming back toward them. She was alone. Evidently she had gone on for half a mile or more before she decided it was useless to hunt any longer.
Frieda never looked up. The woman sidled up to Jean and Jack with a wheedling expression on her broad, stupid face.
Jack and Jean paid no attention to her. They were making a pile of shiny fish scales into a silver hill at their feet, as it was their part to clean the trout, while Frieda did the cooking.
The Indian eyed the two girls doubtfully. She firmly believed that one of them had helped the truant to escape, yet they had not stirred from before her eyes, in the time when the runaway girl threw her off the scent.
"You know where my girl is, you hide her from me," the woman said accusingly.
Jean glanced at her in a bored fashion. "Will you please go away?" she demanded. "We are busy. We do not want to talk to you. I told you that we had never seen any Indian girl."
Frieda did not move, but her rosy cheeks burned a deeper red from the heat of the flames.
The squaw waddled slowly out of sight. What did it matter if she had not caught Olilie? The girl would soon have to return to the hut. She could not live long alone out on the plains and when she came back she should be taught her place. Olilie was only a squaw in spite of the nonsense she had learned at the white people's school. She should do the work and be the slave of the man chief, like all Indian girls had from the beginning.
"Jean, Jack," Frieda hissed softly. She came over toward her cousin and sister with the fish still sizzling and popping in her frying pan.
"Oh, do be careful, Frieda," Jean begged. Some of the hot fat sputtered out of the pan into Jean's lap and she slid backwards off the rock where she was seated.
But Jack saw that something unusual was the matter with Frieda.
"What in the world has happened to you, child? Your eyes are as big as saucers!" she exclaimed.
Frieda set down her pan and though the Indian woman was now well out of sight, she whispered a few words that made both girls jump to their feet.
"Then there was an Indian girl all the time?" Jean murmured.
Frieda nodded. "We must find her," she argued quietly. "She slipped over the side of the gorge not far from here, when no one was looking at her except me. She can't be very far away for she was too tired to have gone much further."
"All right, Frieda," Jack agreed. "We will look for the Indian princess as soon as we have had our lunch. We must eat the fish first, it is so brown and delicious. Really we will have more strength to search if we have some food," Jack pleaded, seeing Frieda's injured expression.
"She will get away, Jack," Frieda answered. "Then she may be lost on the plains and starve and nobody will ever find her. She was so pretty and so frightened that I am sure you would have been interested if you had only seen her."
Jack heaved a deep sigh. "Come along, Jean," she insisted. "Frieda wants us to look for the will-o-the-wisp, so look we must."
Frieda was not tempestuous like Jack and Jean, but, just the same, like a great many other gentle people, she always had her way. "Little Chinook," Jim used to call her, because "Chinook" is the Indian name for a soft, west wind, that blows so quietly, so persistently, that it carries everything before it. It even wafts all one's troubles away.
Jack, Jean and Frieda crawled down into the great cañon, among the giant rocks, poking their noses into every opening, where they thought it possible that anybody could be concealed. There was no sign of any one, though Frieda called and called, assuring the runaway that the Indian woman had gone back home.
"I am afraid she must have fallen and gotten hurt somehow, Jack," Frieda suggested, when the three girls had explored for half an hour.
Jean turned resolutely upon the two sisters. "I am very sorry, Frieda Ralston," she announced firmly, "but I decline to look for that tiresome girl another minute. I will be fed. I don't see for the life of me, why you are so worried over the fate of an unknown Indian maiden, when your own devoted cousin is perishing before your eyes."
Frieda's cave was soon spread with the luncheon dishes and the girls sat down Turkish fashion, with their long-delayed feast in front of them.
Frieda's face was half buried in a ham sandwich when Jean gave a sudden exclamation of surprise. "Look, girls, there must have been an earthquake or something around here. There is a hole in the rocks back of Frieda's cave, nearly as large as this one. Funny we never noticed it this morning!"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Frieda remarked indifferently. "I was banging away there, trying to make my pantry larger, when a huge stone fell out and rolled into the gorge. Lo and behold, there was another cavern! I found some queer Indian relics in it. Come see."
Frieda led the way over to the new pit and dropped down on her knees in front of it, with Jack and Jean on either side of her. "I was afraid to go inside until you came," she said, "but it is quite empty, – look!"
Frieda's breath gave out. She stared and stared, clutching at her cousin and her sister. The three girls were spellbound!
Gazing at them from out the black darkness, was what Frieda had feared at the first moment of her discovery of the mysterious cavity, a pair of burning, glowing eyes. They might belong to some wild animal, though they were not fierce, only timid and pleading.
The ranch girls were not cowards, but not one of them wished to enter the obscurity of that strange hiding place.
The figure stirred. The girls were now more used to the darkness.
"Why it's the Indian girl!" Frieda cried. "Do come out, please. We won't hurt you and the Indian woman has been gone a long time."
But the girl seemed to be afraid to move. Frieda crawled fearlessly into the hole and gave her little, white hand into the girl's thin, dark one.
As the Indian maid came out into the bright, invigorating air, she tried to stand up, but she swayed in the wind, like a scarlet poppy that is trying to oppose its frail strength to the blast of a storm.
Before Jack and Jean could get to her and in spite of Frieda's efforts, the girl took a step forward, staggered and fell at their feet.
As they picked her up, they discovered that she was flushed with fever. But while Jean washed her face with cool water and Jack held her in her arms, she opened her mournful black eyes. "I am sorry to have troubled you," she said, without a trace of an Indian accent. "I have run away and I am tired. If you will please give me some water and let me stay here for a few minutes I am sure I will be all right."
But she was not all right, even though the ranch girls persuaded her to eat something, as well as to drink a cup of hot tea. She did not seem to be able to move, but sat perfectly still with her lovely dark head resting between her slender hands. She did not try to explain to them why she had run away from home or when she expected to return.
Jack glanced anxiously upward. They had solemnly promised Jim to be back at the ranch house before dark and the ranch girls could tell the time of day from the position of the sun in the sky. This was one of the things they knew instead of French or drawing. Unless they left the cañon pretty soon, Jack knew they would never get home in time; yet what could they do with Frieda's Indian girl? They could not leave her in the gorge alone, and yet she did not seem to have the strength or the desire to go.
Jack once had seen a copy of a wonderful picture of Ishmael in the desert, whom Abraham had cast out with his mother, Hagar. Hagar had gone to find some fuel and the child is alone. Around him is a great, grey plain, with nothing else alive on it. There was something in this Indian girl's position, her fragile grace, and dreadful loneliness, that recalled this picture to Jacqueline Ralston's mind. She put her arm gently over the other girl's shoulder.
The Indian maid looked up. Perhaps it was the difference in her appearance and in Jacqueline's that made her eyes fill with tears. Jack's proud, high-bred face was softened to pity. Her grey eyes were tender and the usual proud curve to her lips was changed to an expression that she seldom showed to any one but Frieda or Jean since her father's death.
"We must go back to our home now," Jack explained kindly, "but we can't leave you here alone. Tell us why you ran away? Don't you think you could return; or is there anything we could do for you?"
The girl shook her head. She was as tall as Jean, but so thin that she might be only an overgrown child. She seemed very young to Jacqueline; almost as young as Frieda and as much in need of some one to take care of her.
The three ranch girls were gazing intently at the stranger.
She flung her hands up over her face again. "I can't go back, I can't," she insisted. "You are to go away. I am not afraid. Only let me stay in this ravine, until I can find some place that is further away, where no one can find me. I shall not be hungry, I can hunt and fish. Only to-day I am tired." She shook, as though she were having a chill.
Jacqueline dropped down on the ground by her side. Frieda and Jean were trying not to cry.
"You poor little thing, you know we can't leave you here," Jack declared. "Won't you? Can't you?" Jack looked appealingly at Jean and Frieda. She was the oldest of the ranch girls, but she never decided anything without their advice. Both of them nodded. "Don't you think you could come home to the ranch with us, until you feel better and can tell us what troubles you? You are ill now and worn out. Why you might even die if you stayed here alone."
Jack did not wait for an answer. She almost lifted the Indian girl to her feet and brought her out of Frieda's cave. She helped her upon her own pony, and getting up behind Frieda, she led Hotspur and his new rider to the beloved Rainbow Ranch house, whose doors opened to admit not three girls, but four.
CHAPTER IV
THE RESCUE
WHEN Olilie, the Indian girl, came back to consciousness, after being put to bed at the ranch house, three days had passed. She lay between broad sheets smelling of violets and whiter than anything she had ever seen, except the new snow on the prairies.
Over in the corner of a big empty room sat a strange little girl. She was sewing on some small doll clothes and humming softly to herself. Two braids like plaited silk of the corn hung over her face. Olilie did not recall ever having seen her before and had not the faintest idea how she happened to be in this wonderful place, instead of the dirty hut of Laska the Indian woman and her son Josef.
Some one else tiptoed softly into the chamber. Olilie half closed her eyes. She remembered this other face faintly, but where and when had she seen it?
"Hasn't she spoken yet?" a voice asked in a disappointed tone. "I am so sorry, but I simply have to ride over the range with Jim this morning. Some of the cattle keep disappearing. If our patient wants to talk, please don't let her tell you everything before I get back. She must be kept pretty quiet."
Just for a second, Olilie felt that a face bent over hers. But she gave no sign of being awake, although she now knew where she was and how she happened to be there. It had flashed across her memory – her flight, her hiding and the meeting with the ranch girls. She understood that she had been ill but was going to get well again. The hot, uncomfortable feeling had left her head, she had no pain, only she was very weak and she did not think that she could bear to go away from this beautiful place. If only she could have been ill a little longer!
Olilie's wistful, black eyes were wide open, when the bedroom door unclosed the second time. She caught a glimpse of a tall, dark figure and a wave of terror swept over her. Already had Laska come to take her home?