The Ranch Girls and Their Heart's Desire

CHAPTER I

THE BRANCH OF THE TREE

Across a wide prairie a man and woman were riding side by side at an hour approaching twilight on a September afternoon. Moving slowly they appeared to be studying the landscape.

Toward the west the sky was banked with gold and rose and purple clouds, while the earth revealed the same colors in the yellow sand of the desert spaces, the wide fields of purple clover, and the second blooming of the prairie roses.

"Strange to have you living at the old Rainbow ranch again, Jack, and yet under the circumstances perhaps the most natural thing in the world! Long ago when I was a young fellow I learned that when human beings are hurt they follow the instincts of the homing birds who seek the nest. You have always loved the old ranch better than any place in the world, more than the other girls ever loved it, so with the news of your husband's death I knew you would return from England and bring your son with you, Lady Kent, once Jacqueline Ralston of the Rainbow ranch. Somehow I never have learned to think of you, Jack, by your title of Lady Kent."

"No, Jim, and why should you?" the girl answered. "I never learned to think of myself in that fashion. I am going to confide something to you, Jim Colter. I always have confided my secrets to you since I was a little girl. I never learned during the years of my married life in England to feel that I was anything but a stranger there. Yet for my husband's sake I did my best to like England and try to make English people like me. I was never specially successful. I presume I am hopelessly an American and, what may be worse, hopelessly western. At present I feel that I wish to spend all the rest of my life in Wyoming. But one is not often allowed to do what one wishes. This morning I received letters from England, all of them asking when I intended to return and settle down as Dowager Lady Kent at Kent House, to bring up little Jimmie in a manner becoming a future British Lord. The worst of it is I don't want to go back and I don't want to bring up my son as an aristocrat. My husband was an Englishman, but I am an American and have never believed in titles. Frank had no title when I married him. I want little Jimmie to be half an American anyhow and wholly a democrat. What must I do, Jim Colter, stay here on the ranch with my own people and lead the life I love, or go to England and spend half my time amid the conventional society existence I loathe, and the other half playing Lady Bountiful to the poor people of a small village?"

Jacqueline Ralston, who was Lady Kent, regardless of her own protest, now reined in her horse, and rising in her saddle let her glance sweep the wide horizon.

In the wide, gray eyes, in the low, level brow, in the full, generous lips and abundant vitality one might have recognized the pioneer spirit, infrequent in human beings, but more infrequent in women than in men. Yet this Jacqueline Ralston Kent, one of the original four "Ranch Girls of the Rainbow Lodge," possessed. All her life she had loved personal freedom, wide spaces, a simple, every-day, outdoor existence without formality. She felt a natural intimacy with the people who attracted her without consideration for their social position. Yet in so contrary a fashion does fate deal with us that Jack had spent the greater part of her married life under exactly opposite conditions.

"For my part I don't dare advise you, Jack, I so want you to stay on at the Rainbow lodge, more than I wish anything else in the world at present. With Ruth gone, I don't see how I shall ever get on with my four new little Rainbow ranch girls without you to help mother them. Yet I had pretty much the same experience once before! Odd how circumstances repeat themselves! You must first do what you think best for Jimmie. What does the boy himself wish to do, stay here at the ranch and learn to be a ranchman under my training, or go back to Kent House?"

Laughing Jack shook her head, crowned with gold brown hair; she was without a hat, after her old custom.

"You know the answer to that question as well as I do, Jim. Jimmie adores the ranch. He is named for you, and you have done everything in your power to make him love it. Then I must have implanted my own affection for the freedom of our western life in my little son. Jimmie insists that he wants nothing better in the future than to stay on here and run the ranch and the mine when you and I have grown too old to be troubled with such responsibilities. He is only eight years old at present and so we need not feel laid on the shelf at once."

"No, but I am not young as I was, Jack, hair is turning pretty gray these days," Jim Colter answered. "I have never mentioned this to the boy, but I have wanted the same thing he does. I would like Jimmie to live here and perhaps marry one of my four girls and keep the old ranch in the family through another generation or so. Sentiment of course, yet so far Jimmie is the only son on the horizon! Here I am with four daughters, Jean and Ralph Merritt with two, Olive and Captain MacDonnell with no children, and Frieda's and Professor Russell's little girl so frail that it is hard to count on any future for her."

At this Jack's expression clouded. A moment later she again arose in her saddle, this time pointing toward the eastern portion of the Rainbow ranch. To the west and north lay the gold mine discovered years before, though no longer yielding a supply of gold as in its early days.

The mine had never interested either Jacqueline Ralston or Jim Colter as it had the other members of the family. They had been horse and cattle raisers before a mine was ever dreamed of, and it was the rearing of the livestock for which Jim and Jack cared intensely to this day.

Riding through the ranch, every half hour or so they had passed a herd of cattle browsing amid the purple alfalfa grass, seen the sleek brown cows standing with their young calves close beside them. Less often they had run across a small drove of horses and young colts, as horses were no longer so good an investment as in the old days. Yet the present Rainbow ranch owners would prefer to have lost money than be without them, the horses having always received Jack's especial affection and attention as a girl and upon her occasional visits home to the ranch after her English marriage.

"Can that be a herd of horses or cattle stampeding there toward the east, Jim? We are too far off to see distinctly; suppose we ride in that direction," Jack said unexpectedly.

Wasting no time in words Jim Colter nodded. The following moment both horses, their noses pointing eastward, were galloping across the open prairie fields and away from the road.

Experienced ranchmen, he and his companion appreciated that the cloud of dust and the grouping of dark bodies advancing toward them with unusual rapidity represented trouble of some kind. At this time of the year it seemed scarcely possible that a wolf had stolen from the pack and frightened one of the herds. Yet there was no accounting for the tricks of nature. Moreover, frequently a number of horses or cattle suffered from group fear, the one transmitting the fright to the other without apparent reason.

Half a mile away the drove of young horses, which Jim Colter had finally located with his field glasses, turned and swerved south.

Almost as swiftly the two riders moved off in the same direction, hoping they might be able to divide the frightened animals and drive them apart.

A quarter of a mile farther along, riding at no great distance from each other, Jim Colter heard an exclamation from his companion, so sudden, so terrified and so unexpected that he reined his own horse sharply until for an instant it stood trembling on its hind legs, its slender nose snuffing the soft air.

"Tell me, Jim, is that Jimmie's pony ahead of us? The saddle is on the pony, but no one is riding. Jimmie can't have ridden over here alone? He can't be anywhere near-by?"

Yet even as the question was being asked, the man and woman saw and, seeing, understood.

The pony which Jack had spied with the bridle dangling over its head was moving from place to place nibbling at the most luxurious patches of clover. Beyond, and closer to the trampling herd of panic-stricken animals, lay a small figure, outstretched on the ground and probably until this moment asleep.

Whether he now heard the oncoming horses or the cries of his mother and guardian, in any case, awakening, he jumped to his feet and the same instant turned, beheld, and understood his own danger. In a few moments, seconds perhaps, the frightened animals would be upon him, trampling, snorting, unconscious of his presence in their frenzy.

As the boy ran across the field toward his pony, he had the consciousness that the two persons for whom he cared most in the world were coming toward him to save him from harm. Yet he also appreciated this would not be possible, as they could not reach him in time.

But Jimmie Kent was not to make the whole effort alone. As he ran he called his pony's name.

"Whitestar! Whitestar!" The boy's tones remained firm and commanding.

Whitestar had observed her own danger. The pony's head went up, showing the mark upon her pretty nose which had given her the name. A single time she pawed the earth in front of her, appearing about to rush away without her master, and then she cantered toward the boy.

The oncoming drove of terrified animals was now only a few yards away.

"Don't lose courage, Jack, he is your son, remember! He will win out," Jim Colter shouted, his own horse scarcely appearing to touch the earth as it ran.

"Drive straight toward them, Jimmie, don't try to cross their path," Jim called, his voice sounding unfamiliar to his own ears.

Yet either the boy heard or recognized his one chance.

Without hesitation the little figure lying close to his saddle was riding straight toward the center of the drove of twenty or thirty frightened animals. The leader, a few feet in advance of the others, apparently ran in a direct line with the boy.

Her eyes never turning for an instant from the little figure, now not thirty yards away, Jack understood what must take place. Should the leader come on without swerving Jimmie would be unseated, his pony struck down and the other horses would pass over them both. But, should Jimmie possess the courage or, greater than courage, the strength of will to force the horse in advance of the drove to swerve either toward the right or left, the others would follow.

A moment later and Jack's arms were about her son.

"You've turned the trick, Jimmie," Jim Colter was saying roughly. "But it is the front yard of the Rainbow lodge for you for the next week. How dared you ride over the ranch alone when I have told you it was forbidden? Now you and your mother get home as soon as you can and send whatever men you come across in this direction. I suppose the horses will have tired themselves out after a few more miles of running, but it is just as well to see they are quieted down."

So Jim Colter rode away in one direction and Jimmie and his mother in the other toward the Rainbow lodge.

CHAPTER II

THE YOUNGER SET

The front yard of the Rainbow lodge appeared an extremely small playground for a boy accustomed to covering many miles of the broad ranch and the adjoining country in the course of each day. Yet as Jim Colter's word was law on the Rainbow ranch Jimmie Kent had no thought of breaking parole.

He glanced up at the double rows of tall cottonwood trees which led from the lodge to the gate. Almost impossibly difficult trees to climb because of their tall, smooth trunks and the branches so high overhead! A warm September day and Rainbow creek not half a mile away! Jimmie taxed his imagination until he could well-nigh feel himself swimming about in the cool freshness of the little stream, deeper than usual at the present time because of the abundant September rains. When one's swim ended, not far away were his mother, his Aunt Jean and her husband Ralph Merritt, a clever mining engineer. The family was to meet this afternoon to discuss the possibility of sinking a new shaft into the old Rainbow mine with the hope of striking a new lode.

Moreover, Jim Colter (and Jimmie and the big man were so intimate as to use each other's first names) was attending to the branding of a herd of calves at one of the ranch houses. Any one, or all, of these entertainments might have been his, except for an unfortunate impulse to investigate the Rainbow ranch alone a few afternoons before.

A week of the front yard of the lodge appeared an interminable time to Jimmie Kent, yet even a week would pass in time. And one had better be half a prisoner at the old ranch than free in any other part of the world.

Six weeks before having arrived at the ranch after a long journey from England, at present this was Jimmie Kent's earnest conviction. Was there anywhere else in the world such a wide sweep of country, such plains and prairies and desert sands covered with sage brush and cacti? In the prairies there were wolves and deer and bear. Since his arrival at the ranch Jimmie believed he had heard one night the call of a wolf, the leader of the pack, and coyotes he had seen with his own eyes, sniffing about the edge of the woods not far from Rainbow creek. Jim Colter had suggested that the buffalo were not all destroyed, but might be found roaming in certain western portions of the state, now inhabited only by wandering Indian tribes. He had hinted at mountain lions as not wholly a figment of a boy's dreams, but as realities, creatures Jim Colter had beheld with his own eyes long years before, when the west was the west indeed.

Yet here he was, Jimmie Kent, late of Kent House, Kent county, England, suddenly transformed into an American boy, but shut up within an acre of ground for a week and, moreover, face to face with the tragic possibility that within a month or more he might be forced to return to England. He had nothing against England except that it was too small for a boy's energies and hopelessly devoid of wild animals outside the London Zoo.

India of course was a possession of the British Empire, and South Africa, but Jimmie felt that probably for a number of years he might not be permitted to explore these regions. So why the present discussion? If he and his mother both desired to remain at the Rainbow ranch at least for a number of years, they ought to be able to decide for themselves. Nevertheless his mother had explained that she must continue to think the situation over and to ask the advice of her family. To-night the grown-up members of the family were even to dine together for this purpose.

Discovering a cottonwood tree not far from the gate, Jimmie now climbed up and seated himself upon one of the lower branches. Here he was enabled to have a wide outlook.

Behind him was the Rainbow lodge where he and his mother were living at the present time. So often Jimmie Kent had been told its history! Here his mother with her sister, Frieda Ralston, and her cousin Jean Bruce, had lived when the three of them were little girls and under the guardianship of Jim Colter, the manager of their father's ranch after his death. Later the fourth ranch girl had found refuge with them, escaping from an Indian woman in whose charge she had been for so many years that her early childhood was enshrouded in mystery.

From his present viewpoint Jimmie Kent was able to observe two figures not at a great distance away. They were Captain MacDonnell and his wife, who had been Olive to the other ranch girls until the discovery of her parentage.

Captain MacDonnell, injured in the great war, later had developed his talent as an artist. Jimmie possessed the ordinary small boy's attitude toward pictures, nevertheless he had something to say in favor of Captain MacDonnell's, since his reputation had been acquired through his painting of western scenes.

At the present moment he was sketching a mustang pony, which one of the ranch boys was leading back and forth in an effort to persuade the pony to remain within the range of the artist's vision. Jimmie would have enjoyed changing places with the other boy. In spite of Captain Bryan MacDonnell's lameness he had an especial understanding and love of the outdoors, to such an extent that he and his wife were spending a year or more at the Rainbow ranch, living in a tent, regardless of the fact that at the great house built after the discovery of the Rainbow mine there was room for any number of guests.

Jimmie now glanced over toward the splendid mansion which had been christened "Rainbow Castle" by Frieda Ralston years before. His Aunt Frieda and her distinguished if eccentric husband, Professor Henry Tilford Russell and their one little girl were at present visitors at Rainbow Castle, having arrived only a day or so before.

Jimmie was no more interested in relatives as relatives than most small boys. Yet had his preference been asked he would have said freely that he liked best his Aunt Jean and his uncle Ralph Merritt, possibly because a famous engineer who had been not only the engineer of the Rainbow mine but of several other mines would appeal to any masculine imagination. Then possessing no sons of her own and greatly desiring one, his Aunt Jean was particularly kind to him.

At this moment Jimmie became especially grateful to fate for his exalted position in the tree top. Advancing toward him he beheld his seven girl cousins.

"Eight cousins!" Some one was always muttering this tiresome exclamation, as if there was any special point in it. Personally Jimmie considered the one drawback to his residence in the United States was the possession of such an affliction. Not that he disliked the seven girls; two or three of them were fairly agreeable. One could not dislike the little girl, who was scarcely more than a baby, and whose name was Peace, she was so pretty and so gentle. She had been called Peace though named for her mother, because no one wished to repeat the name Frieda during the war.

The seven cousins and two nurses were now entering the yard of the Rainbow lodge and Jimmie Kent wondered if he preferred not to be discovered. He guessed their errand: they intended gathering violets from the violet beds on either side of the house, planted years before by Frieda Ralston in an effort to increase the family fortunes, and now famous throughout the neighborhood.

In advance were the four daughters of Jim Colter, whom he described as the four new Rainbow Ranch girls and whose names were also Jacqueline, Jean, Olive, and Frieda, although called Lina, Jeannette, Olivia, and Eda, to distinguish them from the original "Ranch Girls of the Rainbow Lodge." The three visitors with the maids were following.

An instant Jimmie considered whether it might not be a good idea to allow Jeannette Colter to observe his present elevation. She was the one of the seven girls he most disliked. A few months his elder, she boasted that she could ride and run and climb equally well with the new English boy visitor. She could learn to shoot equally well if her father offered her an equal opportunity.

The truth was that if Jimmie considered he disliked Jeannette, she cordially hated him. Before Jimmie's coming she had been her father's constant companion, riding with him about the ranch as Jacqueline Ralston had done in the years past. But three times of late had her father left her at home with her sisters, saying that he wanted to ride alone with Jimmie in order better to make his acquaintance.

Now Jimmie felt a reasonable pride in the fact that Jeannette would not be able to occupy such a position as his present one without assistance.

"Hello," he called down. The other girls waved and returned his greeting, but Jeannette Colter laughed.

"Up a tree, aren't you, in more ways than one, Jimmie Kent! I am sorry you cannot leave the front yard for a week," which was not kind or truthful in Jeannette, who was especially pleased by Jimmie's captivity since it restored her to her father's uninterrupted companionship.

At the close of the day, having finished his solitary dinner – his mother was dining at the big house – Jimmie came out on the veranda of the lodge and went to bed in the big porch hammock where he often spent the night.

Several hours later, half awakened by the return of his mother and Jim Colter from the family dinner party, but too drowsy to speak, nevertheless Jimmie overheard his mother announce in a tone of relief:

"Well, Jim, thank goodness I have been able to make up my mind at last! Indecision, you know, always has annoyed me more than anything else in the world. So it is to be the Rainbow ranch and my own country for as many years as I can arrange it. And may they be as many years as you need me, Jim."

His friend's reply made Jimmie Kent smile and settle himself more comfortably in his hammock bed. The reply gave one a pleasant sense of permanency.

"Then if you never leave the United States until I cease to need you, Jack, you won't go away until I am removed to broader fields than the Rainbow ranch. But do you think you will be happy, that is the main thing? What will you do with yourself? These are restless days for most women and you have more energy than any woman I have ever known. Want a career, Jacqueline Ralston Kent? Are you staying in your own country because you wish to be a famous woman some day and the United States offers the best opportunity?"

"Suppose we sit down a while, Jim," Jack answered. "You are not sleepy, are you? It is too lovely a night!"

Walking over to the hammock, Jack pulled up a warm covering over her son and as he smiled up at her, whispered,

"We won't disturb you, will we, Jimmie?" and Jimmie only shook his head, not wishing to speak, yet enjoying the distant sound of the two voices he loved best.

A moment later Jim Colter and Jack were sitting together upon one of the front steps of the Rainbow lodge as they had sat together so many times in years past, always preferring to be in some spot where there were no walls closed about them but where there was a wide view of sky and land.

"Don't laugh, Jim, but I don't know, yet laugh a little if you like, as it may be good for me. Yes, I have sometimes thought since Frank's death that I should like a career of my own, besides just being Jimmie's mother, proud as I am of that honor. Inside the secret corners of my mind the thought has influenced me a little in my desire to remain at home."

"But what is the great career to be?" Jim Colter answered smiling, and yet with a sufficient interest in his tone to take away any lack of sympathy that might have been conveyed by his amusement. "You aren't going to turn poet, or painter, or actress, Jack, after displaying no fondness for the arts in all these years?"

"No, Jim Colter, and no talents either," Jack returned. "I appreciate your veiled sarcasm. No, the good fairies who bestow the artistic gifts were not present at my birthday. What do you think I might be able to do, Jim? Tell me."

There was a short silence and then the man answered:

"Help me manage the Rainbow ranch, Jack, or a larger ranch if you like."

Jack shook her head.

"No, Jim, you have managed the ranch successfully without me and though I may bore you by interfering now and then, to help you when you do not need help will not be the thing I am after. Would you hate it if I should take an interest in politics? It is an exciting world these days and after all Wyoming was the first state to give the vote to women! I wonder if I am still an American citizen. In marrying an Englishman I know I became a British subject while my husband was alive, but now he is dead and I have returned to my own country, the point is, what am I, Jim? A woman without a country?"

"Jack, I don't know. However, I should dislike your entering political life, but suppose you are old enough to decide for yourself." Jim Colter laughed. "You always did decide for yourself in the end, Jack, even when you were pretty young. But you will marry again some day! Suppose we ask an old friend of yours, Peter Stevens, whether at present you are an American citizen or a British subject? Stevens has become one of the distinguished young lawyers in the state, or in the west for that matter. But look out for him, Jack, he is an old bachelor and a woman hater. Now it must be nearly midnight. Good-night."