The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge

A few minutes later a man's figure rose up from the screen of sage bushes on the Norton ranch and the sun glinted on a bright red head. The boy swung his hat in the air once, twice, three times. Then he repeated the signal.

Jim crept through the fence like an eel. Without making the least sound that could be heard by the fellow, whose back was turned to him, Jim got within thirty feet of his enemy.

Jack wondered what on the face of the earth Jim intended to do. Then her eyes widened with surprise and with laughter. There was a swish, a streak through the air, as Jim's lariat uncoiled. Hearing the noise the boy turned and the rope caught him around the waist, pinning his arms securely to his side. He was lassoed as safely as any wild pony.

Jim then calmly started to walk back toward the rail fence that divided the two ranches. He seemed blissfully indifferent to the fact that he dragged an angry and sputtering young man at the end of his rope. Dan Norton, Jr., was a heavy, stocky fellow, with a good deal of brute strength, but Jim Colter was long and lean, with muscles of steel. Besides, as Dan threw his resisting strength against that of his opponent, the rope tightened about him and cut more deeply into his flesh. He kicked viciously like an unruly colt, but Jim did not condescend to look behind him; his victim was kicking nothing but air, as Jim was ten yards in front.

"What are you doing? Where are you going?" Dan shouted, almost choking with rage.

Jack rose up from behind the shield of the fence. The sight of Jim and his prize was too beautiful, and Jack felt that she was being repaid for many of the cruel tricks that Dan and his father had played on her since she was a little girl. She recalled the time that Dan had nearly put out her eyes, when she was only four years old. She had been playing with him and when she lifted her face to his in answer to some question, he had thrown a great box of sand straight into her wide-open eyes. It was curious how well Jack remembered the deed at this moment.

"Let me go, I'll have you in jail for this. What do you mean by trespassing on my land?" Dan yelled.

Jim laughed and drew Dan closer to him. "Don't get so upset, sonnie, I am not going to trespass on your land," he urged quietly. "This rope is just a little scheme of mine to make you cross the great divide between your ranch and ours, while we talk a few things over." Jim hauled Dan through an opening in the fence.

Jack dared not look straight at them. She did feel it would be too hateful of her to laugh out loud, yet how could she help it? Dan was so desperately angry that it made him fume and fuss and jump about like an excited rooster, and his red head did suggest a rooster's comb.

"Look out, Jim," Jack sang out. "Here come the men Dan was signaling."

Across one of the Norton fields, with their gaze centered on the clump of sage where they expected to find their young master, marched three cowboys from the Norton ranch.

"Come here," Dan shouted, trying in vain to loosen one of his hands to wave to his men.

Jim slipped one of his Colts out of its holster and passed it over to Jack. "Just keep this for me, will you, Miss Ralston?" he asked politely. "There won't be any use for it, but there is no harm in having it handy."

Jim spoke to the puzzled ranchmen and greeted them calmly. "Come as far as you like on your own side of the fence," he said, "but kindly stop right there. I have a few questions I would like to ask Mr. Daniel Norton, Jr., and I wouldn't object to some witnesses. Needn't be afraid, the earthquake is all over. Mr. Norton and I are going to talk quite neighborly and friendly like, as soon as he cools off a bit."

Jim Colter spoke so quietly that the men who watched him knew he meant business. You see Jim's reputation was that he was one of the most dangerous men in the country when he was aroused, and there was no doubt of his present feeling.

The three men nodded respectfully. They did not wish to have a fight, for if they attacked Jim and tried to get Dan Norton away from him, he would undoubtedly use his pistol, and then there was Jacqueline.

The cowboys jerked their heads at Jack in a greeting intended to be exceedingly polite. Jack understood and returned the men's bows with her best smile. She did not desire to let Jim make the affair with Dan too serious if she could help it, but she had rarely seen their overseer so deeply angry in her life.

An Eastern girl and most Western ones would have been horrified at Jacqueline Ralston's present position. She was standing, a quiet and attentive listener, in a group of five uncultured men. One of the cowboys was Josef, the Indian Laska's son, the other a Mexican, and but one of the three an American. They were all angry and lawless and only one of the five her friend, yet Jacqueline did not think of her position as unusual. She was far too much interested in what was about to take place to think of herself at all and knew that not one of the cowboys would touch her and she was not in the least in fear of Dan. Jacqueline Ralston was not like a girl with a father and mother to care for her. She had been brought up with the ideas of a pioneer woman and was trying to run a ranch and to make a living for herself, her cousin and sister, and if there was any danger that threatened their property or them, she must know what it was and must do what she could to prevent it. Jack was leaning on a rail of the fence. Her hat had fallen on the ground and her face was white, yet it held a look of quiet power and strength remarkable in a girl so young.

Jim was aggravatingly slow. He was facing Dan Norton while the cowboys hung over the pickets. Dan had ceased to struggle, but still refused to look either at Jim or Jack.

"Our little talk ain't going to take but a few minutes, sonnie, if you will answer my questions straight from the shoulder," Jim drawled. "Did any of you feel a bit of a shock, say like an earthquake, a few minutes back? It 'peared like the ground near Rainbow Creek had gotten tired of not being heard from for some time past and had suddenly swelled up and bust."

Jim pointed toward the lake only a few yards from them. Jack was startled to see how much lower the water was. Could it have fallen an inch in such a little while?

Dan shook his head scornfully. "Earthquake! No, you are off your base," he sputtered. "That is, at least I did feel a slight motion, but it didn't amount to much. I don't see how you can hold me responsible for an earthquake. Say fellers, Jim Colter is pretty far gone isn't he, if he thinks I am powerful enough to move the earth." Dan grinned, delighted with his own wit, but his cowboys only continued to stare at him solemnly.

"Glad you felt a little motion, though you was pretty safe out of the way," Jim went on in the same quiet fashion. "Seems like I could shut my eyes and tell you just how that earthquake happened. You ought to have seen the waters of Rainbow Creek dash up in the air and then begin to slide plum out of sight. It was most like a miracle."

Dan faced Jim impudently. "Well, go on, tell us how your miracle happened?" he invited scornfully.

Jacqueline was puzzled. She had no idea how Jim would be able to explain the peculiar phenomenon which they had just seen.

"Oh, a charge of dynamite caused our little earthquake," Jim explained briefly.

"You see, Mr. Norton, you have been trying to drain the water from our creek to your ranch for some time back, but digging a lower channel was pretty slow work. That little bunch of dynamite just between your land and our lake has made a pretty nice passage for our water to flow through. I suppose you made your entrance underground somewhere near that clump of sage brush, so it would be hard for us to discover."

Dan shrugged his heavy shoulders, "What rotten nonsense," he returned sullenly.

Jacqueline's eyes were fairly starting with surprise and she opened her lips to ask a question but closed them quickly. She couldn't expect to comprehend Jim's accusation. What girl ever has understood anything about engineering?

Jim laughed, straightened up and glanced toward the three cowboys, who were grouped picturesquely on the opposite side of the divide. "Oh, you don't have to take my word for it," he remarked casually, "I will have one of the State engineers over to prove it to you. You see if there is one thing we are strict about in Wyoming, it is our water rights.

"You and your father shall pay us a tidy sum of money in damages for this work." Jim slowly let go the tight knot which had held Dan Norton. "Now get along home when you like, young man," he concluded. "I am through with you for to-day."

Dan flung the lasso to the ground and glared angrily at Jim and then at Jack. But his eyes fell before Jacqueline Ralston's. Jack was looking at him steadily with the scornful, slightly haughty expression he so hated.

Dan smiled. His light blue eyes were almost green with temper and narrowed into two fine lines. "Oh, it don't matter about your old creek, at present," he jeered. "You can keep the water on Rainbow Ranch for another few months, when father and I take possession of the ranch, we can drain the water over here if we like. So long!" and he glanced contemptuously at Jack, as he marched by her.

Jack had her riding whip in her left hand. For a second she longed to strike at Dan Norton with it. How dared he speak in that calm and self-assured fashion of some day taking possession of their own beloved Rainbow Ranch? Jack's heart was like lead, but not a muscle of her lovely face moved, her eyelashes did not even tremble.

Jim watched Dan sneak across the divide and he and Jack waited until the four men started on foot across the plain. Then Jim smiled a slow smile which meant many things. "Don't you worry quite so much about our losing our ranch, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim announced. "If old Daniel Norton had felt so sure he was going to succeed in getting our place away from us, he would never have tried to steal our water at this stage of the game."

The two horses were grazing near by and Jim lifted Jack into her saddle. They turned their faces toward Rainbow Lodge.

Once or twice, Jim rubbed his chin. "Pretty good day's work for us, boss?" he asked finally.

Jack's eyes danced and a deep rose color glowed in her cheeks. She did not look in the least like the girl who had received in tears the news of the possible loss of her home.

Jack laughed softly, under her breath. "It sure was a good day's work, overseer, and we'll fight till the hat drops," she answered, in the tone of another cowboy. Then Jack flicked her pony with her whip. "Do let's hurry, Jim," she called gaily. "I never saw anything in my life so delicious as the picture you made lassoing Dan. I am just dying to get home to tell the other girls."

CHAPTER XIII

THE WET BLANKET

"JACK, how are we ever going to quit using slang?" Jean groaned.

"Oh, we do worse things, Jean Bruce," Jack answered unfeelingly. "Little we know how many crimes we do commit! Just wait until a straight-laced old maid gets hold of us! And what will Cousin Ruth say about Jim's grammar? You know she is a B.A. from some woman's college. Do you know Jean, I often wonder if Jim talks in the careless way he does simply because he has lived so long out here with the cowboys. He must have had some education when he was young, he seems to have read a great many books."

"Jim Colter is a clam," Jean remarked impatiently, forgetting her resolution to speak only "English, pure and undefiled." "He would rather die than to let us learn anything of his past. I do declare, Jack, that if he were anybody in the world except Jim, I should think he had something in his life he wished to conceal. I wonder if he ever had a tragic love affair?"

"Oh, Jean, you are a romantic goose," Jack exclaimed. "What was it you had to show me?"

Jean and Jack were giving a thorough cleaning to the living-room; Aunt Ellen had shaken the rugs and polished the pine floor, but the two girls were dusting vigorously in every crack and corner and rubbing the brass candlesticks with an unaccustomed ardor.

Through the entire Lodge there rioted a sense of preparation, as before the approach of some great event.

Jean flung down her dust cloth, seized Jack by the hand and marched her over to the corner lined with their book shelves.

Jack discovered an entirely unknown row of books. "Why, Jean Bruce!" Jack exclaimed in amazement. "Where did you ever find these old things and what do we want with them anyhow?"

Jack was staring at Congressional reports, a few ancient law books and a treatise on medicine. But there also were eight volumes of Gibbon's "Rome," Greene's "History of The English People," and several other valuable old histories, arranged in a conspicuous place on the book shelves. Jean's most cherished novels had been stuck out of sight.

Jean smiled a superior smile. "I found the books upstairs in Uncle's trunk, of course, and I brought them down here to impress our new chaperon or governess, which ever you choose to call her. I was determined she should not think we were perfect dunces when she arrived at Rainbow Lodge."

Jack appeared to reflect. "I don't see how it will do much good," she argued, half laughing. "Cousin Ruth will soon find out that we don't know anything in the books worth mentioning."

But Jean was not in the least discouraged. "First impressions are always the most important, Jacqueline Ralston," she announced calmly. "My advice to this family is to let Cousin Ruth get her shocks from our wild behavior by degrees so that she will have time to rally in between."

"Do you think she is going to find us so very dreadful?" Jack inquired quite seriously, without the trace of a smile. She was climbing up on a ladder to try to straighten a beautiful golden lynx skin, which was slipping off the wall.

"Worse than wild Indians," Jean replied, unmoved, "just you mark my words, Miss Ralston. For instance, Miss Drew is going to announce that it is a perfect shame for any one to shoot a poor dear wildcat. Uncle ought to have reasoned with that cat when it jumped at him. She is going to hate us and all our ways forever and want to go back to her blessed New England in a week."

Jack sighed, "you are a Job's comforter, Jean. But you don't have to worry, I know Cousin Ruth will hold me responsible for our wicked ways. You see I wrote her that we did not want her to come out to us when she first said she would. Then I had to eat humble pie and say we did. But even if she does not like you or me, Jean, she can't help caring for Olive and Frieda. Olive is the prettiest, shyest girl in the world."

Jean nodded. "Jack," she asked more sympathetically, "is Cousin Ruth horribly old?"

"She is twenty-eight and a dreadful old maid," Jack confessed sadly. "Jean, you have simply got to ride over to the station with Jim to meet her this afternoon."

Jean shook her head and dropped languidly into a large reclining chair. "I am not at all well, Jack," she answered, "I forgot to tell you this morning, but I feel a bad cold coming on. If I should take a long ride I am sure I should be quite ill."

Jack stared at her cousin searchingly. "You don't show the least sign of a cold, Jean," she argued.

"That is because appearances are deceiving, sweet coz," Jean murmured. "How is our dear lady cousin going to get over to the ranch?"

"Oh, Jim is going to lead a horse over for her to ride back on," Jack announced quite unconscious of breakers ahead. "You see the train gets in so late that we couldn't get home until after dark, if we drove over, and I thought it would be kind of nice to have Cousin Ruth arrive at Rainbow Lodge just at twilight. You didn't think to look among father's books for a stray paper, did you, Jean?" Jack asked, trying to appear indifferent.

"Yes, I did, Jack," Jean returned quickly. "There wasn't anything. Let's don't talk about it. I promise to have everything at the Lodge to-night in ship-shape order, when you arrive. We have cleaned up the whole house and we will put on our best clothes and stand out on the veranda to meet you; we might even sing, 'Hail, the conquering hero comes,' if you think it would be appreciated."

"Do you suppose Jim could meet Cousin Ruth without me?" Jack queried, as a forlorn hope.

Jean shook her head decidedly. "Most certainly not, Jack; never in the world! The lady would think Jim was trying to kidnap her and he would be scared to death." Jean kissed Jack apologetically. "I know I am horrid, Jack, to put all the hard things off on you because you are a little bit the oldest, but really, if I had to meet Cousin Ruth at the station, I'd shiver and shake until I fell off my horse. I will do the next hard thing that has to be done on this place, I will honestly, cross my heart and body," Jean argued penitently.

Three weeks had passed since Jim Colter's and Jack's eventful ride across the ranch. It was late October, but unusually mild and warm. Cousin Ruth had been written to on the very evening of the decision, so that there could be no chance for a change of purpose on the part of the ranch girls, for they felt that they were in for it and were determined to do their best.

Miss Ruth Drew was entirely alone in the world except for one good-for-nothing brother and had just enough money to eke out a bare existence in a dull little Vermont town. She wanted an object in life and believed that the ranch girls needed her. So soon as Jack's letter arrived, she had telegraphed that she would come to them at once. Since then, the days at Rainbow Lodge had slipped by like magic until the fated day arrived. Jim Colter and Jack, with many inward misgivings, mounted their ponies and leading an extra one for Miss Drew, rode to the station.

The express from the East would be due in an hour.

Jack and Jim paced restlessly up and down the station platform, with their arms locked. Jim looking even more wretched and unhappy than Jack. He wondered how in the world he was to treat the old lady cousin when she came out to them, and whether she would shut off from caring for his adored ranch girls.

Jim had not the remotest idea of Miss Ruth Drew's age. The name had an elderly sound to it and Jack had described her as an old maid; consequently Jim's mental picture showed a small, grey-haired woman with corkscrew curls, somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty, with thin lips and a penetrating eye. She would probably reduce him to powder with a single glance, but he meant to be as polite to her as he humanly could and to speak to her only when it was absolutely necessary.

"Jim," Jack suggested finally, "you have sighed like a human bellows three times in the past five minutes. If you meet Cousin Ruth with that expression, she'll think we are sorry she has come. Please go over into the town and buy yourself some tobacco or something to cheer you. I'll get on Tricks and ride up and down near the track for a while, and then we will both be in a better humor when the train finally does get in."

Miss Ruth Drew sighed. She was sitting in the Pullman car with her eyes closed and an expression of supreme fatigue on her sallow but not unattractive face.

It seemed to her that she had been traveling ever since she could remember. Were there people in the world idiotic enough to think there was beauty in the western prairies? For days she had looked out on bare stretches of endless brown plains rising and falling in one monotonous chain. The sand was in her eyes, in her ears, in her mouth; worst of all, it had piled up in a great mass of homesickness on her heart.

How could she have turned her back on dear New England villages, with their sleepy, green and white homesteads and trim gardens, for this vast desert? "Of course, she was doing her duty in coming to look after four motherless girls," Ruth remembered, with a pang, but her duty at the present moment did not appear cheerful.

When the conductor announced that the next station was hers, Ruth sat up and arranged her hat and veil neatly. She adjusted her glasses on her thin nose and put back the single lock of hair that had strayed from its place. Her heart began to flutter a little faster. Was she actually arriving in the neighborhood of Rainbow Ranch? It didn't seem possible!

If you can imagine a very prim, grey mouse kind of girl, who looked a good deal older than she was, with ash brown hair and eyes and a neat tailor-made suit to match, you will get a very good impression of Miss Ruth Drew. Her figure was very good and her mouth might have been pretty, except that it looked as though she disapproved of a great many things, and that is never becoming. But she was tired and homesick and it was not a fair time to judge her.

It would be another fifteen minutes before she would get into Wolfville, and Ruth closed her eyes again. There was nothing to see out of her window that was in the least interesting and she preferred to think about the ranch girls. She wondered if they would be very hard to get on with, if they were very wild and reckless. It made her shudder: the idea of her cousin's children growing up with only a common cowboy for their friend and adviser.

There was a little stir in the car, the engine had slowed down. Ruth opened her eyes; what had made her traveling companions' faces brighten with interest? Three or four of them rushed across the aisle and pressed their noses up against the window panes on her side of the coach. One man threw up the car window, leaned out and shouted: "Hurrah!" A woman waved her handkerchief.

Ruth's curiosity was aroused and she gazed languidly out her window. Flying along the road that followed the line of the track, was a Western pony. The horse was running like a streak, his nostrils quivering with excitement, his feet pounding along the hard sand.

"Beat it! beat it!" cried the excited stranger. "Did anybody ever see such riding before?" The man addressed the entire car.

Ruth could see that there was someone on the horse, running a race with the express train. The rider was in brown and Ruth could not observe very distinctly. She supposed that it was an Indian boy.

"That girl is a wonder!" the man exclaimed, who had been traveling next the prim young woman from the East for four days without daring to look straight at her. He leaned over his seat and smiled.

"Girl!" Miss Drew repeated in surprise. "Was the figure on horseback a girl?" Ruth was quite willing to admit that she had never seen such horsemanship in her life. The girl was perfectly graceful and at times she leaned over to urge her pony on, or bent sideways as though she swayed with the motion of the wind. She seemed to rest on her horse so lightly that she added no burden to him but was like the spirit of motion carrying him on.

The engine ahead whistled three times. The train was moving slowly, still it was remarkable how the rider kept up with the passenger coach.

Just as the car rolled into the station, the girl on horseback flashed a smile at the people watching her from the car windows, and Ruth had a brief glimpse of a shaft of sunlight caught in a mass of bright, bronze hair and a pair of radiant cheeks and eyes. Then she seized her suit case and umbrella, slipped into her overshoes and hurried out of the train. She had read that it rarely rained in Wyoming, except in the spring, but she wished to run no risk of taking cold.

CHAPTER XIV

AN UNFORTUNATE ARRIVAL

THERE was no one on the platform when Ruth dismounted, but a tall man, who was not looking for her. He was oddly handsome in spite of his queer Western clothes, and Ruth wished for an instant that he might be Mr. Colter. Evidently he was not. He stared at her curiously for a few seconds, then searched anxiously along every other exit of the train.

Cousin Ruth could discover no one else. The madcap girl, who had run her wild race with the train, was a little distance off. She was holding three ponies by their bridles, and as one of them was dancing with nervousness on account of the noise of the engine, the girl had her hands full.

Ruth Drew's heart sank to ten degrees below zero. Had she traveled across the continent to a wild Western town to find no one to meet her? The ranch girls could not be so rude; and Ruth determined to ask the good-looking man with the worried expression, what she ought to do.

Jim was gazing sadly after the departing coaches. You see he was looking for a white-haired woman of about fifty, and supposed that the old lady hadn't known enough to get off the train at the right station, and had gone on to the next stop. How in the world would he be able to connect with her?