The Ranch Girls at Home Again

CHAPTER XIV

THE EXPLOSION

THE new crowd of miners were anxiously waiting about the mouth of the pit shaft, which led down into the deepest excavation that had yet been dug in the neighborhood of the Rainbow Creek.

There were other openings, but because this was the largest, Ralph Merrit had desired that his workmen begin their labor here. For by extending and deepening the passages in the lower part of this shaft he hoped to make important discoveries of new veins of ore. And once convinced that a quantity of new gold was actually to be found under this ground the young engineer had no idea of giving up before he had devised some intelligent and not too expensive method of bringing more wealth to the surface of the earth.

Not many feet from the company of men Jack Ralston and Frank Kent were standing together talking of some detail in connection with the work, while Jim Colter was hanging over the pit opening in company with the men who had charge of the lowering and raising of the mine elevator.

Evidently Ralph Merrit and his two companions had made a safe landing below, for shortly after their disappearance there was a signal, and slowly the lift traveled up into the daylight again, now ready to take on another lot of passengers.

"Steady, no crowding," Jim Colter called out as the next relay stepped hastily forward. "Merrit will want to start things going in the tunnel before you descend."

One man had already gotten aboard, while another had one foot extended toward the platform, when suddenly from underneath them there came a tearing, splitting noise and then a muffled roar like the instantaneous explosion of a thousand guns.

The passengers in the elevator fell on their knees and all around the opening of the pit there was powder and blackness and a fall of stones like a swift rain of meteors.

By accident Ruth Colter's back happened to be turned away from the scene at the mine, so that the first sound she remembered hearing was her husband's hoarse shout of horror and then as she turned the sight of his great form lying prostrate on the ground with Jack and Frank trying to drag him away from danger.

But when Ruth would have rushed toward him, Olive and Frieda held her fast, and the next instant a wave of weakness and darkness so overwhelmed her that she had no strength to move.

When she opened her eyes she could see Jean's face, white as a sheet, dancing before her and hear her saying:

"Jim isn't hurt, dear; only stunned by his fall. See, he is on his feet again giving orders. And Jack and Frank must be all right, they were not so near. But what could have happened, what caused the explosion? It's the men down inside the mine who must be horribly hurt. Ralph – "

But Jean shook with such nervous terror that Frieda's arm encircled her, and the next moment the four women moved nearer the place of the disaster.

They were just in time, for at the moment of their approach, although Jim Colter's face was so black that you could hardly distinguish him, with his forehead bleeding from an ugly wound and his clothes torn and burnt, he was giving orders like the general of an army and like trained soldiers the miners were obeying him.

"I'll take four of you men who will volunteer to go down inside the mine with me. I don't know what has happened, but we are pretty apt to find things serious. It sounded like a dynamite explosion and there may be another. Fortunately for us the elevator is above ground and we can lower it. Some of you see that stretchers are brought here. Jack, keep your head and get hold of a doctor at once. I hope we may need him," the man added grimly, as he swung his great length aboard the small car, his companions crowding close against him.

Unmindful of the awed silence that had followed the noise of the explosion, unmindful of the two score of rough strange men, Ruth breaking away from the girls now ran forward crying:

"Jim, you can't go down into the mine first. I can't let you. There is the baby and me, you must think of us and of the girls. You may be horribly hurt."

She was near enough now so that she could look straight into her husband's blue eyes and something in Jim's expression calmed her instantly. Then for the time he too seemed conscious of the presence of no one else.

"Don't be frightened, Ruth, I shall be all right, dear, and back again with you in ten minutes perhaps. But in any case, girl, don't you see I have got to go down before the others? This is our mine and two of the men down there are almost boys."

Some quiet order Jim then gave and slowly for the second time the lift sank down toward the dark abyss under the earth. For Ruth had made no other sound or protest, only keeping tight hold on Frieda's and Jean's hands. Olive had gone with Jack and Frank Kent in the direction of the Rainbow Lodge.

To the watchers at the pit opening after the elevator had landed the second time there was a moment when they believed that they could hear voices below. Then the waiting seemed interminable. In point of fact only a few moments more had passed before the signal indicated that the car must be drawn up again.

And this time it was Jean Bruce who covered her eyes with her hands.

There was a grinding of the cables and then an unmistakable groan, so it was not only the faces of the women that blanched whiter. Many of these miners were middle-aged men who had been in mining disasters where many hundreds of lives were at stake. Now, since no further disturbance had followed the first brief explosion, they realized that only the three men who had first gone down into the pit had been injured. Yet it was nerve-racking not to be able to foretell whether these three men would be brought up alive or dead.

Jim Colter and one of his helpers were standing upright in the car and Jim held in his arms a limp, crumpled figure, unconscious, his blue overalls charred and blackened, his absurd old hat quite gone. Indeed, the grave and learned professor of ancient languages looked like a broken slip of a boy in the big man's keeping.

There on the floor of the car another figure was resting. The face was upturned to the light and though the eyes were closed the expression of the mouth showed that the man had not fainted but was suffering great pain.

Frieda touched Jean Bruce on the arm.

"It is not Ralph, but the new foreman who seems to be very badly hurt," she whispered. "Look, the other men are carrying him off. I can't tell about Ralph's friend, Mr. Russell. But where is Ralph? Why hasn't he come up with the others?"

And this last question of Frieda's was being echoed in the minds of the waiting woman and girl.

Why had Jim brought up two of the wounded men and left the third, their oldest friend, still in the depth of Rainbow Mine? It was impossible not to believe that Jim had done this because these men were not too badly injured to be helped.

For he had now placed his burden on the ground and was examining the young man with the skill and care of a surgeon, while some one else bathed the face. A stretcher had been secured for the foreman who was now being taken to his own quarters to await the coming of a surgeon.

"Jim," Ruth Colter put her hand on her husband's shoulder and her face was almost as white and strained as it had been during her last speech with him, "the elevator is going down again and you are not going with it. Tell us, please, what has happened to Ralph?"

Without waiting to hear her guardian's answer Frieda suddenly burst into tears. Of course she had been dreadfully unnerved by the recent accident and now this uncertainty about their friend, besides the sight of their new acquaintance stretched out there at her feet as though he were dead when the last time she had seen him he had been eating his dinner, was more than she could bear.

"Ralph? Great Scott, I am a brute, Ruth, Jean, Frieda!" Jim Colter exclaimed. "Why didn't I tell you at once? Ralph isn't badly hurt at all; he is bruised and burnt and shaken up, but nothing more, so far as I could tell. So of course he insisted that we bring up the two other fellows first. It's a plain miracle that there's anything left of the three of them. So far as I could understand somebody had fixed a bomb down at the end of the pit shaft, but the thing was clumsily made and only half went off. Ralph said they were blown about a good deal and the atmosphere was pretty thick, but unless the new foreman has been injured internally there was no great harm done. I think this young man has nothing more serious the matter with him than a broken leg. And I expect we shall be able to mend that for him at Rainbow Lodge."

At these words Henry Russell opened his eyes, but whether because of Jim's suggestion or the pain he was enduring, or whether because the sight of the girls, he groaned aloud and then closed his lips again.

"I don't think he wants to be taken to the Lodge," Frieda suggested mournfully. "You see he wants us to think he has gone away."

Then possibly because Ruth's and Jim's nerves had both been strained almost past endurance for the past half hour they laughed aloud at Frieda's speech.

Jean had slipped away and it was her white and yet happy face that Ralph Merrit saw first as he came back into the world of daylight again. There, though he was staggering and nearly blind and covered with blood and grime from the shock he had just received, he found Jean's hands before any others and held them close for a moment while she murmured:

"I am so glad, so glad; it is because you have some big work to do in the world that you have been saved, I am sure, Ralph."

A moment later Ralph was quietly accepting the congratulations of his workmen, while he tried to explain to them just how the explosion had taken place. That the bomb had been placed down the shaft by one of the former miners there could be no shadow of doubt.

CHAPTER XV

AN UNFORTUNATE DISCUSSION

"BUT why won't either Jean or Frieda come with us?" Olive asked a week after the unfortunate accident at the Rainbow Mine. With a surprise that she did not pretend to hide Jack Ralston turned to look at her friend.

"I thought I had explained to you, dear," she protested, "that Jean said she felt it her duty to write a long letter of sympathy to the Princess Colonna. You see she only heard yesterday of the death of the old Prince and though she does not feel that the Princess will be exactly inconsolable (he was so much older and they thought so differently about many things), yet of course Jean has to say that she is dreadfully sorry and is there anything she can do and all that. It would not surprise me in the least if the Princess came west and made us a visit. I told Jean to invite her. She was born in this part of the country and I rather think she will be glad to get away from Rome while she is in heavy mourning. It is a pity she did not have a son, isn't it? The title will have to go to her husband's nephew, Giovanni Colonna. You remember he and Jean were such good friends."

But although the two girls were walking along side by side toward the stables back of the Rainbow Lodge, it was plain that Olive Van Mater was not listening with any real interest to what her companion was saying.

"Then why won't Frieda ride with us?" she expostulated. "I am sure it has been ages since we four girls had a long ride together and it is a wonderfully beautiful morning. What has become of Frieda lately anyhow – I almost never see her except at meal times?"

With a laugh Jack Ralston laid her arm lightly across her friend's shoulder.

"Poor Olive, to have only my poor society! But, dear, we have not had but one other ride together, the one that we took to the Indian village soon after your arrival. Does it bore you so dreadfully to have only me as a companion? You must not come with me then, simply because I asked you. I can get one of the boys to ride over the ranch with me; perhaps Carlos would be willing to do that much! I don't know what has happened to Frieda, but the child is making a perfect martyr of herself. That poor young Professor seems not to wish anyone to do things for him except Frieda or Ruth. You know he perfectly hates the sight of the rest of us. And as Ruth is so busy with Jimmikins and the house she can't nurse him a great deal. So he just lies in his room, which is Frieda's by the way, and moans and groans until Frieda comes to amuse him. What do you think I beheld our baby doing the other day? Reading him some dreadful article on Egyptian Hieroglyphics from a learned magazine. She hadn't the faintest idea what it was all about and she looked like a big yellow butterfly imprisoned in a dark place. I am sure I am awfully sorry the erudite young professor had to break his right leg in the depth of Rainbow Mine and that we have him on our hands for six weeks or more – almost as sorry as he is I expect. Still I am not going to have Frieda sacrificing herself to him much longer. I mean to tell her tomorrow that it is quite unnecessary. He is a dreadfully spoiled person."

"But wouldn't Frank have enjoyed this long ride with you this morning, Jack?" Olive repeated, still refusing to take any interest in what Jack was saying, but instead clinging obstinately to her own train of thought. "I am sure Jim would have let Frank off from the trip with him if he had known that you had to take this long ride to hunt up the lost mares and colts."

Jack nodded, but her expression was hurt and puzzled. "Of course Jim would have let Frank come with me or would have come himself if he had known of the trouble. But both Jim and Frank were away before I heard of the loss. Besides, it does not make any difference, for I am sure I have ridden over Rainbow Ranch looking up our lost horses and cattle ever since I was fourteen or fifteen years old. But if you think the ride may be too long for you, please don't come, Olive. I shan't be in the least hurt if you don't feel like it. Kiss me good-by and go back to the Lodge. Ruth will be overjoyed at your return and I'll be perfectly all right with Carlos."

But although Jack Ralston spoke so cheerfully and in such good temper she was not truthful in pretending that Olive's present attitude was not hurting her feelings. The truth is that she felt that Olive had not been exactly the same toward her since Frank Kent's arrival. And if Jack had needed any further proof to add to her past conviction this was sufficient. Always before, Olive had loved her better than any one else, even more than she did her friend, Miss Winthrop. And Jack was certain that she had done nothing to make Olive angry or to wound her – she herself was so utterly unchanged in her own affection.

What a hopeless, horrid puzzle it all was and of all persons was not Jacqueline Ralston the most inadequate for straightening it out? She had no methods but those of frankness. If only she dared ask Olive how she actually felt.

But Olive would hardly have been able to explain to her, because in these last few weeks the girl had not understood herself. Before Frank Kent's coming to the Rainbow Lodge she had been sure of having entirely recovered from her past fancy for him. Had she not fought it all out in those final weeks in England when she had realized the extent of Frank's devotion to Jack and the impossibility of her own position? And now – well, whatever turn events might take, Olive felt the fault would be largely Jacqueline's. For why did Jack fail to return Frank's affection? Why did she continue to treat him with such disregard and yet keep him lingering on at the ranch? Really Olive wondered if her own emotion was not now one more of sympathy for Frank and impatience with Jack. Surely Frank was too fine a fellow from every point of view to be trifled with. And no one would ever have suspected Jack of being a girl of such a character.

Olive again looked closely into her friend's face and what she saw there for the moment disarmed her. Of course she was more angry with Jack than she had ever dreamed it possible that she could be and yet she had not meant to wound her over this small question of their having another ride together to search for lost stock. Perhaps this very morning Jack might be in a humor to confide in her the cause of her mysterious conduct. She must have some vital reason, it was so unlike her to be cruel or not to know her own mind.

"Of course I won't go back to the Lodge," Olive finally protested. "For I do wish the ride immensely; it was only that I thought it might be a pleasure for the others too."

And to this half-hearted apology the other girl made no reply.

A few moments later, having arrived at the beautiful new stables built within the past year at the Rainbow Ranch, Jack and Olive found their two horses already saddled. And a little while after, finding the Indian boy, Carlos, at his own tent door, the three of them mounted and rode away.

Now riding with Jacqueline Ralston over their great thousand-acre Wyoming ranch to seek for cattle or horses that had gone astray was apt to be fairly strenuous, and no one unaccustomed to riding should ever have thought of attempting it. Yet Olive had done the same thing dozens of times in the years when she had first came to live at Rainbow Ranch, and on starting out this morning had no idea of growing tired before her friend did.