The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge
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The man shook his head severely. "No, you are not going to get off yourself," he returned gruffly, "and I ain't going to put you off either. If you can keep on making yourself small, and you are a pretty thin kind of a girl, I am going to take you farther down the road with us. I have an idea this here freight train will run along somewhere near Wolfville in the course of the afternoon. You have had such bad luck in the past, Missie, that maybe your luck has changed. Anyhow, when you butted blindly into this freight car, you found a coach going in just about the way you needed to travel. Don't worry your head any more about what you are to do. I'll put you off at Wolfville, and though it looks a bit cloudy, as though it might mean to blow up a bit of snow, I expect you'll manage to get back to the Ralston Ranch, somehow, before night."
Olive, satisfied that this kind-hearted stranger would look out for her, dozed on, half waking and half sleeping. Neither she nor her new friend knew how exhausted she was. She had passed through several weeks of dreadful hardship, exposure and unhappiness, and now she felt too happy to think or care because her head ached dully, and her legs shook so she could hardly stand on them. She would be home soon with Frieda and Jean and Jack!
Several hours went by. The trainman left the car and attended to his duties. But Olive had entire faith that he would not forget her.
At a little past five o'clock in the afternoon the freight train came to a stop near the little town of Wolfville, which was only a matter of ten miles from Rainbow Ranch. The wind was blowing with a queer, ominous rattling sound and a few flakes of snow were falling.
Olive's new friend gazed at her a little queerly, as he lifted her out on the platform. There were no people in sight except the station master, for it was almost dark and the stopping of a freight train was of little interest.
"Sure you know how to get to your friends from here?" the Irishman asked Olive. She took time to nod and wave her hand, then ran swiftly away from the station in the direction of Rainbow Ranch.
If Olive had gone into the town, someone would have driven her to the Lodge, or else sent word to Jim Colter or the Ralston girls that she was in safe-keeping for the night. A prairie snowstorm was approaching and few people would have cared to trust themselves to a ten-mile drive at this hour of the winter evening.
But Olive did not think of further danger. Ten miles seemed to her to be so near home that she could not bear a second's delay in trying to reach there. For the first few miles she ran swiftly along, as she knew the trail and it was not too dark to follow it. The stinging wind cut her face and at times the snow blinded her. But the distance was only a short walk for a girl who had spent all her life out of doors in the great West. Yet Olive should have known what a snowstorm in Wyoming, with a heavy pall of gray clouds and a scudding blast, meant.
After a while, her feet in her worn shoes felt like wooden pegs stumping on the frozen earth. Her hands had lost all feeling, although she managed to draw the rabbit-skin furs that Carlos had given her, over her head and to keep her hands under them. The snow no longer fell in flakes but in white sheets, lashed and driven by the force of the storm.
The trail across the plains to the Ralston Ranch was quickly hidden. Mountains of snow piled up in front of Olive, deep gullies appeared at her feet, where the land was usually as level as a table, and she had no idea in which direction she should try to travel. But she fought her way on, thinking perhaps that another wanderer might overtake her, or that she might catch a glimpse of the lights of some ranch house. If she could find an objective point ahead of her, she felt that she might get to it. But to move blindly in a circle of snow, brought no hope of any relief.
Yet Olive knew she must keep moving if she wished to live. She did not suffer the same agony from the cold, that she had at first. The wind blew her about, as though she had been a bit of paper. She staggered and fell in the snowdrifts, got up and pressed on wishing that even a wild animal would scurry past her on the way to its retreat. But animals are always wiser than human beings before the approach of a storm. Every head of cattle, every horse on the plains, every beast in the forest had found a rude shelter. Olive felt herself entirely alone in a savage, white world.
But in quiet natures like Olive's, there is a wonderful power of resistance. She had endured so much, she had learned the fortitude that comes with misfortune.
She prayed silently through the hours she struggled. There were moments when she believed she spied the light of Rainbow Lodge gleaming on the cruel surface of the snow. She would fight her way to this place, only to discover that her own blind desire had led her astray.
Night came on, but there was little change from the twilight. The few stars that broke through the clouds only made the way more blinding.
Olive's patience, Carlos' planning seemed to have been in vain.
Again Olive dreamed she saw some lights ahead of her. Her mind was no longer clear. She could not remember why she was out alone in the snow. She cried for Jack, when she had the strength, but the tears froze on her face.
Olive reached out her arms toward her vision of the lights of Rainbow Lodge. She was either too blind or too utterly spent to see the snowbank in front of her, as suddenly it shut out her mirage of home. The girl gave a cry of despair with all the feeble strength that was left in her and tumbled headlong into the cold embrace of the snow. But the snow was no longer cold. It was strangely warm and she was shut away from the cruel winds.
CHAPTER XXIII
JACK IS HAPPY
"CHILLUNS, it's time for bed," Cousin Ruth announced softly. "Frieda has been asleep in my arms for the last ten minutes. Perhaps I can tumble her in bed without waking her, she is so frightened at the storm."
Jean glanced up at the clock over the living-room mantle. "Do let's wait a little while longer?" she begged. "I am just at the most thrilling part of my book and I am bound to finish it before I go to bed. Jack, you stay here with me, if Cousin Ruth is going with Frieda. I don't like to sit up alone. This storm is a terror! Listen how the wind howls down the chimney. I hope our stock won't be frozen to death to-night."
Ruth led Frieda gently out of the sitting-room while Jack got up and wandered to the window. But the frost covered the glass. She scratched a little space away with a hairpin, but there was nothing to see outside save the snow.
Jack walked restlessly up and down the room for a minute. It was just nine o'clock and she did not feel like going to bed. She could not read as Jean was doing. These terrible western storms, that came once or twice every winter, always filled her with foreboding. Jack was too good a rancher not to understand that they caused great suffering and loss among the cattle. The rude corrals, which the ranchmen built for their stock, could not save them on a night like this.
Jack dropped down on her knees before their book shelves and began to look over the collection of volumes that had once belonged to her father. The books were the same ones that Jean had found in her uncle's trunk and brought to the living-room to impress their new governess on the day of her arrival at Rainbow Lodge. Shep got up from his warm place by the fire and trotted over to lie down by Jack, seeming to know that she was worried and wishing to offer her his subtle sympathy.
Jack turned over the pages of half a dozen books, shaking them, so that every leaf fluttered apart.
Jean glanced over at her cousin. Jack was quieter and older than ever to-night. "What are you doing, Jack, want me to help you?" Jean asked lovingly.
"No, Jean, I am not doing anything special," Jack replied quietly. "I am just killing time."
But Jean knew that her cousin was searching once more for the lost title deed to Rainbow Ranch and she had gone to the window to gaze out on the snow with the thought of Olive on her mind. Even light-hearted Jean sighed. It was only a few days before Christmas.
Jack was getting up off the floor, when a sound startled her. She jumped quickly to her feet. Old Shep gave a long howl.
"What is the matter with you, Jacqueline Ralston?" Jean demanded pettishly, partly because she had just been so sorry for Jack. "You almost scared me out of my wits."
Jack was pointing toward the window. "I heard a noise outside in the snow," she exclaimed excitedly.
"You did no such thing, Jack, it's only the wind howling. It has been making a racket for the last four hours. I don't see why you are so surprised all of a sudden. I heard nothing unusual," Jean protested.
"But it wasn't the wind I heard, Jean. This noise was quite different. Shep heard it too, see how queerly he is acting," Jack argued.
Old Shep had gone to the front door of the ranch house and was stretched against it with his fore paws resting on the door.
"Well, if you didn't hear the wind, it is some animal that has seen the lights in the Lodge and stolen near here for protection. Do sit down, Jack, you make me dreadfully nervous, staring like that. You know you haven't heard the sound a second time. Let's go to bed."
Jean slipped her arm about Jack's waist, but Jack pushed her gently off. "I am going out in the snow to find out what that cry meant, Jean," Jack announced decisively. "Suppose it was an animal, I can't allow anything to die just outside our home to-night."
Jean clung to her cousin's skirts. "You shan't go out that door, Jack," Jean avowed. "You will be blown off your feet by the wind. You will be frozen. If a wild animal has come out of the woods for shelter, you'll be torn to pieces." Jean pictured every horrible fate that she could imagine overtaking Jacqueline. But Jack was quickly buttoning up her overcoat and tying a thick woolen scarf about her head.
"I won't stay out but a minute, Jean dear," she returned. "Shep will go with me. He will keep me from getting hurt."
"I'll call Cousin Ruth, Jack, you are the most obstinate person in the world!" Jean exclaimed passionately, but Jack had wrenched open the big front door of the ranch house, and plunged out into the night. A gust of snow swept into the wide hall. Straining with all her might, Jack closed the door back of her, so that Jean should not feel the fury of the storm. With Shep by her side, Jack faced the white wilderness of snow.
Jean ran down the hall toward Ruth's room, but Ruth had already heard the noise and joined her. For an instant the two women awaited Jack's return. They believed that she would come into the house as soon as she saw what lay ahead of her.
Jack seized the lantern, that swung always above the door of their Lodge. The light was out, but by crouching down and turning her back to the wind, Jack managed to relight it. She knew the light would soon blow out again, but for a minute it would serve a purpose.
Jack climbed off the porch. Shep ploughed in front of her. Jack swung her lantern once, twice it flashed, then the wind blew it out.
But in that space of time she saw something dark in a mound of snow not far from the house. Jack felt her way toward it, guided by an overwhelming instinct. Shep shook all over, not with the cold, but with the foreknowledge of what was ahead of them.
When Jack reached Olive, Shep had already covered the still body with his own warm one. Jack pushed Shep away. She had to feel under the drifting snow before she knew the object she touched was a human being, but it was not until her hand touched the delicate frozen face, that she realized that Olive was found at last.
Jack's cry for help brought Ruth, Jean, and from the kitchen, Aunt Ellen and Zack. There was such agony in Jack's tones, that they all believed some horrible thing had happened to her.
The women got Olive inside the house, not one of them having an idea that she was alive, but no one dared to tell Jack so. They stripped off the girl's clothes and found the little sandal-wood box hidden inside her dress.
If Jack had not already learned to love Ruth Drew, she would have begun to care for her to-night. For Ruth knew exactly what to do for Olive. She would not let the girls and Aunt Ellen carry Olive too near the fire. She sent Uncle Zack off to find Jim Colter. Ruth and Jack rubbed Olive's stiff body with snow, until their hands felt almost as numb as hers and forced hot tea between her clenched teeth. By and by Aunt Ellen and Jean were allowed to bring warm blankets and hot irons.
At last the blue, stark look left Olive's face. It was Jack who discovered a tiny bit of color in her lips. Jack flung herself on her knees and hardly knowing what she was doing, breathed all the warm, vibrant breath of her own vigorous body into Olive's almost frozen lungs.
After another hour, Olive stirred and moved one hand. She half opened her black eyes. "I am all right, Jack," she whispered. "I have got home at last."
CHAPTER XXIV
CHRISTMAS EVE
"IT'S the most beautiful one we have ever had, Jim; I'm so glad," Jack declared happily.
Jim beat the snow from his coat and folded his arms proudly. "It took all day to get it, Jack, but it's worth it. Where are the other girls?"
Jim Colter and Jacqueline were standing at the base of a wonderful pine tree, whose top pressed against the ceiling of the living-room at Rainbow Lodge. The frost still clung to the tree and the snow and icicles melted into long chains of diamonds, as they fell in drops of crystal clearness to the floor.
"The girls are in Cousin Ruth's room at work," Jack answered. "Olive and Frieda have promised not to look at the tree until the evening. We are going to have everything in pure white, a regular German Christmas tree, in honor of Frieda's birthday and her name. There is a white world inside and out and we shall be at peace for to-night at least," Jack ended with a little sigh.
Jim moved nearer to the tree and shook one of the branches until the bits of frost fell to the ground with a soft tinkle like the far-off music of sleigh bells. He kept his clouded blue eyes turned away from Jack's.
Jack slipped her arm through his and pressed it affectionately.
"Never you mind, Jim, I didn't mean to be doleful," Jack persisted. "I'm not a bit, really. Olive is all right, and you've seen that that wretched Josef and old Laska have been sent away, so they can't annoy her any more. And I think it's perfectly great that we are going to have such a lovely Christmas to-night as we have hardly ever had before! Suppose it is our last one at the Lodge, we will have it to remember! But, Mr. Colter," Jack danced away from Jim and made him a mock curtsy, "you may kindly observe that I haven't begun to pack up the furniture at the Lodge just yet. We never say die, do we, Jim? I think I will have that motto engraved on a coat of arms for Rainbow Ranch."
Jim nodded approvingly. "It's a pretty good sentiment, Jack," he agreed, as he started toward the door. "I must be off now, but I'll be back to-night, promptly at seven, for the festivities."
But Jack clung to him. "See here, Jim, you can't go so soon. You haven't said hello to Cousin Ruth or showed her the tree. You know you want to see her. She has had a bad cold ever since the night we found Olive and it is only polite that you should tell her you are glad she is well." Jack's tones were perfectly serious and her expression as innocent as a baby's.
Jim flushed a little angrily. "No. I don't want to see her, at least not particularly. Why should I?" Jim demanded awkwardly. "That is, – "
Ruth was standing at the living-room door with her arms full of mysterious packages. She laughed and came into the room, glad that Jim looked as awkward as she felt on the day of her first horseback ride with him.
When Ruth was putting down her packages Jack winked solemnly at Jim, and in return for his irritated glance at her, she slipped quietly out of the room.
All the way down the hall Jack was smiling to herself. "Wouldn't it be too funny if old Jim should fall in love with Cousin Ruth?" she thought. "Goodness knows why he is so touchy about her! She has been awfully nice to him, since he taught her to ride horseback, but the friendlier she is, the queerer he behaves.
'Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west,Of all the wide world, his steed is the best,'"Jack quoted, apropos of nothing, as she joined the other girls in Ruth's bedroom.
Olive, Jean and Frieda were working industriously. Over in the corner there was a little mound that looked like a pile of snow but was only the strings of popcorn for the Christmas tree. Jean was fashioning an immense silver star. Olive and Frieda were filling boxes of white paper, decorated with the initials, "R. G.," with homemade taffy candy and chocolate fudge. The ranch girls had not invited their neighbors to their Christmas eve party, but the cowboys who worked on their ranch were coming up to the Lodge to wish them good luck.
Jack dropped down on the floor and deliberately began devouring the fudge from a big China dish. "Don't work too hard, Olive," Jack insisted, reaching up to pop a piece of candy into Olive's mouth. "Remember you are not very strong yet."
Olive only laughed. She was a little paler than when she first came to the ranch in the early autumn, but her eyes were serene and untroubled and she looked far less timid and shy. Since finding her mother's picture in the possession of old Laska, Olive felt that she was more like the other girls and the thought that old Laska had any real claim on her, no longer worried her.
"This isn't very hard work, Jack," Olive replied gaily. "And there is still a lot for us to do to be ready for to-night. Just think, this will be the first real Christmas tree I have ever seen!"
"Well, we won't have so much work to do, Olive, if Jack eats all the candy," Jean remarked severely. "And Jack, perhaps if you would help Frieda and Olive, instead of talking so much, they wouldn't have such a lot to do."
Jack flung a cotton snowball at Jean. "Bear with me, sweet coz," she pleaded cheerfully. "I don't know just why, girls, but I feel so kind of happy to-day, that I suppose I am silly. I believe all the clouds have passed over our benighted heads and the Rainbow Arch of Promise is just over the Lodge."
Jean pointed scornfully to the winter landscape outside the window.
"It looks rather like we might have a rainbow after the summer shower: don't you think so, Olive?" she inquired. But she bent over and crowned Jack with a wreath of silver tinsel and went on with her work, smiling as though she had more faith in Jack's prediction than she cared to confess.
"Ah, Jean," Jack went on, "don't you know there is a legend that somewhere there is a wonderful land where all the rainbows that have ever been or ever will be, drift to and fro, like beautiful colored flowers? Perhaps one of these rainbows will find us to-night in spite of the weather." Jack's face softened at her own pretty fancy.
All day the girls worked and whispered and laughed. Ruth and Jean and Jack decorated the great Christmas tree. The gifts were piled up under the tree, for nothing was to be allowed to mar the perfect whiteness of its decorations. Only Ruth's presents were to be given just before supper time. She insisted that this was absolutely necessary, or else they would lose half their value.
When Jack came into her room at about five o'clock to get ready for the evening, she saw what Ruth had meant. Lying on the foot of her bed was the prettiest dress Jack had ever owned in her life. It was very simple, of a soft white material like crêpe, with a lovely band of silver embroidery about the low, square neck and around the waist and skirt. Jean was busy in the kitchen. But Jack saw that her dress was of delicate, pink cashmere, the color Jean most loved.
Jack slipped into her costume very quickly and stole softly into the great closed living-room, thinking she would find Ruth there. She had no idea how beautiful she looked.
The room was empty. The pine tree stood in one corner, lifting its noble green branches hung in dim festoons and covered with myriads of small white candles. It was quite dark. Only the fire, that never went out all winter long at the Lodge, flickered and danced and threw fantastic shadows over the girl who was standing near the Christmas tree.
Jack's eyes were misty as she gazed about her. Her loves were not so very many, but they were deep and strong. She cared for the old ranch house more than most girls would for a fairy palace.
Suddenly Jack heard a stamping on the porch just outside the front door and Shep's quick bark. She ran swiftly to open it. She supposed Jim had come up to the house earlier than he had promised. But it was dark and the glare of the snow for a moment blinded her.
Frank Kent held out his hand. "May I come in, Miss Ralston?" he asked. "I know it's late, but I have tramped all the way over here and it's taken a long time. I want to tell you something and I want to say good-bye."
Jack hurried Frank in near the fire. He had been to the Lodge once since Olive was found, but the girls had not seen or heard of him in several days.
Jack lit the candles on the mantelpiece and then turned to smile at her guest. Frank stared at her boyishly and then: "Gee, Miss Ralston," he exclaimed. "If you don't mind my saying it, you look perfectly ripping!"
But Jack was regarding Frank anxiously. He had a deep and rather unbecoming bruise over one eye and the other side of his face was somewhat swollen.
"What on earth is the matter with you, Frank, Mr. Kent, I mean?" Jack demanded. "You look like you had been in a fight." And Jack laughed at the thought of so well-bred a fellow as Frank Kent engaging in such a small-boy occupation.
"I have. That is what I came over to tell you about." Frank replied. "That is, I didn't come to tell you about the fight, but of something that led to it. I shall not go back to the Norton ranch again. I am through with those people forever." Frank dropped into a chair which Jack drew forward. "You see, Miss Ralston, it's like this. I have been knowing for some time that Dan Norton, Jr., was a cad, and I have had a good many scores to settle with him. But I didn't know that he and his father were thieves until to-day. I happened to be in the room next Mr. Norton's study, when I heard Dan and the old man talking about your ranch. I don't say I actually hurried away, but I wasn't going to eavesdrop. Just as I started to clear out, however, I overheard Mr. Norton say: 'Well, we've fixed them good and plenty, haven't we, Dan, Jr. Rainbow Ranch is the same as ours! I tell you might is right in this country, my lad.' I kind of stopped then, Miss Jack," Frank added. "I didn't exactly like the sound of what Mr. Norton said."
Jack had come close to Frank, but her hands were clasped behind her to hide her impatience. "Do go on, please," she urged breathlessly.
"Then Dan answered: 'You are sure right, Father. We are going to prove that Rainbow Ranch belongs to us a whole lot easier than if it really did.' I heard just exactly those words. Miss Ralston," Frank remarked, quietly. "And I am ready to swear to them in any court of law."
"Oh-h," Jack bit her lips to hide their trembling and a hot color flooded her face. "What did you hear next?" she pleaded. "Do go on."
"I didn't hear anything more," Frank answered. "I marched into their study and told Mr. Norton and Dan exactly what I thought of them. Then Dan and I got to using some language and we rather broke up the furniture for a while. Of course I can't stay in the house of a man whom I know to be a rogue. But will you tell your overseer, Mr. Colter, that I won't get too far out of this neighborhood to appear when your suit about the ownership of Rainbow Ranch comes into court." Frank looked around for his hat. "I hope you will have a very happy Christmas," he said. He held himself so erect, with a dignity of grace and breeding such as Jack had rarely seen. Before Jack realized what was happening, Frank was out of the room.
For the second time in their acquaintance, she ran after him. This time she put her hand on his and fairly dragged him back with her.
"Oh, please, please don't go. You must stay and have Christmas at the Lodge with us," Jack entreated. "We have plenty of room and we would so love to have you. Do wait here until I go and find Cousin Ruth, I know she will be more apt to persuade you to stay."