The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold

"Frieda!" Jack halloed, now frightened and running up the hill as fast as she could, but she could hardly hope to come to the rescue in time.

Blue-eyed Frieda had crawled up the side of the crag toward the spot where the goat awaited her. Instead of a shout of triumph she gave a horrified gasp of terror, never having intended to invade the castle of the particular ogre she now beheld.

At this moment a tourist, who had been wandering idly around surveying the scenery, saw the little girl and the goat. He laughed and moved quickly in their direction. Jack was also doing her level best to arrive before the tragedy, but the old goat preferred not to wait. He took a few steps forward, hunching his shoulders and sidling along, then with a snort of dignified rage and a shove of his shaggy gray head, he struck poor Frieda in the middle of her small person and sent her over the side of the rock down the hill, where she landed in a bed of the coveted bitter-root blossoms.

"If you won't cry, little girl, I'll give you something I have in my pocket," a strange gentleman said hurriedly, just as Frieda opened her mouth to bewail her misfortune. Not only was she injured in her feelings; she was hurt in other places as well, and her new bonnet hopelessly smashed in on one side. Too surprised to do anything but choke for a few seconds, Frieda let her preserver set her up on the ground and brush off some of the sand and twigs. He seemed a middle-aged man, quite as old as Jim, with iron-gray hair and dark eyes, and such a funny expression through his glasses, it was hard to tell whether he was smiling or sympathetic.

Jack now appeared and saw that her small sister was not seriously hurt. Just as she started to thank her rescuer a vision of what they had just seen flashed between them. Swiftly Jack's gray eyes darkened, her lips curved and she burst into a peal of gay laughter, which the stranger echoed until he had to take out his handkerchief to wipe his eyeglasses.

Frieda gazed at them both indignantly, then the tears which had been nobly held back rushed down her pink cheeks like the streams from a spouting geyser.

"Oh, dear me, now you are crying and I told you I would give you something if you wouldn't!" the tourist remarked hastily. Down in his pocket went his hand, and before Frieda's and Jack's amazed eyes were displayed a handful of bright jewels, topaz and jasper, agate and garnets.

Jack shook her head decisively. "No, thank you," she said. "You are very kind, but they are much too valuable for Frieda to accept. We must say good-by; our friends are signaling us."

Mr. Peter Drummond laughed good-humoredly. "Please let her have one – they are not of value," he begged. "I just have a fancy for pretty stones, like a small boy, and these have all been found in the state of Wyoming." Frieda's small hand closed suddenly over a shining bit of yellow jasper. Jack blushed, but there was no time for argument. Carlos had already sped down the hill and Jim was shouting to them. From the top of their caravan, as it took up its forward march, Jack and Frieda beheld the distinguished stranger still watching them, and waved their handkerchiefs to him in farewell.

Just before sunset the caravaners arrived in front of the hotel where they intended to spend the night. Yellowstone Lake lay a wonderful sheet of clear water at one side of them, but the travelers were weary of scenery and far more interested in the guests who crowded the hotel verandah. The women wore pretty afternoon toilets and the men white flannels, as though they were visitors at fashionable Newport homes instead of travelers in the heart of a wilderness.

"Great heavens, Ruth!" Jean murmured, as they dismounted and stood close together in a frightened group, "my legs feel as though they were going to give way under me and I am as bedraggled as any beggar maid. However are we going to have the courage to march across that wretched porch with all those people staring at us?"

"I don't know myself, Jean. I had no idea we would find so many visitors here," Ruth replied, vainly trying to straighten her traveling hat, which was considerably the worse for wear. Indeed the caravan party did look almost as disreputable as they felt in their dusty, travel-worn clothes, now brought into sudden contrast with well-dressed people.

Jack lifted her chin in her usual haughty fashion, assuming a courage she did not feel. "Oh, well, we can't stand here in the road all evening," she argued. "Jim and Mr. Merrit must see that the horses and wagon are put up somewhere, so come on, Olive, let's lead the way. At least we can be grateful that we don't know anyone here and no one knows us."

Elderly ladies raised their lorgnettes to stare at the newcomers and some young people whispered together.

"There they come, mother," a young girl cried excitedly. "I told you we would get here before they did!"

Jack and Olive had just mounted the verandah steps with Carlos, and Ruth and Jean, each holding Frieda's hand, were following close behind, when there was a soft rustle of silk across the piazza and Mrs. Harmon and her son Donald, whom the caravan party had left safe at Rainbow Lodge, stood before them. A minute later a servant wheeled Elizabeth over in a big chair.

"We just couldn't bear not to see the Yellowstone Park too," Elizabeth explained fervently. "Don and I talked of nothing else after you went away in your wonderful caravan, and at last father said mother could bring us here. It took us only a day to make the trip that has taken you more than two weeks. Aren't you glad to see us?"

Jack kissed Elizabeth hurriedly, while the rest of the party shook hands with Mrs. Harmon and Donald. The girls were too dazed with surprise and fatigue to know whether they were glad or sorry to see the acquaintances to whom they had rented their beloved home. Ruth thought Mrs. Harmon's manner a little constrained when she spoke to them.

"We don't want to haunt you, Miss Drew," she apologized, "but we were so close to this marvelous park it seemed a pity for us to miss it, and Don and Elizabeth are so in love with your ranch girls they believe they will enjoy it twice as much with you here. We came on after Beth had a letter from Miss Ralston telling her about the time you expected to arrive."

There was one member of the caravan party who had no hesitation in expressing his views of the unexpected appearance of the three members of the Harmon family. Jim was frankly displeased. "It wasn't enough to rent them our Lodge for the summer and have them drive me plumb crazy with questions before I got away," he complained to Ruth as soon as she broke the news to him, "but now we have got to tote 'em over the whole of the Yellowstone. I guess they must think I'm the original Cooks' Tour man," he growled, forgetting his newly acquired English in his bad temper.

But Ruth laughed sympathetically. "Never mind, Mr. Jim," she returned. "I am sorry myself that we can't have our trip to ourselves, but I hope pleasure will somehow come out of the presence of the Harmons here."

So far as Ruth or any member of the Rainbow Ranch family could see for many months to come not good, but great evil grew out of the entrance of these new acquaintances into their lives.