The Ranch Girls and Their Heart's Desire Part 7

"You got on pretty well, Jack, only I was not with you all of the time and don't know everything you said. I do hope you said nothing indiscreet; but I am afraid Senator Marshall and his son liked you better than Mrs. Marshall did, and that is a pity."

Jack yawned.

"Olive, was there ever so much worldly wisdom possessed by any one person as by Mrs. Henry Tilford Russell? I am sorry if you think Mrs.

Marshall did not like me, but she cannot be blamed for the fact and neither can I. As for the son, John Marshall, he is a nice boy, nicer than his father. I don't know why, but I never altogether trust Senator Marshall. However, I am talking nonsense; one talks so much nonsense at a tea party it is hard to stop immediately after. I hope Ralph is safely at home by this time. I was sorry Jean was not with us. It is so wonderful for the four Rainbow Ranch girls to be living together at the old ranch after all these years and all our experiences that I don't like our being parted except when it is unavoidable."

"Don't talk as if we were patriarchs, Jack, and as if John Marshall were a small boy and you were old enough to be his mother," Frieda protested.

"You are only a few years older than he is, after all! But it is nice to be together and I trust Ralph's arrival will cheer Jean up. She has tried not to show it, but Jean and I always have understood each other and I have seen lately that she is more worried over something than she wants anyone to know."

"Well, please give my love to Ralph if he has returned and say I shall look forward to seeing him in the morning. No, I won't come to the house. Jimmie and I want to have dinner together and an evening alone,"

Jack answered.

About ten o'clock she was sitting out on the porch of the Rainbow lodge feasting her eyes on the golden glory of the October moon floating in a heaven of the deepest blue, when she heard some one walking toward the house.

Jack was rarely afraid of the conventional things which most women fear, yet the steps seemed furtive and uncertain, so that she got up hastily.

A moment later the figure of a young fellow appeared wearing the costume of a cowboy. The moonlight shone full upon his face, yet Jack did not at once recognize him.

"'Pears as if ye didn't know me, yet I ain't surprised," he drawled. "I ain't seen you but the once when we rid over to the la.s.soing from the ranch house. My name's Billy Preston, come from the Kentucky mountains.

The boys sent me up here to make you a little present. I was going to leave it on your front porch and sneak away again, expectin' to find you indoors or mebbe not at home."

"Why a present for me? What is it? No one ever gives me a present any more, and who is it from?" Jack demanded as eagerly as a little girl.

The young mountaineer thrust something toward her, rather a large bundle it appeared in the moonlight.

"It's a new la.s.so, made of the finest horsehair in the market and sent you by the fellers who saw you ride that time. They say with a little more practice you'll learn what you set out to do. Anyhow, the fellers want me to say they are with you in anything you may be thinkin' about undertakin' out in these here parts. And say, you needn't be afraid, no matter what happens. We are all your friends; we like a woman who don't put on side and who kin ride straight and think straight and act straight. You know, I was brought up in the Kentucky mountains, and besides I fit two years in France. So I kin shoot, as we used to say down south, I kin shoot a fly off a telegraph pole, so if ever you should need any one to look after you, why, count on me."

"Good gracious, thank you and thank everybody!" Jack murmured. "I am delighted to own the new la.s.so, although I'm afraid I shall never learn to use it properly. But if the Rainbow ranchmen wish me to know they are glad I am at home again, I don't know how to thank them enough.

Please say I love every inch of this old ranch in the greatest country in the world. But I'm not thinking of any special undertaking except to live here and help a little with the care of the ranch as I once did as a girl. Just the same, I am deeply grateful for the honor you have paid me and the protection I feel sure every one of you would offer me if I should ever need it. I don't know what I should say to express my grat.i.tude, but you'll see that the men understand."

Billy Preston nodded.

"Don't you worry, Miss--Mam," he added quickly. Yet he must be forgiven his mistake for Jack looked so like a young girl standing there on the old porch in her soft black dress in the yellow radiance of the moon.

"I'll see they know you're pleased, but you ain't to disremember the rest of what I said. One ain't ever able to guess how things may turn out in this world or what troubles folks may git into."

CHAPTER VIII

AN INTERVIEW

Immediately following breakfast the next morning Jack and Jimmie went out to the tennis court near the Rainbow lodge, which they had recently been trying to get into condition. There they began batting b.a.l.l.s back and forth across the net. Not old enough to play a good game of tennis for the present, nevertheless Jimmie Kent was determined to make as good a beginning as possible and to learn whatever his mother might be able to teach him. He was very like Jack rather than his English relatives, a straightforward, determined little fellow, self-willed and frank, with a vigorous body and an ardent love of outdoor sports.

"You've missed that ball and it was such an easy one!" he called out in an annoyed tone, and then saw his mother run across the court waving her racquet.

"Excuse me for the present, Jimmie, but here comes Frieda from the big house and it is so early for her to be out that I am afraid there is something the matter."

Frieda Russell was walking a little more rapidly than usual and seemed to be slightly out of breath when her sister joined her and slipped an arm through hers.

"Nothing has happened, Frieda? Peace is all right, and Professor Russell and the others?"

The younger woman nodded and yet her face remained grave and there was a suggestion of a frown between her large clear blue eyes.

"Yes and no, Jack. Oh, I know you hate any one to speak in so non-committal a fashion and yet one can not always be so direct and so certain about things as you are. Everybody is well at the big house, physically well I mean, and yet there is something I felt I wanted to discuss with you this morning before any one else sees you. I particularly want to talk to you alone, so suppose we sit down in the hammock on the front porch and you can see and tell me if any one draws near."

A moment later, Frieda spread out her plaid blue gingham skirt with as much care as if it had been of silk and took off her big blue shade hat, holding it in her lap. She had always been extremely careful of her costume and her physical appearance as a young girl and now devoted even more attention to them, with the result that she had an air of daintiness which was very pleasing and that her skin remained as fair and soft as a baby's.

"You are rather a comfort, you know. Jack, when one is in a difficulty, not that I always rely upon your judgment, but I do like to talk things over with you and get your point of view," she began. "The truth is I am worried about Jean and Ralph. Ralph returned to the ranch late yesterday afternoon and saw Jean while we were away. I did not see either of them until later when they came in to dinner together and then I have never seen Ralph or Jean look as they did. Even Henry noticed it, and you know he notices very little that has to do with human beings. He actually inquired if they were feeling ill, which was most unfortunate, since they both said 'no,' and then tried to behave as if there was nothing the matter. They were neither of them successful. I know Jim saw there was some trouble, but Jim is so wonderful, he never has interfered in any way with us since we married. We must first give him our confidence, and even then he is very careful.

"Of course I do not understand whether the trouble is between Jean and Ralph or whether it is due to some outside cause. But I must say, Jack dear, that though she has confided nothing to me, I did think Jean's manner toward her husband a strange one. And yet perhaps I am a little suspicious or just over anxious because--well, because," Frieda hesitated a fraction of a second and then went on, "because Henry and I had that misunderstanding after we were married which made us both so dreadfully unhappy and except for an accident might have wrecked our lives. It's a funny thing, isn't it, Jack, when one marries one thinks one's problems are over. I suppose that is because one is very young, and then naturally one finds out that if the old problems are over, there is an entirely new set. Even you and Frank used to have little differences now and then! And yet here you are still little more than a girl, and a widow, with a wholly different life to live until you marry again. Don't shake your head. One never knows. You always insisted, Jack, that you would not marry when you were a girl, and yet you were married before any one of us.

"But I am wandering from my subject. You see, about Jean and Ralph, I don't know what to do, or whether any one of us has the right to attempt to secure their confidence unless they first offer it to us. At breakfast this morning Ralph Merritt announced that he was leaving the ranch again to-day and might be gone for some time. He was going to some frightfully hot place in New Mexico to see about a lately discovered gold mine, but Jean and the children would not go with him. And Jean made no protest of any kind. She did not even try to persuade Ralph to stay on at the Rainbow ranch for a few days until he had a chance to rest and they could be together for a little while. I never saw Jean behave so queerly or look so strangely. She was white and cold and severe, although she does look so unhappy, almost as if she were ill.

You know she has always cared for me more than for you or Olive, and yet when I put my arm around her this morning and asked if she felt badly, she almost pushed me away and said that I would soon grow too tired of her to care whether she were well or ill. Of course she will probably talk to me later on, yet it is funny. One might not think it, yet Jean is really more reserved than the rest of us.

"But what I am worrying over is, that by the time Jean makes up her mind to confide in any member of her family, Ralph will have gone. And if he goes, somehow I have a strange presentiment that it may be a long while before we see him again. Do you suppose you could speak to him? Ralph said this morning that he was coming to the lodge to have a talk with you as he really has never seen you alone since your arrival in this country. You and Ralph are pretty good friends! I don't know why it is, Jack, but boys and men talk to you more freely than they do to most girls or women, so will you undertake to find out what is the difficulty between Jean and Ralph before Ralph goes away? Try to learn if the trouble is some outside thing in which we could be useful. I know Jim Colter wants to offer to help Ralph, if he needs help, he admires and likes him so much, but I don't think Jim dares, Ralph looks in such an uncomfortable mood."

Without even an exclamation to interrupt her sister's story, Jacqueline Kent had listened intently, her gray eyes a little clouded, her sympathetic face responding to every suggestion.

"Yet, Frieda, you feel I ought to question Ralph when Jim, who is his dear friend, is unwilling? I am afraid not, Frieda dear. You realize I have seen so little of Ralph and Jean since their marriage, as I have been living in England and they have been in the United States except while Ralph was in service in France. Secretly I confess I am a little afraid of Ralph, more than I am of either your husband or Olive's, Ralph is so quiet and apparently so self-sufficient. If he has made up his mind to a certain action I cannot believe that any one save Jean _could_ influence him."

"Yes, but Jean won't _try_ to influence him this time, at least this is my impression," Frieda added hastily, "and Ralph feels sorry for you at present, Jack dear, and admires the way you are facing things. He said so last night at dinner, said quite plainly that he admired you more than any one of the former Ranch girls, which was not especially polite of him, although I did not mind, even if Henry was there and might feel he had made a mistake in marrying me instead of you, not that he could have married you, as you were engaged already. But I must get back home now, or else Ralph may arrive and perhaps believe I have been gossiping about him."

Hastily Frieda jumped up.

"Good gracious, Jack, isn't that Ralph on his way here this instant? It is either Ralph or some one like him! Let me slip into the house and stay there until you persuade Ralph to go for a walk, then I'll run home. I hope Jean will be too much engaged to miss me, I did not mention to any one I was coming over to the lodge. Good-by, dear; anyhow, you can do your best to follow my advice."

Scarcely a moment after Frieda had disappeared Jacqueline Kent went quickly forward to greet Ralph Merritt, who was walking slowly across one of the fields in the direction of the Rainbow lodge. At once Jack believed that even had Frieda not forewarned her, she must nevertheless have observed the trouble in Ralph's face.

"I have come to say good-by and h.e.l.lo at the same time, Jack," he announced. "Sorry not to see more of you, but I'm off for New Mexico this afternoon, I don't know for how long a time."

Perhaps there are occasions in this life when frankness may not be desirable. But the spiritual frankness of Jacqueline Kent, which did not consist of saying unkind things to people under such a guise, but of going directly to the heart of what she felt and believed and of expecting the same thing of other human beings, nearly always served.

She did not hesitate at this instant.

"Ralph, I believe you are in some kind of difficulty. I think I have guessed partly by your expression and also because you would not leave the ranch so abruptly and with the suggestion that you may not return for many months without an important reason. I wonder if the trouble is a money one, Ralph, because if it is, you must let me help you. You know I have a fairly large estate and it is costing Jimmie and me almost nothing to live here at the lodge, and Jean,--Jean has been like my sister since the days when we spent our girlhood here as the 'Ranch Girls of the Rainbow Lodge.'"

Ralph shook his head.

"You're a trump, Jack, but that is out of the question. Suppose we walk down to the Rainbow mine. I had not intended talking to any one, but perhaps it is best I should, and somehow, Jack, it is not so hard to confess one's mistakes to you as to most persons. I can't take your money because I have already lost most of Jean's and all of my own. Jean hates poverty and has lost faith in me besides. I don't altogether blame her, yet it has been hard for a good many of us to get started in the old fashion since the war ended, and these days the Government has so many regulations about mining gold that only where the output is large does the work pay. What I want to ask you, Jack, is to look after Jean and the little girls while I am away. I'll come back when I have made money, not before."

The man and girl had come to the neighborhood of the old Rainbow mine and stood near the edge of one of the disused pits.

"Yes, I understand, Ralph. Moreover, you have decided that it will not be worth while to attempt any more work in the Rainbow mine, at least not unless a new lode is discovered. Now I wonder, Ralph, if it has ever occurred to you how much Olive and Frieda and Jean and I owe to your former skill in working the Rainbow mine in the past, how much of our fortunes are actually due to you? Does that not make a difference? Are you not more willing to let me be of a.s.sistance to you until you are able to repay me? Won't you at least promise me to talk to Jim Colter and to ask his advice before you leave?"

Ralph shook his head.

"No, and even if I were willing, and I am not, Jean would never consent.