The Ranch Girls at Home Again Part 9

"Come on, Frank, let us have a real walk, it is too lovely to go back to the Lodge so soon. I want to ask you such a lot of questions and about your mother and father and Kent Place," she pleaded.

Frank's attention was not to be so easily diverted. For several moments he continued staring at the spot where undoubtedly he had heard the noise of light footsteps only a few seconds before. The sound had come from the neighborhood of the trees nearest them; but why did no figure emerge into the light or move off again in the opposite direction? The night was so bright and the air so clear that no one could have escaped without being either seen or heard. But Frank was too interested in the prospect of a longer time in the moonlight alone with Jacqueline to waste a great deal more thought upon a possible intruder. Once again he glanced back, but as no one was in sight, he and Jack were soon deep in an intimate and happy conversation.

Notwithstanding, neither the girl nor the man were mistaken in their original impression that some one had been in their neighborhood during at least a part of their conversation. For when they were both safely out of sight a slender figure stole from behind one of the largest cottonwood trees and ran off with the fleetness and noiselessness of a wild creature. There was an ugly expression on the face--one of resentment and suspicion and yet of so great unhappiness that the other emotions might have been forgiven.

For the Indian boy, Carlos, fifteen minutes before had just concluded a conversation with the only person in the world for whom he felt any real affection. And foolish and mistaken as his dream had been, it hurt no less to find it shattered.

A few minutes after dinner, when all the family were together on the veranda at Rainbow Lodge, Olive had several times noticed Carlos hovering about in their vicinity, now on a pretence of bringing a message to Jim Colter which might as easily have waited until morning, then asking some perfectly unnecessary question of her. And finally with the persistence and stoicism of his race he had planted himself like a slender and upright column against a side of the house, deliberately to wait until he could have his way.

There was not the slightest use of pretending that Olive did not understand what his intention was. Carlos wished to talk with her, wished to have an immediate answer to the letter which he had lately written her. Moreover, she feared that unless she gave in to him he might show some trace of his feeling before the a.s.sembled company.

Quietly Olive slipped over to Ruth Colter.

"Ruth," she whispered, when no one was paying any especial attention to either of them, "I have something rather important that I must say to Carlos. He is here now waiting. Do you think it would make any difference if I go and talk to him for a few moments? We won't go any distance from the house, just to some place where no one may be disturbed by us."

And Ruth agreed to the girl's request without considering it seriously.

To the older woman Carlos was only a child, sometimes rather a difficult one it was true, but at any rate only an idle, mischievous boy, whom the Ranch girls in their usual impulsive generosity had befriended and in a measure adopted. But that Carlos should think of himself as a man and actually have the impertinence to consider himself in love with Olive, Ruth simply could not have believed had she been told the truth at this moment.

So Olive, pretending to go to her own room for a scarf, had afterwards stolen out of a side door and come close up to where the Indian boy was standing.

"Carlos," she said kindly, "I would rather you did not linger about the veranda because you wish to speak to me. If you will come away with me for a little distance we can talk. I received your letter and you want to know what I think of it?"

Without a word the boy nodded, but he followed the girl for a few yards until they were standing ankle deep in the shimmering green foliage of Frieda's violet beds which were not far from the Lodge. And although in the path a few feet away there was a small bench where the girls often rested after their work among the flowers, Olive would not consent to sitting down.

Slowly and patiently as she could, she explained to Carlos the utter impossibility of his feeling for her. In the first place, he was a boy while she was a number of years his senior. Then he was completely mistaken in his idea that because she had been raised among Indian people she cared for their life or habits. Not for anything on earth would she return to their simple and primitive existence. Because Olive was essentially gentle and because her sympathy and understanding of the Indian boy's nature was a matter of experience as well as kindness of heart, she did try to take the sting away from the present situation so far as she could; yet she felt obliged to be firm, for there must be no repet.i.tion of Carlos' foolish letter to her. He must appreciate that she was fond of him because he had once befriended her in a difficulty, and that she was grateful and would always be interested in his welfare. But to care for him in any other fashion was absolutely out of the question.

Never again must he even dare to refer to the subject.

Notwithstanding her resolute att.i.tude and the arguments which she had used so forcibly, at the end of their conversation Olive did not feel sure that Carlos was as entirely convinced of the absurdity of his desire as he should have been. For she had spared him the one course open to her that might have brought him to his senses--sheer ridicule.

Therefore when Olive was back in her own room alone and undressing for the night, since she had not felt in the mood for rejoining her friends, she wondered if she had been altogether wise. Certainly she had not liked Carlos' manner, and two remarks of his near the conclusion of their talk had left her very angry.

"It is Miss Ralston who has turned you against me," he had muttered sullenly. "She don't like me, she don't understand. She thinks I am no more than a servant about her place. If it had not been for her you might have stayed always in the wilderness with me when both of us were children. Then you would never have known of your people nor learned to love the stupid white man's world. Miss Ralston is my enemy; therefore I hate her." And with these words Carlos had drawn up his lean, boyish frame with the majesty of a deposed king.

Olive's sudden wrath had humbled him for the moment at least; yet just before she turned to go he had said again with equal pa.s.sion, although his manner was quieter and more subdued.

"Then if it is not Miss Ralston who has come between us, there is some one you care for. I wonder if it can be the far-away guest and friend, who arrived this afternoon by the iron trail of the prairies?"

When Olive did not answer but walked quietly back to the Lodge, Carlos stood for a time like a bronze statue, silent and unmoving; then swift as a shadow he threaded his way between the cottonwood trees, actually observing Jack and Frank from the beginning to the end of their conversation, although hearing little of what they said.

CHAPTER XIII

A VISIT TO RAINBOW MINE

TWO days later, as things were once more in working order at the Rainbow Mine, Ralph Merrit suggested that Jim Colter bring Ruth and the girls and Frank Kent down to see how things were going. And soon after luncheon the little party started.

A trip to the mine was actually like an expedition to a foreign place, so long a time had pa.s.sed since the family had been allowed in its vicinity, and so of course everybody was in especially fine spirits. It was well to have Rainbow Mine running again and a relief to find that the striking miners had yielded to circ.u.mstances so much more readily and peaceably than their first threats suggested. They had influenced the mine workers near at home to have nothing to do with Ralph Merrit's management; nevertheless since the arrival of his new force the atmosphere about Rainbow Ranch had remained serene and untroubled, so that evidently the strikers were not to be heard from.

True, a single ugly letter had mysteriously appeared at daylight this morning left before the door of the new foreman, but except for mentioning it to Ralph, the man had paid no further attention to it. And Ralph, in the interest and excitement of getting things into working order at the mine, had given it less consideration than it deserved. For the annoyance was not so much in the threat of trouble that the letter contained, as in the puzzle of its being found at the quarters built for the Rainbow Mine workers, which were not far from the old Ranch house.

No outsider had been seen anywhere about the great ranch either on the preceding day or night.

Jim and Frank and Jack walked on ahead in order that they might have a few moments' conversation with the new miners; for no one had yet gone down the shaft into the mine. Before lunch they had been going over the machinery and seeing that the elevators for the men and for the ore were in good working order.

Now Ralph Merrit was insisting that he be lowered first into the mining pit and that his new men with their hammers and chisels and other mining paraphernalia follow after him. However, observing that Ruth and the other girls were coming nearer he went forward to speak to them. Not since the evening when he and his friend had taken dinner at the Rainbow Lodge had he seen any one of them.

"We are awfully pleased, Ralph, that affairs are straightening out so comfortably," Ruth began. "I think we owe you a vote of thanks." She had not known what had been making Ralph Merrit so unlike himself for the past few months, since neither Jim nor Jean had seen fit to confide Ralph's weakness to any one else; but she did recognize the change for the better in him today. She had never before thought of Ralph as specially handsome, yet he looked so fine and capable; his expression was so full of energy and ability that instinctively Ruth held out her hand.

"Go in and win, Ralph," she added, half laughing and half serious. "I don't just know what it is that you are fighting for, except to make more money for the girls who don't deserve it. But whatever it is I am going to put my money on you, even though betting is against my Puritan traditions; for you'll win in the end. Why, Ralph, you look like the famous statue of 'The Minute Man' near Boston, except that you have not his gun or knapsack. You're just as typical an American fighter and just as ready for action."

Crimsoning like a small boy at unexpected praise, Ralph crushed Ruth's hand in reply until she had to repress a cry of pain.

"I'm not worth the powder to blow me up if you really knew the truth about me, Mrs. Colter; but just the same any kind of fellow likes a compliment now and then, and I don't remember when I have had one," he returned.

A movement of Jean's graceful shoulders and a single glance from her demure dark eyes made the young man swing half-way around to face her.

"You are not disputing that statement, are you?" he demanded. "Why shouldn't a fellow like a compliment as well as a girl?"

Jean slipped off the big pink straw hat she had been wearing and with the velvet ribbon about it, swung it on her arm like a basket.

"Oh, I am not disputing _that_ part of your statement if you please, sir," she answered. "I am only regretting that you have forgotten all the other compliments which you have received in the past. For when I remember how many I have bestowed upon you lately, it is discouraging to think what a failure I have been in trying to make myself agreeable."

Just why recently, indeed ever since their conversation together that afternoon on the veranda at the Lodge and later here in the shadow of one of the great rocks, Jean Bruce had been trying to make herself particularly agreeable to Ralph Merrit and to win back his former attention and friendship, the girl herself did not know. On her return from Europe, after a few months at home, she had certainly discouraged Ralph's devotion, feeling instinctively that his affection for her had now become more serious than in the past when he had looked upon her as only a half-grown girl. For Jean did not wish to be unkind or unfair, and a.s.suredly Ralph had none of the things to offer her which she desired. Perhaps because of this she had talked more of wealth and of worldly ambitions than she might otherwise have done. And Ralph had either understood her intention or else had recovered from his former affection, for in the past few months, during his foolish and futile struggle for money through speculations, he had entirely ceased making love to her or treating her in any way differently from the other girls.

At heart Jean was essentially a coquette, one of those girls and women who, having once gained a man's admiration, cannot bear to find themselves losing it. And surely Jack and Frieda and Olive had often accused her of this vice.

Now, knowing that Ralph cared at present more for the successful working of the Rainbow Mine than for anything else, Jean pointed with apparently the deepest concern toward the group of new men.

"Tell us about the new miners, won't you please, Ralph," she asked, "their names and where some of them came from--anything you know? They are a splendid-looking lot of fellows!"

But at this moment Frieda interrupted the conversation to ask a question. "Who is that thin man over there all by himself in the blue overalls and old hat? Why isn't he with the others who are being introduced to Jim and Frank and Jack? I wonder if Jim knows him?"

Then, quite unaccountably, Ralph Merrit appeared extremely uncomfortable.

"See here, Frieda, I might as well tell you, for you would be sure to find out anyhow if I didn't. That fellow isn't one of the new miners.

He is Russell, the friend I brought up to the Lodge with me to dinner the other night. You see----"

But Frieda's eyes were widening and in truth the other three women seemed almost equally surprised.

"But I thought Professor Russell had gone away from Rainbow Ranch,"

Frieda protested, "why he told us good-by the night he left and said that he would have to be off so early the next morning that he could not see any of us again."

Ralph nodded. "I know," he conceded in some embarra.s.sment. "And you're still to think he has gone if you please. Don't any one of you go near enough to Russell to speak to him or he will probably die of confusion before your eyes. I am afraid I forgot he was around and he is under the impression that he is safely disguised. You see the truth of the matter is this. When Russell got me away from the Lodge the other night there is nothing he did not say to me for having taken him unprepared to a place where he had to meet four girls. He declared it nearly killed him and he had every intention of sneaking away from the Ranch house the next morning on foot rather than suffer the chance of meeting any one of you again. He is an awful a.s.s, but just the same he is a tremendously clever fellow and I was awfully anxious to show him the mine and he wanted to see it almost as much. So I persuaded him that he could just stay on at the Ranch house with me for a few days, letting you believe he had disappeared until he saw how things down here looked and worked.

I a.s.sured him no one of you ever came near the men's quarters, but now he is hanging around the mine waiting for me as I promised to take him down into the pit as soon as we start work. Don't scare him to death beforehand."

Ruth and Jean and Olive laughed, and Olive said sympathetically:

"Poor fellow, I can feel for him. I used to feel so shy that nearly all strangers made me wretched. But I don't see just why he should be so specially severe upon girls?"