The Ranch Girls in Europe Part 12

Jack shook her head. "No, no, Frieda, not for another week or two," she protested. "I am sure there are still lots of things that we ought to see."

"There would be if we stayed here until we died," the younger girl grumbled. "Look here, Jack, you know you like to preach to me sometimes, though you are mostly pretty good about it, now I would like you to remember our compact. Didn't we promise that if three of us decided that we wanted to go to a certain place or do a certain thing the other two had to follow suit. So if Ruth and Jean and Olive and I are weary of Rome and want to go away, don't you think it your duty to do what we like? Just think it over, dear!" And Frieda popped a chocolate drop into her sister's mouth and then one into her own with instant promptness.

Jack got up and moved toward the door. Somehow, in the face of the question she was now having to solve, Frieda's reference to their compact seemed childish and absurd. Could she actually have felt young enough not a month ago to have entered into such an agreement with all seriousness? And yet to give one's word was final.

"All right, Frieda baby," Jack a.s.sented, as she was about to cross the threshold, "if the others really do want to leave Rome now, it would not be fair to keep you here on my account. Wherever you go I will come along."

When Jack had finally disappeared and was safely out of hearing, Ruth turned from pretending to stare out the window and gave Frieda an ecstatic hug. "That is the best thing that has happened to us this day, baby!" she exclaimed, not pretending to explain her remark.

Frieda received the mark of affection placidly; she was perfectly accustomed to being embraced by her family at unexpected moments.

"Yes, I thought it would be best to get Jack away from the chance of seeing him, though I did not want her to guess that was our reason," she remarked sagely. "Of course Captain Madden is Jack's first truly beau and she takes love and things like that so seriously. She and Olive are not like Jean and me. She'll get over it, though, I am pretty sure, if we can only get her into the country where she can hunt and fish and do the things she used to do. The sky is too blue and there are too many flowers in Italy."

Then Frieda went on pensively devouring dozens of chocolates, while Ruth retired into her own room to lie down. She was half amused and half aghast at Frieda's sudden burst of worldly wisdom. Indeed, she was not at all sure whether she wished to shake the youngest of the Ranch girls or whether she desired to embrace her again.

CHAPTER XVII

THE OVERSEER OF THE RAINBOW RANCH

"OH," sighed Frieda sleepily, "isn't it too delicious to hear the American language spoken once again!"

Ruth and the three other Ranch girls laughed almost as sleepily as Frieda had spoken. They were on the night train coming up from Folkestone to London, after having crossed the English channel from Boulogne earlier in the afternoon. It was now the first week of June.

"Bravo, Frieda!" teased Jean. "One can always count on the younger Miss Ralston's saying _the_ memorable thing as soon as the Rainbow Ranch party arrives on a new soil. Who would have thought of the American tongue being employed in the British Isles. I shall mention it to Frank Kent as soon as we see him."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't be funny, Jean Bruce," the first speaker protested, "for you know exactly what I mean. I suppose I should have said the English language. But even if the English do speak deep down in their throats and their voices are kind of choky and queer, at least one can understand what they mean without consulting a dictionary or trying to remember something one has learned at school. After having heard nothing but Italian, German and French for over two months, I could almost have hugged that porter who carried our bags off the boat."

Frieda had been resting her head on her chaperon's shoulder, but now lifted it to continue her argument with Jean. However, Ruth drew her back to her former place.

"Don't be a purist at this late date, Jean," Ruth murmured, shaking her head in a kind of mild reproof. "I must confess I am feeling pretty much as Frieda does. English or American, whichever you may prefer to call it, after our continental wanderings, England does seem almost like home."

And Ruth closed her eyes, she and Frieda both dropping off into a gentle doze, while Olive and Jean talked in whispers, and Jack stared out of the window into the darkness.

Since leaving Rome, the five young women had become proverbial Cook's tourists. They had been traveling almost continuously, sight-seeing during every possible hour, and allowing no time for loitering. For after Rome had followed Florence, Venice and then Paris, until now they were on their way to spend the fashionable season in London.

Such rapid journeying had not been Ruth's original idea, but somehow after Jack's experience in Rome it had seemed best to keep her constantly busy, allowing as little time as possible for reflection or argument.

Faithful to her word, Jacqueline Ralston had not seen Captain Madden since the afternoon of her talk with Ruth. At that time, it is true, she had promised to wait only until an answer could arrive from her own and Ruth's letters to her guardian, Jim Colter, but later she had made a further promise to Jim.

Almost from the day of his arrival at the Rainbow Lodge, the overseer of the ranch and afterwards the girls' devoted protector and friend, had had a peculiar understanding of Jack's character. When she was a small girl, insisting on some order of hers being obeyed or angered because it had not been, Jim's "Steady, boss!" used always to help her control herself. For reasonableness was ordinarily one of Jack's strongest characteristics. Always she wished to be just and patient. Her wilfulness came not so much from original sin as because she had had too much her own way as a child and had had to depend too much on her own wisdom.

Her mother had died when she was a very young girl and her father not so many years after. Why, when Jacqueline Ralston was fourteen, virtually she was, under Jim's guidance, the head of a thousand-acre ranch, and a kind of mother to little Frieda and Jean.

So, though Jim Colter was more broken up by the news in Ruth's and Jack's letters than he had been by anything since Ruth's refusal of his love, he wrote to Jack with more tact than you could have expected from a big, blunt fellow like Jim.

It took him almost one entire night, however, to write the letter.

For one thing, he did not say that he believed just what Ruth Drew had written him of Captain Madden, nor did he mention Frank Kent's information, which painted an even worse picture of Jack's friend. Nor did he demand that Jack immediately break off her engagement or stop writing Captain Madden. He simply suggested, as he had in the old days at the ranch, that "the boss go slow" and would Jack agree not to see Captain Madden and not to think of him more than she could help, until Jim himself could find out something more about him? For of course Frank Kent might be prejudiced and Ruth might be mistaken. Jim would see to the whole matter himself, and Jack could surely count on his wanting to give every man a square deal.

Jack had at once agreed to her guardian's request. She realized that Jim's efforts must take time, as he was a long way from proper sources of information. So she had meant to be and had been very patient, trusting that Jim would never believe Captain Madden the kind of villain that Frank Kent had declared him.

Jack was reflecting on this now as the lights from hundreds of small houses along the line of the road blinked at her like so many friendly eyes. Probably Jim would let her hear what conclusion he had reached some time during their stay in England. She was rather dreading this visit to London. For not once had she seen Frank Kent since their interview in the hotel sitting room in Rome. Frank had come to say good-bye the next day, as he was leaving that evening for home; but Jack had excused herself from meeting him. Now there would be no way of escaping, for Frank was Ruth's and the other girls' devoted friend, as he had formerly been hers. They would want to be with him as much as possible. Jack glanced at Olive. Had she not imagined several years ago that Olive liked Frank better than any other young man of their acquaintance? Certainly she had seemed to prefer him to Donald Harmon, in spite of Don's devotion.

Well, for the sake of her family, she must conquer her own unfriendly att.i.tude. Candidly, she was sorry not to be able to like Frank herself as she once had. How much they had used to talk of her first visit to England! Then Frank had insisted that Ruth and the four Ranch girls were to make a long visit at his country estate in Surrey. He wished them to know his family intimately, as for several years he had been talking continuously of his western friends. Jack regretted the loss of this visit. Frank had made her almost love his beautiful English home in his homesick days in the west, when he was ill and had chosen her for his special confidante.

Just in time, a sigh that was about to escape into their compartment was surrept.i.tiously swallowed. Ruth was stirring and begging Frieda to wake up. Olive and Jean were dragging down luggage from the racks overhead. And where the twinkling lights outside had been hundreds, now there were thousands. They must have reached the outskirts of London and would soon be entering the Charing-Cross station.

"I believe," announced Jack, who had not spoken for the past half hour, "that I have more real feeling about seeing London than any other city in the world. I think we have something more in common than just the language, baby." And she helped Frieda get into her traveling coat.

Perhaps Ruth had been asleep, for she appeared more than commonly flurried. "I hope you girls understand just exactly what we are to do,"

she began nervously. "I declare, I don't consider that I shall ever make a successful traveler, I do so hate the excitement and responsibility of arriving in places. I wish now I had allowed Frank to meet us. He was good enough to offer to come in from the country, but I declined."

"But, my beloved Ruth, what have we to do but get ourselves and our belongings into cabs and drive to our hotel? I will manage if you prefer it," Jack proposed.

Their train had stopped and a guard was opening the door. Several porters soon had their bags and steamer rugs, and almost before they were aware of what they were doing the five young women were following the men down the station platform, Jack in advance, Ruth and Olive together, and Jean and Frieda bringing up the rear.

Once inside the gate, however, the four girls were startled past speech on seeing the usually dignified Jack stop for an instant, clasp her hands tight together, then stare and with a cry rush forward and positively fling herself into a tall man's arms.

Their silence and stupidity only lasted for an instant. Ruth was next to run after Jack and seize the man's one disengaged hand.

"Oh, Jim, oh Mr. Colter, why didn't you tell us you were coming to London? I never was so glad to see anyone before in my life!" And this from the former dignified "school marm." Probably Ruth had never forgotten her reserve so completely in her life as at this moment. Tears of delight gathered unheeded in her eyes.

Jack and Ruth were both swept aside by the onslaught of Frieda, Jean and Olive.

"How on earth did you decide to come? When did you come? Why did you come?" Jean demanded all in one breath and then stopped to laugh at herself.

Jim was staring at the little party critically. He looked more western and unconventional than ever in his big, broad-brimmed, felt hat, his loose fitting clothes, with the tan of his outdoor life still showing on his strong, handsome face.

Jim's deeply blue eyes suddenly crinkled up at the corners in a way they had when he wanted to laugh or to show any particular emotion.

"Well," he drawled in his slowest and most exaggerated cowboy fashion.

"I've been thinkin' lately that I was gittin' a bit tired of bein'

everlastingly left at the post. Seems like you been acquirin' so much culture and clothes I was kind of afraid you might not want to know me when you got back to the ranch. I ain't so sure about the culture, but I'll capture the glad rags all right soon as you girls are able to go on a shoppin' party or so with me." And Jim, glancing at an Englishman just pa.s.sing them, attired in a top hat and frock coat, pretended to wink.

No one was deceived in the least by his poor pretense of a joke. Jim was really so much upset by the pleasure of seeing Ruth and the girls that he was talking foolishness to cover his emotion.

Frieda's break, therefore, saved them all "Oh Jim, won't you look too funny, dressed like a gentleman!" she exclaimed, and in mock wrath Jim marched the five of them off to their cabs.

CHAPTER XVIII

RELIEF OR REGRET?