The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold Part 17

She had not been able to sit up since the accident.

A week before the ranch party left the hotel, the Harmons went back to the Lodge. When Don and his mother found they could be of no service, it was thought best to take Elizabeth away, for she had never ceased to insist that the tragedy was her fault and to demand to see Jack; and this was impossible. But Mr. Drummond had stayed on and on. Even after he had seen Jack safely moved he seemed unwilling to leave. The little house was so tiny that there was only room for them and on the front porch for one cot and one chair, but he lived at a hotel and came each day to talk to the invalid and to take the other girls for long walks.

Peter had a long, confidential talk with Ruth and Jim, and made them promise that unless Jack grew better after the summer's rest they would bring her on to New York in the fall to consult with famous specialists.

He did not dream that they would have to sell a part of the ranch to manage it; but this was what they had quietly made up their minds to do, although Jack was not to be told, for fear of upsetting her, and Jim did not mean to close the bargain with Mr. Harmon until he was able to get back to the ranch.

The tiny house had been a haven of refuge for two weeks when Peter Drummond found that he was obliged to leave. He had persuaded the girls and Ruth to go for a last walk with him, leaving Jim as Jack's guardian.

She was asleep on the porch when they slipped out the back door so quietly she had not awakened.

You would hardly have known Jack, so great a change had the last few weeks wrought in her. She had suffered a great deal and the radiant color had gone from her face, leaving it white and drawn; her full, crimson lips were pale and drooping now; her dark, level eyebrows looked like thin lines of black penciling and her lashes made a shadow against the pallor of her cheeks. Only her hair, the color of burnished copper, shone with its old beauty. It was Olive's special care, and now hung in the two familiar braids almost reaching to the porch floor.

Jack had been awake for some time before Jim realized it. She had been very quiet during her illness, and to the relief of them all had asked no questions about herself, apparently taking it for granted that she was not to be allowed to sit up and could only be moved lying down.

Jack's leg was in a plaster cast and her friends believed she regarded this as a sufficient reason for being kept perfectly quiet. Yet all the time she knew that had her leg been the only trouble she would have been allowed to get about on crutches and to sit up to eat her meals, instead of being eternally propped on pillows when she tried to stir.

Jack had asked no questions, because she did not wish to give anyone the pain of telling her the truth until she was strong enough to bear it.

But there had not been a waking hour in the day or night when the vision of Elizabeth Harmon's misfortune had not been present before her mind, and the idea that she might have a greater sorrow to face. Frank Kent had telegraphed to ask if he might come to his friends, but Jack had asked that he wait; she could not bear to see even him just yet.

Jim Colter's eyes were fixed on Jack as sadly and tenderly as her father's could have been, had he been alive, when unexpectedly she lifted her lashes and her gray eyes met her friends with their old brave spirit. She stared a long time with her lips twitching before she spoke.

"What is it, boss? You've got something on your mind that you want to speak about, haven't you?" Jim inquired gently. "The girls think it's a good sign you don't ask questions, but I'm not so sure. You are like some men. Dear, I know you. You can take your medicine when you have to, but you can't be left in the dark. Ask Jim anything you like, and I promise I'll tell you the truth."

"Are we by ourselves?" Jack asked huskily, and Jim nodded. "Then will you tell me please if I am ever going to be able to walk again?" she queried without hesitating or faltering, keeping her clear eyes still on Jim's.

"We don't know, Jack," Jim replied, like a soldier, "but I believe you will. The doctors we have seen out here don't seem able to say just what is the matter with you. They tell us to give you a chance to get stronger this summer and then take you east."

Jack closed her eyes for a few moments and lay perfectly still. Then she opened them and smiled a queer, little, twisted smile. "We haven't got the money to take me east, pard," she murmured, "and don't you sell any part of our ranch. I'll fool the doctors yet, but if I've got to be--ill," Jack ended, "why I'd rather be sick at home than any place in the world."

Jim cleared his throat and moved his chair so his companion could not look directly at him.

"Pardner," Jack said a few minutes afterwards, "I don't want to be impatient, but I do want to go home _now_. Couldn't you write and ask Mr. Harmon to give up the ranch a little sooner than October? They can't want to be at Rainbow Lodge as much as I do." She looked at the dark hill that rose straight up in front of their tiny verandah and dreamed of the beautiful, s.p.a.cious piazza in front of her home, with the grove of cottonwood trees ahead and on every side the stretch of the broad, wind-swept prairies, and sighed.

Jim felt such a rush of anger that his collar choked him. "I have written Mr. Harmon to ask him to let us come back; I knew you was homesick, boss," he returned slowly. "But Mr. Harmon says he can't give up the Lodge until his contract is over, says it's doing his daughter such a lot of good and she hasn't yet recovered from her nervous shock.

Fine behavior from a man, when you saved his child's life!"

In half an hour, Ruth, Mr. Drummond, the girls and Carlos came trooping back from an effort to buy out the village. Peter was going to say good-by to Jack, and, as Ruth saw she was even paler than usual, she persuaded Jean to take the two children indoors. They had brought Jack everything they could find in the town, and Olive had a large package addressed to her friend in Elizabeth Harmon's writing, which she found at the post office. Listlessly Jack allowed Olive to cut the string and unwrap the pasteboard from about the flat envelope. Then Olive held up before them all a new and beautiful photograph of the Rainbow Lodge--Aunt Ellen and Uncle Zack were standing in the yard, old Shep was resting on the steps of the porch and there was a suggestion of Jean's and Frieda's violet beds to one side. Poor Elizabeth had thought to give Jack a pleasure, but instead the sight of the home she longed for so intensely was more than the girl could bear after the strain of the afternoon. Suddenly she gave way and sobbed as she had not done since her accident. "I want to go home, I want to go home," Jack repeated, like a sick child.

Ruth dropped on the porch, hiding her face in the shawl that covered Jack. Olive and even Mr. Drummond were too choked to think of anything comforting to say. And as for Jim Colter, he got up and stalked off the verandah, marching up and down in the little yard like a caged animal whose anger and bitterness cannot be quietly endured.

Five minutes later it was surprising to see him reappear with a radiant expression, every wrinkle miraculously smoothed out of his face and his blue eyes smiling. He sat down in his chair and tenderly patted Jack's hand, then struck his knee with such a resounding clap that everybody jumped and Jack laughed.

"What is it, Jim?" she inquired. "I am sorry I have been such a goose."

"Why, I have just been thinking what a parcel of idiots we are," he said happily. "You girls ain't ever thought much of it, but I want you to know that Rainbow Lodge ain't the only house on our place. What's the matter with the rancho? We ain't rented _it_ to the Harmons, and the cowboys would be only too glad to turn out with me into some tents and hand our house over to you girls. What do you say to our taking the train for the Rainbow Ranch about the day after to-morrow? That will give me time to telegraph the boys to vacate. Think you could manage to make the trip in a sleeper, old girl, with me to see after you?" he demanded of Jack.

And the radiance of Jack's face, into which a slow rose color was creeping, was enough answer for them all.

CHAPTER XX

FRANK AND JACK

"Olive, Frank, Jean, what's the use of being a professional invalid if I'm to be shamefully neglected?" a gay voice called, and Jacqueline Ralston, who was propped up in a big steamer chair on the porch of the rancho, banged the book she had been reading violently against the railing. A bright colored Mexican shawl covered her knees, she wore a red rose stuck carelessly in her hair, and the verandah on which she was enthroned was like a Spanish, American and Italian curiosity shop. Its rough wooden floor was overlaid with many varieties of Indian blankets, its walls were decorated with arrows, old pistols, a splendid pipe-rack of carved wood filled with discarded pipes, and the skins of wild animals. Every treasure possessed by the cowboys at the rancho had been brought forth to make an outdoor living room for "the boss," which had always been their t.i.tle of affection for their youthful employer. Two beautiful Spanish crepe shawls were draped artistically over the back of Jack's chair. Years before they had been purchased by two of the boys at the rancho from some Spanish peddlers and now, much to Jack's regret, they insisted that the shawls form a part of her porch decoration. On a table near the invalid sat a big Indian basket of sunflowers, another of oranges and grapes; a pile of magazines, which Frank Kent had ridden many miles to find, lay near a box of candy from Elizabeth Harmon and a vase of red roses sent by Peter Drummond all the way from California.

And yet Jack was feeling aggrieved.

The ranch girls had been for little more than a week at the rancho. The third day after their arrival their old friend Frank Kent had appeared, refusing to be kept away any longer. He had expected to find a place to board in the neighborhood so that he could drive over each day to see the girls, but Jim had stored him away in one of the tents, saying he thought it good for the son "of a n.o.ble lord" to try roughing it, but really knowing that it would give Frank great pleasure to be with them.

And until this morning Frank had never gotten without the sound of Jack's voice if he thought there was any possibility of her needing him.

Jack was already much better and able to sit up with something to act as a brace behind her; she had more color and was beginning to be her old impatient self. Early in the day she had persuaded Ruth to ride out over the ranch with Jim. Ruth was tired, having unpacked and settled them at the rancho, and, besides, Jack was bored with Jim for being so slow in coming to the point with Ruth and wanted to give him another chance. She and Jean had been dreadfully disappointed that nothing had happened on their caravan trip, but Jack had not expected, when Ruth left her, to be deserted by the other ranch girls and Frank, for they had been given strict orders to stay at home and amuse her.

There were no trees to be seen from the front of the rancho as there were at the Lodge, but Jack could feast her eyes on the wide stretches of her beloved plains and see the cattle grazing in the last crop of alfalfa gra.s.s, which grows in fullest abundance in late August and is the color of amethyst. No human being was in sight but Carlos, who was playing with a rough, gray-furred animal that looked like a cross and overgrown puppy. It was the baby wolf Carlos had found in the woods on the day he deserted Jack at the gold mine. The boy had desired to introduce it as a member of the caravan family, but, as it had not been found a cheerful traveling companion, Jim had shipped it home to the rancho and the cowboys had been amusing themselves with it. It growled and snapped and bit at everybody who came within reach of its chain, but in queer, silent Carlos it recognized a master spirit in the kinship of the wilderness and played with the boy in a perfectly tame and friendly way, as though he were its big brother.

"Come here, Carlos," Jack cried, "and please tell me what has become of everybody. There doesn't seem to be a soul around the place except you."

"I was told to stay near you," Carlos answered obediently. "Miss Jean said they were just homesick for a sight of the ranch and were going for a little walk. They would be back before you could miss them, for the two ladies from Rainbow Lodge are coming to see you. They should have come before so long a time."

"How did the girls and Mr. Kent get away without my knowing?" Jack demanded wrathfully.

"By the trail that leads from the back door," Carlos returned calmly, and then as Jack seemed to have no more questions to ask, he returned to playing with his wolf dog.

Jack's face clouded and she sighed mournfully.

"How beastly selfish of everybody to leave me alone!" she thought angrily. "Ruth and Jim would be awfully cross if they knew. Of course Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth are nice and sympathetic, but I don't feel as though I wanted to see them to-day. Beth isn't half so difficult as she used to be and is ever so much stronger, but she will talk about our accident all the time and Mrs. Harmon looks like she wanted to cry every time she glances at me. Oh, dear me, how I do hate to be pitied--it is almost the hardest thing I have to bear! I wonder if I ever will get used to it." And Jack put her thin hands, from which the brown strength had faded, over her flushed cheeks. "Anyhow, I am glad Jim has promised to wait a little longer before he sells any part of our ranch to the Harmons, though he says Mr. Harmon has offered him more money if we will make up our minds at once. I suppose if I don't get a lot better pretty soon I will have to give up in the end and let Jim sell, since everybody wants to except me and I know they want to do it on my account."

For a few minutes Jack tried to find solace in the pages of her discarded book, but she sighed so heavily that the leaves fluttered.

"It's the dullest thing I ever read in my life," she said resentfully.

"How I hate stories about wooden girls, who never have adventures or excitement in their lives, but just go to sewing circles and nice little picnics, where grown people preach to them about feminine ideals! It's like that tiresome poem, 'Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,'--as though one couldn't be good and clever too! There is no special glory in being good just because you are dull, and I sha'n't be any longer," Jack announced, flinging her book against the wall of the rancho with all the force she could muster.

"What's the matter, Jack?" Frank Kent asked, suddenly appearing around a corner of the house. "Do you wish anything?"

Jack had the grace to laugh at herself, though her eyes were filled with tears. "No, there is nothing really the matter, Frank. I am not in pain nor anything like that," she answered, "so you need not look so sympathetic. I have just been feeling sorry for myself because all of you were wicked enough to take a walk about the dear old ranch when I could not go with you. And I used to think Elizabeth Harmon dreadfully silly when she was cross or complained. You see, I am finding out it is much easier to preach than to practice."

"Why, Jack, you didn't think we would be horrid enough to desert you,"

Frank protested. "It is rather my fault that you have been by yourself this long. Jean and Olive and I talked things over and thought it would be all right, so I sent them off for a walk with Donald Harmon and I slipped up to the Lodge and borrowed Elizabeth's cart. How would you like to drive down to Rainbow Creek and see if we can find the others?"

Frank suggested casually, as though his request was a perfectly ordinary one.

Jack stared at him in amazement, her face radiant with pleasure, and then she shook her head nervously. She never had been farther than the front porch since her arrival at the rancho and now felt afraid to make the attempt.

"I don't think I dare try it, Frank," she returned wearily.

"All right. What shall we do--read or play cards or just talk?" he demanded cheerfully.

"Just talk," Jack answered. "Isn't it dreadful, Frank, but I have never liked sitting-still things in my life, reading or sewing or quiet games.

Maybe my being sick will give me a chance to improve my mind," she added more courageously, seeing a shadow cross Frank's face.

At this moment Elizabeth Harmon's low governess cart drawn by a small ranch pony and driven by Uncle Zack came trotting down the road which led from the Lodge to the rancho.