The Ranch Girls at Home Again

CHAPTER VI

THAT SAME AFTERNOON

SINCE a short time after lunch Jean Bruce had been alone at the Rainbow Lodge, except for the presence of Aunt Ellen and the housemaid. For at about two o'clock Jim and Ruth, Frieda and the baby had driven off to pay a long visit to some old-time friends. For Ruth had not entirely recovered her strength since the baby's birth and therefore Jim was unwilling to have her far away from him.

But Jean was not lonely, or at least not for the first few hours. She had letters to write – one to her New York friend, Margaret Belknap, and another to her adored Princess, who had never wavered in her interest and affection for the American girl since Jean's visit to her in Rome.

Then, at about four o'clock, Jean strolled over to look at their new house, which seemed to have been making tremendous strides in the last few days, now that the outside had been entirely completed. She had one or two suggestions that she wished to make to the architect about her own room and this was the best hour for having a talk with him, as she happened to know that he had been spending most of the day with his men. The architect did not superintend their house building more than two or three times a week. Determined to have their new home as beautiful and as harmonious as possible, the girls, Jim and Ruth had decided upon employing the most distinguished architect in that part of the country. Theodore Parker was a Wyoming man with his central office in Laramie, and yet his work on public buildings and his creation of certain types of houses for western millionaires had given him a reputation throughout the country. So it was scarcely possible to expect him to devote a large portion of his valuable time even to the construction of "Rainbow Castle." For Jean's laughing title for their new home had somehow clung to it.

The place would probably be almost, if not quite, as beautiful as many a palace, Jean thought, as she slowly approached the front entrance. This was to have a flight of broad, low stone steps leading up to it, while the base of the house would be banked with low, close-growing evergreen shrubs.

For the outdoor work on their estate the girls had not consulted a landscape gardener, but they had studied many books and pictures of beautiful gardens and had then developed certain ideas of their own. In order to keep the view of the rolling prairies to the distant line of hills several miles beyond, the slope before the house was to be left unchanged. Here and there were flower beds in the carefully planted and tended blue grass lawn, which with constant watering and top soil might be persuaded to grow. But on either side and toward the back of the modified colonial mansion were to be the real gardens. Although the flowers had not yet been planted, bushes had been set out that were later to form green and blossoming aisles. In the preceding autumn a dozen or more large evergreen trees had been transplanted from the nearby forests, and zealously tended all through the winter, so that already they showed signs of growth.

Jean's interview with Mr. Parker was entirely satisfactory and the girl would have liked to linger and talk at greater length with the big, purposeful man, who seemed to bring to one of the noblest of all the professions the spirit of the artist, and the executive ability of the business man. But Mr. Parker was plainly too busy to give her more than a few minutes of his attention, although in their conversation they did wander from her errand far enough to permit their discussing a few of their impressions of Europe. And, oddly enough, the architect who had studied in Paris and traveled a great deal, had never been to Italy, the mother of much that is most beautiful in modern architecture.

A man of about thirty-five or six, Jean imagined he must be as she returned to the Lodge, and assuredly extremely good-looking, with his iron-gray hair, dark eyes and smooth face. One could hardly help wondering why he had never married.

At home once more, Jean suddenly had a sensation of feeling deserted and forlorn. What could she do to amuse herself? Although she insisted upon denying it to her family, certainly there were occasions lately when their former life did seem dull and uninteresting to her. Yet perhaps Jack was right in thinking that this was due to her paying no special regard to the things that were happening on the ranch itself. Should she take a walk now, or go down to Rainbow Mine to see if anything was going on? Ralph Merrit was still away, certainly for an unaccountably great length of time! And undoubtedly there was some kind of trouble brewing among the workers in the mine, though what it was Jean had not the remotest idea. Yet Jack and Jim had been plainly annoyed and concerned over some disturbance, otherwise so many consultations between them and their workmen would have been unnecessary.

But at the present moment Jean did not find the subject of the mine of sufficient interest to persuade her to walk down to it in an effort to make her own investigations. Things would clear up soon enough without her troubling. For there had to be friction every once and a while where so many people were employed.

Yawning several times, Jean finally dropped into a hammock that had been swung for Ruth on the porch at Rainbow Lodge. She was holding a magazine in her hand and reading it fitfully.

Probably Jean would have assured you that she was wearing the oldest and simplest dress in her entire wardrobe and that she really had not made any kind of toilet for the afternoon. Yet with Jean Bruce pretty clothes and a graceful and pleasing fashion of wearing them were second nature. It is true her pale pink cashmere frock was not new and was made in a straight piece with no trimming save a round lace collar and a girdle of broad pink silk ribbon. Yet Jean had wound a ribbon of the same color about her dark brown hair, until her usual pallor seemed to be warmed by its glow.

For a half moment she must have fallen asleep, for she was awakened by thinking she heard some one coming toward the Lodge. The next moment Ralph Merrit stood beside her.

He looked entirely unlike himself; his clothes were untidy; he seemed not to have slept for a number of nights; his face was worn and drawn. Jean was startled into sudden pity and interest. For Ralph had always seemed so capable and so efficient and if things worried him, he had always kept them to himself.

Now as Jean struggled to her feet he only said: "How do you do, Jean. Will you tell me, please, whether Mr. Colter is at home or whether I may be apt to find him anywhere about the ranch?"

But Jean's eyes questioned, although her lips as yet said nothing, and the young man flushed.

"I must beg your pardon for my appearance," he began awkwardly, "but I have been doing some rather hard traveling and I have not yet been to my own quarters to fix up. I had no idea of running across you." Ralph stared hard for a moment at the dainty girl slowly rising out of the hammock and then at himself. She was like the inside of a sea shell in her pink costume with her white skin and the pretty detached air she so often wore.

Ralph laughed uncomfortably and not very mirthfully.

"Won't you wait a minute, please?" Jean asked quietly. "Jim is not here and won't be for some little time perhaps. But I have an idea that you are hungry as well as tired and I have been longing for some one to drink afternoon tea with me." And before her companion could reply the girl disappeared.

Ralph Merrit fingered his hat uncertainly. He did not wish to remain and yet it would seem singularly ungracious to have Jean return and find him vanished. And since he had a confession to make, why not begin with her to whom it would be hardest to say it?

Ralph dropped into a chair on one side of a small rustic table and Jean and the tea party had both arrived before he lifted his eyes again. Under the influence of the tea, strawberries and cream and Aunt Ellen's hot scones, with Jean making herself as charming as she knew how to be, Ralph could not help forgetting for a few moments the things that were weighing upon him, while he enjoyed the gifts that the fates provided.

And Jean was truly kind, for she was shocked as well as a little bit frightened by Ralph's appearance. Naturally she was not unaware that he had once cared for her, even though he had not recently revealed it in any open fashion. And of course Jean felt that she had always regarded Ralph with the sincerest friendship.

She was hoping now that he would tell her what was worrying him as a sign that their old friendship was yet alive, when Ralph spoke.

"Jean, I might as well tell you now as a little later," he began, "it can't be delayed for any length of time at best. I am going to have to say good-bye to you all pretty soon."

Jean's hand shook a little, so that she first set down her teacup.

"You mean that you are having to go home for a visit. I hope nothing has happened to your mother or sister; I was afraid you were feeling troubled," the girl answered.

With the old decision that she remembered the young man shook his head.

"No, it is not that," he returned, "but simply that I am going to resign my position as engineer of Rainbow Mine. Fact of the matter is, I am not making good. The men don't like me, don't want to work under me, and things are in a muddle anyhow. My staying on would only embarrass Jim and Miss Ralston." (Ralph only called Jack by her grown-up title when he was considering her as his employer.)

"So you are going to quit just because things at the mine are no longer plain sailing. Is it because you have had a better position offered you? Then of course I am sure, even though it makes everything much harder for them, Jack and Jim would neither of them wish to stand in your way," Jean answered with intentional cruelty.

And the young man understood her. "That is not fair, Jean; you know those are not my reasons," he declared. "I am leaving to save Jim and Jack the trouble, not to make things more difficult. If I clear out the men will quiet down and perhaps they will get hold of some other engineer who will understand the present situation better. The truth is our old gold supply is giving out and we have got to find a different method of getting at the gold deeper down. I have been away studying how this might be done for the past ten days, but I have not yet made up my mind."

"Then stay on until you can decide, Ralph," Jean replied quietly, "or at least until you are certain that you don't know what to do. Surely you must know the situation at the Rainbow Mine better than any one else. I have been guessing that both Jim and Jack were worried, but you know they won't go back on you until the very last minute and not then unless you say the word. So I don't think I would let the other miners frighten me away. It seems to me that a man will never be able to manage other men if he turns and runs at the first approach of a storm. I should never have believed this of you, Ralph, of all people!"

With a little, quickly suppressed sound that was almost a groan Ralph suddenly dropped his head. "But a man isn't fit to govern other men if he can't govern himself, Jean," he answered.

Even the color of her pink gown did not now hide the pallor of the girl's cheeks.

"What are you talking about, Ralph Merrit?" she demanded a little unsteadily. "You behave as though you had robbed a bank or taken more than your share of gold out of the mine. I wish you would not be so absurd – I do hate uncomfortable people."

The man got up. "I am sorry, Jean, and I did not mean to trouble you with my personal confession," he went on, "though I thought it only fair that I should tell Jim Colter. No, I have not been robbing anyone except myself and my own family, though the men may be saying even that of me soon," he added bitterly. "But the truth is that I have been speculating until I have lost every red cent that I have earned and I don't think a man who has been as big a fool as I have has the right to try and hold down a job the size of mine."

"You have been speculating!" The girl repeated the words almost foolishly, as though not understanding at first what they meant. Then she flushed angrily. "Ralph, what a perfect goose you have been! For goodness sake tell me what ever induced a sensible, level-headed fellow like we all believed you were to do such a stupid thing?" Jean demanded.

But this was the one question which of all the questions in the world Ralph Merrit could never answer Jean truthfully.

"Hush, never mind!" Jean interrupted hurriedly, for she could see what her companion had evidently not yet observed and that was that another man was at this moment approaching the house. His face had looked ugly and forbidding, but at the sight of Jean he raised his hat.

The girl recognized him as John Raines, a man of about fifty years of age and a kind of leader and spokesman among the other miners.

"Beg your pardon, Miss," he began stiffly, "but having just heard that Mr. Merrit has returned to the ranch, I want to ask him if he will come and have a little talk with some of us men. We've been waiting for this talk for a considerable time."

Ralph stepped down from the porch at once. "Certainly, I will come along with you now," he answered quietly. And then turning to Jean and with a gesture asking that she excuse him, the young man followed the older one. And Jean could not but notice how slender and boyish and, yes, how spent he looked as he walked behind the big, heavy miner, with arms and chest so powerful that he seemed able actually to have crushed the slighter man like a great bear, had he so desired.

What could the miners be wishing with Ralph that they must see him at once, now when they knew that Jim Colter was not on the ranch?

Without trying to answer the question herself and only lingering long enough to fasten a dark coat over her light frock Jean hurried after the two figures, taking care, however, that neither of them became conscious of her presence.

CHAPTER VI

"COURAGE MAKES THE MAN"

THERE were as many as twenty men waiting to talk to Ralph Merrit within the vicinity of the Rainbow Mine. And they chanced to be standing close together near one of the big rocks that rose like a miniature fortress beside Rainbow Creek. After Ralph had entered the group, Jean managed without being observed to slip behind this rock where she was in safe hiding.

But just why she had followed the two men and what her motive was for concealing herself she did not try to explain to herself. Simply she had yielded to an impulse of fear, of curiosity and perhaps to some other instinct that was partly protective. One young fellow among so many older, rougher and more lawless characters! What might not happen to him?

And yet Jean Bruce had not her cousin Jacqueline's physical bravery nor determination of purpose, and moreover she had an openly expressed dislike of mixing herself up in the things which she did not consider essentially feminine. However, she had no idea now of letting anyone guess her nearness, not even Ralph Merrit himself.

Sitting down on the ground in a kind of scooped-out cave in a rock she could occasionally manage to get a glimpse of the miners, although at present while they were talking quietly she could only rarely catch a word or so of what they were saying, and not a sound from Ralph, who seemed the calmest and most self-controlled of them all. After a while she realized that John Raines, the man who had been sent to summon her companion, must now have been chosen as spokesman for the lot and was evidently making his voice sufficiently loud for them all to hear distinctly. And this of course included the unknown listener.