The Ranch Girls at Home Again

"See here, Mr. Merrit," John Raines began quietly, "us men have been talking things over among ourselves for some time past and we have done come to the pretty positive conclusion that we don't like the way you're running things at Rainbow Mine. And we thought it might be fairer to you, all told, just to mention this little fact and to let you quit without any kind of rumpus or trouble for nobody."

Jean could not see Ralph Merrit's face or even his figure, he was so closely surrounded, but because he too was speaking so that his entire audience might hear, Jean understood every word.

"What's the trouble with me, Raines, as a boss?" he asked with such self-control and apparent lack of anger that Jean was both amazed and pleased.

Then there was a kind of low muttering among the other men and finally their spokesman went on:

"I guess you know most of our complaints pretty well by this time – we've been tellin' 'em to you long enough and hard enough. If this is a profit-sharing business, as you and Jim Colter and Miss Ralston said it was goin' to be, then you ain't gettin' gold enough out of the Rainbow Mine to suit us."

"But we are getting all we can, aren't we? You men aren't loafing with the work?" Ralph interrupted.

John Raines scowled. "That's senseless talk! You know what the trouble is; we have already gotten out most all the gold there is near the surface of the earth around here. Now what we have got to do to make it pay big again is to get more machinery and try different ways of working. And we want a boss to tell Miss Ralston and Jim Colter to get busy buying the new machinery and then to show us how to run it. We are not going to waste any more time around here on a few dollars pay a day."

From her hiding place Jean did her best to hear Ralph. Here of course was the time and place for him to make the same confession to the miners that he had recently made to her. For he did intend to do just what the men had demanded of him, resign his work and give way for a better man. Nevertheless, he evidently intended delaying a bit longer before making the confession.

"But I have explained to you men before this why I have not done what you ask," he went on, still in a reasonable tone of voice. "I told you that I did not feel certain that it was the best thing to do. We are by no means sure that there is enough gold below the present mine to make it worth while to go deeper. You men know what a lot of money the machinery for certain kinds of gold digging takes. It would probably eat up pretty much all the capital that the owners of the Rainbow Mine have. And I don't want to tell them to buy this machinery until I am a lot surer that the gold is down there waiting to be hauled out."

John Raines glanced about at the faces surrounding him. It was easy enough to take his tone from their expressions.

"Then there is no use wasting any more of our time and yours in talk, Merrit," the older man announced in a rougher manner than he had before employed. "Your sentiments was pretty well known to us before you spouted them forth. And that's just the point! You don't know what ought to be done about things and we do. And we want a man to boss us that knows same as we. Now, young man, you just get out pleasant and the quicker the better."

All over her body, to the very tips of her ears, Jean felt herself tingling with sudden, overpowering anger. Why had Ralph Merrit not said what he intended saying before now? To resign at this moment in the face of this other man's insolence, which represented the same feeling in his companions, was to behave like a small boy at school who had been stood up in a corner and soundly thrashed by his schoolmaster and then made to apologize for his pains. Jean felt that she would never care to look Ralph in the face again. But he was speaking now for the third time.

"Have Miss Ralston and Mr. Colter told you that they wanted me to quit?" he inquired. "It seems like they would have mentioned the matter to me first. I have usually taken my orders from them and not from the men under me."

There was quite a different ring in Ralph Merrit's voice during this speech that made the girl behind the rock unexpectedly put up her cold hands to cool her hot cheeks. She had heard that masterful tone before, but not in some time.

"No, they ain't said nothing yet," Raines admitted. "But it don't matter; you got to quit just the same. You can't run a gold mine by yourself with all your 'book larnin,' and it's either you or us that gets out."

"Then it'll be you," Ralph replied in such a matter-of-fact and undisturbed fashion that Jean could hardly believe she had heard him aright, or else she must have been dreaming less than an hour before.

"Look here, fellows, don't be fools," Ralph went on, still showing no loss of temper. "The hour Mr. Colter and Miss Ralston tell me they want me to give up my job at the Rainbow Mine, that hour I go. And the minute I am really convinced that another man is able to do my work better than I can, that man gets my position, if I can persuade the Rainbow Mine owners to try him. But I've got to study things out here a little longer, I've got to make some new experiments and maybe kind of feel my way slowly toward deciding what had best be done. I have been away for the past ten days studying conditions at other mines and trying to find out some of the latest ideas in mining machinery."

But the other men were making no pretense of listening and were muttering and talking among themselves as a direct and intentional insult to the speaker. Ralph waited in silence, and Jean had an intuition that the end of the discussion was about to take place. The noises that the miners were making were ugly, vicious sounds entirely unfamiliar to the girl's ears and she had no conception of what they might portend. She had a sudden fear that they might mean some bodily injury to the younger man. Then would she have the courage to rush out to his defense as Jack undoubtedly would have, no matter what overtook her?

But she was mistaken in the form of her present uneasiness.

"You can talk that way here, if it makes you feel better, young fellow," one of the other miners announced contemptuously, "but it ain't goin' to make a mite of difference in the way things has to go. We give you thirty-six hours' notice to get clear of Rainbow Mine, and if you don't, why you can stay around here and play by yourself as long as you like provided your bosses are willing to give up the gold-mining business. Because if you stay, we git out and that means there is not another miner going to be allowed down a shaft in this here mine."

"You mean," said Ralph, "that you are going to strike and make the other men boycott us. I don't believe your union will stand for it. You haven't got a kick coming to you about your hours of work, or your pay, or any of the conditions about the mine. And just because you don't think I've got brains enough for my job is no reason why you should strike. I want you to know, you fellows," and here Ralph's voice was no longer in the least conciliatory, but as firm and decisive as a judge's sentence, "I am a union man myself, but you must understand once and for all that if the Rainbow Mine owners agree to stand by me I am going to keep on with the job of bossing this mine. And I am going to keep on digging out the gold we can get with our old tools until there's a way of knowing what ought to be done next. But I think in the future it is going to suit me better to have another lot of men to work with me and I think I'll be able to get hold of them. You may go to your quarters now. I'll let you hear in the morning what Miss Ralston and Mr. Colter want to do."

And to Jean Bruce's immense amazement, though some of the men laughed rudely and others muttered threats and curses, the entire number after some delay and further discussion among themselves, walked off, leaving Ralph Merrit entirely alone. Notwithstanding, the miners were evidently unanimous in their intention.

Jean snuggled closer than before in her rocky alcove, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of their discovering her and so creating further ill feeling. Then after they had gone, and the last man of them was entirely out of sight, she still did not move. For Ralph Merrit had never stirred from his position and she did not know whether she even wished him to learn of her eavesdropping.

Ralph did not move and Jean was growing bored with her cramped position, now that events were no longer sufficiently exciting to make her forget herself. Besides, did she not really wish to let Ralph know just how she felt about him?

Curiously he did not turn around until she was within a few feet of him. Yet when he did, Jean laughed and clapped her hands childishly at the change in his expression since their interview on the veranda.

"Why, Jean, where have you come from? You did not see anybody, did you, on your way from the house? This is not a place where you should be."

Jean nodded. "Yes, I did see everybody and heard everything. Please forgive me for being a horrid spy," she confessed, "but I was hiding behind that rock the whole blessed time. And oh, Ralph, I am so pleased and proud of you! Of course Jack and Jim will stand by you to the bitter end – I should dare them not to; but then nobody need ever accuse Jim and Jack of not enjoying a good, clean fight."

Jean put her hand through the young man's arm. "Do come on back to the Lodge with me. It is almost time for the others to be coming home. You must rest a while first and have dinner and then tell them what you intend to do."

A little dazed by the girl's unexpected appearance and by her sudden flow of words, and still deeply engrossed on what had just taken place, Ralph Merrit allowed himself to be led along for a few steps in silence.

"You must think I am a good deal of a turncoat, Jean, and don't know my own mind for half an hour," he said finally. "Maybe I haven't the right after all to get you people into trouble."

Jean gave the young man's arm a vehement shake. "You haven't got the right to be anything but – a man, Ralph Merrit!" she announced. "Goodness, you don't know how ashamed I was of you and for you a while ago! I suppose it is because I am such a coward myself, because I am so afraid of rough things and rough places, that I love courage more than anything else in the world."

"Do you, Jean?" Ralph murmured almost to himself. "Well, I have been a coward in more ways than one in these past six months."

CHAPTER VIII

THE MIDNIGHT CONFERENCE

FOR hours after dinner the family at the Rainbow Lodge sat in their big living room talking over matters with Ralph Merrit. Better than he had been able to explain to Jean he now made the present situation clear to his listeners. And by his frankness in acknowledging that he had not yet been able to make up his mind as to what was best to be done for the future of Rainbow Mine he restored Jim's and Jack's full confidence.

The discussion was absorbing; only Frieda, after an hour or so of what seemed to her a repetition of the same conversation, grew sleepy and now and then dozed for a few moments with her yellow head nodding uncomfortably.

Why stay awake longer when she understood the state of things perfectly? Ralph had said that they would probably have much less money out of the Rainbow Mine for a time. Later, if he saw his way clear by spending their capital and buying new machinery, they might become a great deal wealthier. And while naturally the first of this information was discouraging, the second idea had kept Frieda quite wide awake until ten o'clock. Earlier in the evening she had felt frightened at the thought of the miners striking and the trouble that they might be going to have on the ranch for the next few days; but Jim and Jack did not appear alarmed, so after a time her nervousness was partly allayed.

They both had declared that Ralph must not for a moment consider surrendering to the men; for apparently they intended not only to dismiss him but thereafter to run the Rainbow Mine with no consideration for its owners. It might take a few days for Ralph to get together another group of capable miners, but the delay was the only annoyance. For no one appeared to believe that the old men would make trouble. They were merely trying to bluff and threaten Ralph.

Jean, having seen with her own eyes the bitterness and dissatisfaction among the workers, was not so completely convinced. Nevertheless she said nothing of her own doubt, not regarding her opinion in the matter as of special value. Moreover, she enjoyed seeing Ralph Merrit so sure of himself once more and so determined to swing things to a successful issue. It recalled the days when he had first been summoned to help them with his judgment as to whether or not Rainbow Mine contained sufficient gold to make it of importance. And what a change in their lives their wealth had created for them! At least Jean had previously believed this to be true, but studying the faces in the little group about her tonight she was not so sure of the others. Assuredly Ruth and Jim, who were sitting on a sofa with Ruth's hand slipped quietly and quite unconsciously inside Jim's, were not dependent for their happiness on the possession of a great deal of money. And there was Jack leaning both elbows on a small table nearby with her face in her hands, listening intently to every word Ralph was saying. Had she ever seen her cousin more animated or more interested? Well, she had always known that the mere spending of money had never given Jack the same degree of pleasure that it had her. It was "making things happen" that Jack cared most for, and now that difficulties were presenting themselves in regard to the Rainbow Mine, actually Jack seemed almost to be enjoying the prospect. Frieda was nodding, so that even she could not be very deeply concerned at the prospect of poverty, and Olive could certainly not be accused of being mercenary, since she was calmly turning her back on a large fortune rather than fulfil the conditions of her grandmother's will.

Jean smiled and sighed almost in the same breath. She could not pretend to any such highmindedness, she was afraid that she was the kind of girl whom she had heard people describe as "loving luxury like a cat." Certainly she did care more than she should for beautiful clothes, handsome houses, travel, society and everything that money alone could buy. And yet, after all, the wealth of Rainbow Mine was not hers: it belonged to Jack and Frieda, though they had always shared their income with her as though she had been their sister instead of their cousin. Whether their gold mine had now ceased to be of value or whether deeper down under the earth it should hold a larger fortune, was it not still her place to make her own future? With a start Jean came to herself. The clock had just struck midnight and Ralph had risen.

"As soon as things straighten out, Mr. Colter, I am going to ask you to let me send for two or three of the big mining experts. For of course you would want their opinion as well as mine. I will tell the men your decision in the morning. Thank all of you for your faith in me and good-night."

But Ralph's movement must have awakened Frieda, for she sat up suddenly and yawned. "Who is it you are going to send for to come to the ranch?" she demanded unexpectedly. "Oh, I do hope some one who isn't a hundred years old. Why can't you ever ask a young man's advice, Ralph Merrit – you are young yourself?"

And then as everybody laughed, Jack pinched her sister's inviting pink cheek.

"What a foolish baby you are, Frieda Ralston," she declared, "I hardly think that Ralph's mining experts will be of the slightest interest to you."

After Jim and Ralph had gone out in the hall together and were talking quietly Jean slipped out after them.

"Don't you think, Jim," she asked, "that Ralph had better not go down to his old quarters to sleep tonight? You know his room is in the same house with half a dozen of the miners and of course nothing will happen, but I don't believe the men are exactly devoted to him and – " Jean put her hand coaxingly on the young man's coat sleeve. "Sleep on the divan in the living room tonight, won't you? We haven't a spare room, but I assure you it is most comfortable."

Jim nodded. "That isn't a bad idea, Ralph."

But the younger man shook his head, although his eyes thanked the girl for her interest.

"No, Jim," he said, "you and Jean are both awfully kind, but the one thing that the fellows I disagreed with today must not think is that I am in the least afraid of them. Oh, I realize I am up against a pretty tough proposition – they are not the kind to back down easily and are accustomed to getting their own way, but your faith and belief in me – "

Ralph stopped, his voice a little husky. "Good-night, Jean, and thank you." Then he turned to Jim Colter. "I wonder if you would mind walking a short distance with me. There is something else I must tell you that I could not mention in there tonight."