The Ranch Girls at Home Again

And as the two men disappeared Jean had a sudden feeling of thankfulness. How curiously things turned out. If she had not chanced to be on the porch at Rainbow Lodge that afternoon she might never have heard Ralph Merrit's confession. If the men had not summoned him for their talk just when they did, Ralph would have gone away from Rainbow Mine feeling that he had made a failure of his life and of his work.

And Jean's pretty brown eyes filled with tears. They had all been fond of Ralph for several years and would have been sorry to have him vanish out of their lives. She was glad too that he had recovered from the idea that he once had of caring for her more than the other girls. Or at least Jean believed that she was glad, for it is a very rare woman who can honestly rejoice at the loss of a lover, even though he continues to be her friend.

Out in the dark together Jim Colter put his great arm across the younger man's shoulder. "Yes, I know it is more serious, boy, than we pretended in there, but I'm with you to the uttermost and things will turn out all right. It may not hurt my girls to have less money for a while, though of course it would come pretty hard on them now to be poor, after we have taught them such extravagant tastes. But in any case, old fellow, the fault will not be yours and you must not take the result too seriously."

Ralph had not spoken, but he now braced himself and drew a slow breath.

"Look here, Jim, I didn't say all I ought to have said in there with your wife and the girls – somehow I couldn't. For I let you say you would stand by me and have faith in me when all the time I knew I wasn't worth it."

Then Ralph made the same confession to his man friend and employer as he had to Jean earlier in the day. He told him that he had been speculating steadily for the past six months. To Jim's question as to why he felt he had to grow rich in such a hurry, again Ralph made no reply. When the older man put out his hand to say good-night, Ralph Merrit held it for a moment longer than usual.

"Jim," he asked, "may I make a promise to you? This has been one of the biggest days in my life. I came home this afternoon pretty well down-and-out, intending to give up my work and pretty much everything I want to attain in the world. Then – well, wonderful, unexpected things began to happen. Now I hope I am a man again. So I want to promise, not so much you as myself, that I am going to cut this speculating business out absolutely and that I am going to keep on being a man if I can manage it, no matter what happens."

There was something in Ralph's words and in his manner that made Jim's blue eyes shine and gave the extra warmth and heartiness to the farewell clasp of his hand. Moreover, he had suddenly recalled a confidence that Jack had made to him in regard to Ralph Merrit's feeling for Jean. And if ever there was a man who knew how to offer sympathy and understanding to a discouraged lover, that man was Jim Colter.

CHAPTER IX

A DILEMMA AND A VISITOR

"GREAT SCOTT," muttered Jim Colter at the breakfast table some days later, "if there was only another man around this place to take care of you women, I would not let Ralph Merrit carry so much of this burden alone. It's getting past a one-man's game to manage our present affairs."

In return Jack shook her fist at him with what was not all a pretense of indignation. "Ruth, you may not object to hearing your husband speak of you as a burden," she protested, "but I can't say I ever like hearing that I am not able to look after myself. Oh, yes, I know what the family thinks of my vanity! But seriously, Jim, there isn't any danger, no matter what goes on down at the mine, of anybody's annoying us. You need not worry over leaving us alone. I am quite sure we don't need 'another man.' The ranch is too full of them already!" And Jack shrugged her shoulders in the face of her guardian.

But from her place at the head of the table behind a big silver coffee urn, Ruth looked at the girl in the seat next her who had just finished speaking.

"I am sorry to hear you say that, Jack," she began quietly, "because pretty soon we are going to have what you and Jim are pleased to call 'another man' as our guest at the Rainbow Lodge and one whom of all others I most wish to see."

Jack was puzzled, but Olive Van Mater, with a swift glance at the older woman, felt the blood leaving her face and her hands turning cold. Her lids drooped swiftly over her dark eyes and immediately she devoted herself to eating her breakfast, though all the while she was studying Jack's expression.

At this moment a diversion was created by the entrance of a very fluffy, blue-eyed person in a pale blue breakfast toilet, who after kissing Ruth slipped into a place next her sister.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, without any suggestion of real contrition, "but since Jim makes us stay in the house so much lately there isn't any reason for getting up."

"Thank you, Frieda darling, for the pleasure you take in our society," Jean murmured, setting down her coffee cup in mock indignation. "I am sure that each and every member of your family feels grateful to you for your flattering suggestion. But since we are of no interest to you, perhaps you would like to hear that Ruth has just said we are to have an unexpected visitor – a man!"

Frieda first helped herself to the entire pile of griddle cakes. "I suppose everyone else has nearly finished," she remarked by way of explanation. And then: "Oh, I suppose the visitor is one of those tiresome men who is coming to help Ralph about the mine. I do wish things would quiet down, because as soon as our new house is finished Jean and I are dying to have a houseparty. Ralph said himself that his mining engineers were too old to be any fun – the youngest one is past thirty!"

"Yet I am still able to get about at that age, Frieda Ralston," Jim Colter protested.

At this instant Jack shook her head. "We are being very impolite to Ruth by talking so much," she declared. "Ruth was going to tell us about a new visitor and of course we are desperately anxious to hear. Who is he, Ruth, a stranger or an old friend? And where are you going to find a place for any one else at Rainbow Lodge?"

Purposely Ruth waited a moment in the silence that followed.

"I'll give you three guesses," she said finally.

"Peter Drummond and Jessica! Wouldn't it be splendid if they came to us on their wedding trip?" Jack answered immediately.

"No," Ruth answered.

"Tom, the chocolate-drop boy!" Jean exclaimed, laughing at Frieda's sudden blush.

But Olive Van Mater had put down her knife and fork and was looking quietly at Ruth. "May I have a turn at guessing, please?" she asked in her usual gentle fashion. "Isn't our visitor to be Frank Kent?"

And then as Ruth nodded with a smile of pleasure every pair of eyes at the table immediately turned upon Jacqueline Ralston.

And Jack's cheeks grew suddenly a deeper pink, like the heart of a pink rose, for she was too surprised for the present to be self-conscious.

"You must be mistaken, Ruth dear," she insisted. "Frank hasn't written me; I haven't said that he could come." And then seeing what her words suggested, she went on in greater confusion, "I thought he was to wait until our house was finished or until later in the summer or until some time," she ended lamely. "I don't understand."

"Perhaps Frank will explain to you, dear," Ruth replied carelessly. And then turning toward the other girls:

"You see Frank has been writing me about his visit for several weeks. But he and I both wanted his coming to be a surprise. He has said that he could not endure waiting longer to see his dearest friends. So a week ago when he arrived in New York he telegraphed me to know when he could come to the Rainbow Ranch and of course I said 'at once.' I rather think he may be here some time this afternoon. You won't have to worry now, Jim, about taking care of your wife and family, for Frank will – "

But Frieda was clapping her hands together with much more pleasure than that slightly selfish young person usually showed.

"Oh, I am so glad, Jack. We do like Frank better than any one we know, don't we? And if you don't, I am sure Olive does," she persisted.

Jim got up from his place. "I don't like this fashion you have, Mrs. Colter, of corresponding with gentlemen and not informing your husband, but just the same I am delighted that Kent is coming to us. It's amazing what a fine fellow he is for an Englishman, and certainly we owe him a lot. When a man marries at another's house – and such a wedding – it's hard work getting even with him!"

Out to the door Ruth followed her husband.

"I am dreadfully uneasy about this trouble at the mine. I did not dare show how much I am worried before the girls. But you must tell me just what the conditions are, Jim. You know we don't believe in marriages where the woman is shut out from facts," Ruth insisted.

For half a moment the man hesitated. Then he kissed the little woman who had to stand on her tip-toes to be on a level with his chin.

"I don't tell you the facts, Ruthie dear, because I don't know them," he answered. "How can I tell what a lot of crazy, obstinate men are going to do? But evidently the miners who deserted us have managed to intimidate the other mine workers in this neighborhood. Ralph has not been able to get hold of any men who want to work for us, and things at the mine have been idle for some time, as you know. So far, all we have been able to do is to have the cowboys do picket duty down at the mine so as to keep the other fellows from wrecking our machinery or blowing us up. There, don't turn white as a sheet, Ruth! I don't believe that the old miners are that anxious to injure us; yet we have to be on the look-out. Merrit has got to be away all day today hunting for men, so I must be on the job. Sorry I can't meet Kent, but you'll see that he is looked after all right and I'll be with you at dinner tonight. I'll bring Merrit with me if I can persuade him – he is apt to be pretty well fagged."

The greater part of the day the four girls spent together in the garden near the Lodge. It was a lovely June day, with the air full of the scents of innumerable wild flowers. And everything within the immediate neighborhood of the Lodge was as peaceful and undisturbed as though the mine were a hundred miles away. Jean and Jack at least half a dozen times confessed to the desire to walk over to the mine and see what was taking place; but since Jim had given strict orders against it they did not quite dare.

A part of the time they spent helping Frieda gather great bunches of violets from her old violet beds, which had never been allowed to die out, until the Lodge was finally filled with them and the big living room was fair and fragrant enough for any festival.

Then, when other amusements failed, there was always the new house to be investigated. It was now so nearly completed that when things quieted down at the mine again, if they were still to have a sufficient income to meet expenses, the moving into the new home was to take place.

While the other three girls were rummaging about making suggestions Jack managed to slip quietly away. She went directly to Ruth, who was in the nursery with her little son. And as Jack was never used to evasions or to trying to get her own way by indirect methods, she asked immediately:

"Ruth dear, may Olive and I drive to the station and meet Frank Kent this afternoon? I have a special reason for wishing to be there. You see, dear, I don't want Frank to think that I am not delighted to see him or that I have put off his coming to us because I had forgotten him. You knew he had been wanting to come for a long time, didn't you?"

Ruth nodded. "I had guessed it, Jack, though I did not know positively until Frank's letter to me. Nor do I know now why you put off his visit. I am not asking you to tell me," she added quickly. For, observing the sudden look of reserve on the girl's face, she appreciated that it must be respected. "Frank merely said that he wanted to see us so much, and I did not see how his coming could fail to give pleasure. You don't mind, do you, dear?" Ruth concluded, wondering if this might be the moment for confidence.

Although still keeping her clear, almost transparently honest gray eyes on her friend, Jack flushed.

"Yes dear, I do want Frank, now that Olive is here," she replied. "I meant to write him and ask him just as soon as things were quiet at the mine again. Now may we go to meet him?"

Ruth looked worried. "I have been wondering what we ought to do about going to the station all morning," she returned. "Of course some of the family must meet Frank or he will feel deeply wounded, but I can't leave the baby and yet there seems no man about the place to go with you girls. Jim has taken possession of everybody."

Jack kissed Ruth on the hair and then bent over and looked at the baby with a new expression of wonder and reverence. She had always been much more afraid of the "little Jimmikins" than the other girls.

"Don't trouble over things a minute, Ruth. You know the danger that Jim is fearful of for us is what may happen here on the ranch. But we shall be leaving the ranch as soon as we drive through the gate. Moreover, we can take Carlos with us for an escort; he is only a boy, but he will do perfectly well. And if we don't take him, it won't make much difference since he would be more than likely to follow us. As far as I can see he trails constantly after Olive like a faithful dog. It would annoy me, but I don't believe she has even noticed how much he does it. I wonder what the boy's exact reason is? Nevertheless, as it gives Carlos a regular occupation, I suppose we should be grateful."