Margaret Vandercook

“ Elizabeth spoke the last words gently and Jack tried to conceal it, but her hostess knew that the girl with the sympathetic warm gray eyes understood why she preferred to meet strangers in a semi-darkness.
Elizabeth was not a pretty girl. Her eyes were too pale a blue and she looked too ill for beauty; besides, her face had a wilful and unhappy expression, and yet, in spite of these defects, she had a curious kind of grace and charm.
Jean and Olive were trying vainly to pick up the shattered teacups, so it was Jack who first saw Elizabeth Harmon's dilemma. ”

“ Silently Jack bowed her head.
"You won't," the fortune teller went on solemnly; "you will travel over a great part of the world and you may settle in a strange land. Anyhow, I can see that you'll marry and have sons and——"
Jack blushed resentfully and the gypsy's beady eyes twinkled, for she was a good enough judge of character to guess the elder Miss Ralston's views on matrimony, merely by observing her pride and reserve. It was true that Jack had vowed to the other girls a hundred times that nothing and nobody could induce her to marry; she had more important things to do. ”

“ Jack's eyes flashed with indignation and Olive flushed, with the soft color that was peculiar to her rising in delicate waves from her throat to her forehead, but mischievous Jean giggled. "Is it the custom to bump into people in the place you do come from?" she inquired innocently. "Because, crude as we are, it isn't the custom here."
Jack frowned at Jean's frivolity, indicating very plainly that Miss Bruce was not to enter into a conversation with a stranger, but she need not have worried, because the young man was not paying the least attention either to her or Jean. ”

“ Flying along on feet unconscious of fatigue, fighting through the storm and darkness and calling aloud when she had the strength, in about an hour Jack reached the ravine. No actual sight of the trail had guided her, but an instinctive feeling for the right direction. Now she sat down for a few minutes in the shelter of an overhanging rock, hoping the storm would blow over or that Jim would find her. But the thunder crashed on, and the wind in the jagged rocks of the ravine moaned and sighed like lost souls wandering in the walled chambers of the canyons, crying for release. ”

“ The ranch girls were unusually restless. Jean especially was like a will-o'-the-wisp, never still for an instant. "Do let's go out for a walk; I feel as if I should stifle indoors," she begged.
"Isn't it too cool?" Ruth objected faintly. "Remember how great a change always comes here at night, no matter how warm the days have been. I should think the sudden coolness in the evening would be awfully trying for travelers on the prairies."
Jean cast a tragic glance at their chaperon. "Oh, no, Cousin Ruth, I assure you the nights on the plains are simply glorious! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Poor Jean was forcibly dragged from her resting place by Olive and Jack, and the three girls set out down the street again, gazing in all the shop windows. "For mercy's sake, what kind of a store would keep a sleeping bag, Olive?" Jean inquired mournfully, leaning heavily upon Jack, who walked next her. "I have seen a punching bag in Jim's room at the rancho, and I have heard somewhere of carpet-bags, but I have no more idea of what a sleeping bag is like than the old man in the moon." ”

“ Jack suggested carelessly.
Picking up the old pan, the young man clambered easily into the open ledge of rock and got down on his knees among the bits of gravel and loose earth. The sun must have been shining more brilliantly on Rainbow Creek to-day than it ever shone on the rainbow rocks of the Yellowstone Park, for Frank imagined he could see tiny yellow veins running like threads through the big, gray rock and grains of golden dust mixed with the sand and pebbles in the crevices. ”

“ Suddenly a roar, like a giant's snort, came from beneath the earth and almost instantly steaming water began to rise through the mouth of the cone in glistening, gleaming bubbles, then a giant cataract reared itself. Jack and Peter Drummond had been too surprised at the geyser's sudden display of its powers to get off their horses at once, and Jack's thoroughbred was not trained to endure any such exhibition of [203] the unknown forces of nature. ”

“ I've got some harness to mend and a lot of odd jobs to do, and this is sure the prettiest spot we've seen."
The wagon and horses were a little distance from the ranch girls' tent, but still in plain view. The tent was at the head of a silver stream that ran like a ribbon through a green oasis of "gramma" grass. In the distance rocks that looked like battlements rose on either side of a deep gorge, and dimly seen farther on were hoary old mountain tops with their peaked caps of snow.
Ruth laughed. "An honest confession is good for the soul, isn't it? ”

“ For one quivering instant the fawn gazed at the hunter, its big brown eyes full of terror and reproach, and then with a bound was off through the trees and out of sight.
"How could you, Miss Bruce?" Ralph demanded indignantly, turning on Jean. "If you hadn't struck the butt of my gun I should have gotten that deer and we would have had fresh meat for a week." He stopped abruptly. Jean's eyes were as wide open and brown and frightened as the fawn's and her body trembled just as delicately. ”

“ The women wore pretty afternoon toilets and the men white flannels, as though they were visitors at fashionable Newport homes instead of travelers in the heart of a wilderness.
"Great heavens, Ruth!" Jean murmured, as they dismounted and stood close together in a frightened group, "my legs feel as though they were going to give way under me and I am as bedraggled as any beggar maid. However are we going to have the courage to march across that wretched porch with all those people staring at us?" ”

“ THE GYPSY CARAVAN
A HUNDRED dollars a month—it's a fortune!" Jean Bruce exclaimed gayly, pirouetting about on her tip-toes in front of a huge Japanese umbrella fastened upright in the ground in the middle of the orchard at the Rainbow Ranch.
Jacqueline Ralston gazed half convinced at the sheet of paper she held in her hand. She was sitting in Turkish fashion on the grass just outside the umbrella and, as her Mexican hat had been flung aside, the spring sun shone directly down on the bright bronze of her hair and warmed to a richer rose the brilliant color in her cheeks. ”

“ There is no blood of an Indian Chief in your veins; they at least keep faith with their friends." Swish! Ruth knew the whip had struck again.
She slipped quietly on the scene. Olive and Frieda were both crying, and Jean was biting her trembling lips. Jim's face was crimson and his blue eyes blazed as only a man's can who is slow to anger. Only Carlos stood as still as stone. He had but one thin shirt over his slender body, but when he staggered it was from fatigue not pain. He bore his punishment with the silence and fortitude of an Indian warrior. ”

“ Frieda ran to him and climbed into his lap, putting her arms about his neck and burying her face on his shoulder. Olive and Jean opened their mouths to speak, but no words came from their dry lips. The hope that had been sustaining them vanished at the sight of Jim's broken appearance. Only Ruth understood.
"Tell us at once, Jim. It isn't fair to make us wait," she said quietly, guessing that his tears were the tears of relief. "She will live?"
Jim nodded. "Jack opened her eyes a minute ago and said, 'Hello, Jim,'" he answered brokenly. ”

“ Taking firm hold of Elizabeth just below the girl's knees, she pushed her up, up, inch by inch; Elizabeth stretching out one hand at a time to grasp the shrubs growing in the more solid ground. At last, with Jack's strong hands below her feet and one more shove, Elizabeth dragged herself out of [228] danger and lay half fainting on the solid earth.
Then came Jack's peril. All this time while every thought and effort were directed toward her friend's rescue, she had not looked down at the wicked precipice beneath the narrow ledge of rock where she held her footing. ”

“ I am one of the ranch girls," she exclaimed earnestly.
The fortune teller smiled and lightly ran one aged finger around the line of Olive's delicately pointed chin and about her long, almond-shaped black eyes. "I don't think you are different, child; I know it," she replied [19] sternly. "It ain't no use to try to deceive me. I can see, too, that life ain't going to be a bed of roses for you. Some one is standing near us right now who is going to exercise a strong influence over your fate. Many times she will help you to happiness, but once she will cause you great sorrow. ”

“ To win a battle without a fight when all your forces are drawn up for action is unsettling.
"Oh, well, I didn't exactly say I would agree to this caravan trip," Jim hedged. "I don't know that it is a good plan for you to give up your home and take to the woods; but I did say that the idea was worth considering if Miss Ruth favors it. The thing that troubles me most is who is to be the leader of this female cavalcade?" Jim frowned and buttered his fourth hot biscuit. "Don't tell me, Jack Ralston, that you can go it alone, for you can't. ”

“ Curiosity was one of the strongest traits of Jacqueline Ralston's character, not a girl's idle desire so much as a boy's firm determination to find out what things are like, and how they are accomplished. Jack had never seen a gold mine before, and she did not wish to tell the girls nothing except that it was a big hole in the earth. ”

“ He had walked over with Jack to where Mr. Drummond and his groom waited with the horses; then he came back, kissed Frieda and shook hands with Olive, Ruth and Jim. Jean was looking everywhere but in his direction.
She held a small book in her hand, and Ruth looked at it curiously. Jean was fond of reading, but she would hardly select the day they were to visit the most famous geyser in the world to pursue her literary tastes. Sticking forth from the pages, quite by accident Ruth saw a spray of pale blue forget-me-nots; they grew everywhere about the park. ”

“ Unconscious of the fact he had come at length within the limits of Rainbow Ranch, and when he most needed her, Olive, like a good angel, had appeared to him. Yet Carlos took her coming calmly. Miracles are every-day occurrences to the Indian. Wiser than the wisest of us, he knows that, in spite of all the explanations of science, the rising and the setting of the sun, the life of a flower, [45] most of the things he sees in his world, are nature's miracles. So the miracle of Olive's discovery seemed to Carlos only another mysterious gift from the unknown Father. ”

“ Jack, Frieda and Mr. Drummond turned to go down the hill, when Elizabeth caught sight of them. She was worn and tired, for her walk had been too much for her, irritable on account of her fatigue and in a general bad humor with everybody.
"I say, Jack, where are you going?" Elizabeth called out suspiciously in a high, clear voice. "You are always going off somewhere with Mr. Drummond. It is quite impossible to keep up with you."
Jack and her companions stopped stock still, Ruth and Jim looked around in surprise, Mrs. Harmon blushed, and some strangers from the hotel laughed impertinently. ”

“ The ranch girls never preached, and Jack was not inclined to be critical, always preferring action to speech, so that now she found herself in deep water.
"Look here, Elizabeth," she said a moment later, with a wisdom greater than she dreamed, "I believe you make yourself sicker by thinking so much about your illness and worrying about the things you can't do. I know it is awfully hard, but if you'll promise me while you are out west to try every day to see if you can walk a little farther and eat more and not be cross, why, I'll do most anything in the world for you." ”

“ For a moment Frieda ceased her occupation of jamming odd-shaped pieces of Indian pottery into a packing trunk filled with blankets, shawls, beadwork, dolls, Indian carvings, everything known to Indian manufacture, and surveyed the older girls reproachfully. "Olive, I thought you and Jean said that the one thing that would give you pleasure and keep us from just dying of homesickness would be to fix up an Indian sitting room at that horrid old boarding school we are going to in New York," she protested.
Riches, like everything else in this world, brings its responsibilities. ”