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THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
The Ranch Girls and Their Heart's Desire
BY MARGARET VANDERCOOK
ILLUSTRATED BY
WILSON V. CHAMBERS
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright, 1920, by
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
[Illustration: BEFORE LEAVING, SHE EXPLAINED TO THE OLD HALF-INDIAN
WOMAN THAT SHE WOULD NOT RETURN UNTIL DINNER TIME]
CONTENTS
I. THE BRANCH OF THE TREE 9
II. THE YOUNGER SET 20
III. OLD PASTIMES 32
IV. A FORMER ACQUAINTANCE 47
V. JEAN, OLIVE AND FRIEDA 58
VI. JEAN AND RALPH MERRITT 75
VII. THE TEA PARTY 91
VIII. AN INTERVIEW 104
IX. A YEAR LATER 117
X. A MAIDEN SPEECH 129
XI. THE PROPOSALS 140
XII. A DECISION 152
XIII. THE CAMPAIGN 169
XIV. IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT 178
XV. CONSEQUENCES 192
XVI. THE ELECTION 204
XVII. THE HEART'S DESIRE 217
ILLUSTRATIONS
BEFORE LEAVING SHE EXPLAINED THAT SHE
WOULD NOT RETURN BEFORE DINNER TIME _Frontispiece_
WITH A SINGLE SWIFT MOTION SHE LIFTED
LITTLE PEACE INTO THE SADDLE 72
JACK REINED IN HER HORSE AND SAT STILL,
SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE SKY 149
NOT A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS BUT OF EVIL-SMELLING
WEEDS AND TIED WITH A RAG INSTEAD
OF A RIBBON 186
The Ranch Girls and Their Heart's Desire
CHAPTER I
THE BRANCH OF THE TREE
Across a wide prairie a man and woman were riding side by side at an
hour approaching twilight on a September afternoon. Moving slowly they
appeared to be studying the landscape.
Toward the west the sky was banked with gold and rose and purple clouds,
while the earth revealed the same colors in the yellow sand of the
desert spaces, the wide fields of purple clover, and the second blooming
of the prairie roses.
"Strange to have you living at the old Rainbow ranch again, Jack, and
yet under the circumstances perhaps the most natural thing in the world!
Long ago when I was a young fellow I learned that when human beings are
hurt they follow the instincts of the homing birds who seek the nest.
You have always loved the old ranch better than any place in the world,
more than the other girls ever loved it, so with the news of your
husband's death I knew you would return from England and bring your son
with you, Lady Kent, once Jacqueline Ralston of the Rainbow ranch.
Somehow I never have learned to think of you, Jack, by your title of
Lady Kent."
"No, Jim, and why should you?" the girl answered. "I never learned to
think of myself in that fashion. I am going to confide something to you,
Jim Colter. I always have confided my secrets to you since I was a
little girl. I never learned during the years of my married life in
England to feel that I was anything but a stranger there. Yet for my
husband's sake I did my best to like England and try to make English
people like me. I was never specially successful. I presume I am
hopelessly an American and, what may be worse, hopelessly western. At
present I feel that I wish to spend all the rest of my life in Wyoming.
But one is not often allowed to do what one wishes. This morning I
received letters from England, all of them asking when I intended to
return and settle down as Dowager Lady Kent at Kent House, to bring up
little Jimmie in a manner becoming a future British Lord. The worst of
it is I don't want to go back and I don't want to bring up my son as an
aristocrat. My husband was an Englishman, but I am an American and have
never believed in titles. Frank had no title when I married him. I want
little Jimmie to be half an American anyhow and wholly a democrat. What
must I do, Jim Colter, stay here on the ranch with my own people and
lead the life I love, or go to England and spend half my time amid the
conventional society existence I loathe, and the other half playing Lady
Bountiful to the poor people of a small village?"
Jacqueline Ralston, who _was_ Lady Kent, regardless of her own protest,
now reined in her horse, and rising in her saddle let her glance sweep
the wide horizon.
In the wide, gray eyes, in the low, level brow, in the full, generous
lips and abundant vitality one might have recognized the pioneer spirit,
infrequent in human beings, but more infrequent in women than in men.
Yet this Jacqueline Ralston Kent, one of the original four "Ranch Girls
of the Rainbow Lodge," possessed. All her life she had loved personal
freedom, wide spaces, a simple, every-day, outdoor existence without
formality. She felt a natural intimacy with the people who attracted her
without consideration for their social position. Yet in so contrary a
fashion does fate deal with us that Jack had spent the greater part of
her married life under exactly opposite conditions.
"For my part I don't dare advise you, Jack, I so want you to stay on at
the Rainbow lodge, more than I wish anything else in the world at
present. With Ruth gone, I don't see how I shall ever get on with my
four new little Rainbow ranch girls without you to help mother them. Yet
I had pretty much the same experience once before! Odd how circumstances
repeat themselves! You must first do what you think best for Jimmie.
What does the boy himself wish to do, stay here at the ranch and learn
to be a ranchman under my training, or go back to Kent House?"
Laughing Jack shook her head, crowned with gold brown hair; she was
without a hat, after her old custom.
"You know the answer to that question as well as I do, Jim. Jimmie
adores the ranch. He is named for you, and you have done everything in
your power to make him love it. Then I must have implanted my own
affection for the freedom of our western life in my little son. Jimmie
insists that he wants nothing better in the future than to stay on here
and run the ranch and the mine when you and I have grown too old to be
troubled with such responsibilities. He is only eight years old at
present and so we need not feel laid on the shelf at once."
"No, but I am not young as I was, Jack, hair is turning pretty gray
these days," Jim Colter answered. "I have never mentioned this to the
boy, but I have wanted the same thing he does. I would like Jimmie to
live here and perhaps marry one of my four girls and keep the old ranch
in the family through another generation or so. Sentiment of course, yet
so far Jimmie is the only son on the horizon! Here I am with four
daughters, Jean and Ralph Merritt with two, Olive and Captain MacDonnell
with no children, and Frieda's and Professor Russell's little girl so
frail that it is hard to count on any future for her."
At this Jack's expression clouded. A moment later she again arose in her
saddle, this time pointing toward the eastern portion of the Rainbow
ranch. To the west and north lay the gold mine discovered years before,
though no longer yielding a supply of gold as in its early days.
The mine had never interested either Jacqueline Ralston or Jim Colter as
it had the other members of the family. They had been horse and cattle
raisers before a mine was ever dreamed of, and it was the rearing of the
livestock for which Jim and Jack cared intensely to this day.
Riding through the ranch, every half hour or so they had passed a herd
of cattle browsing amid the purple alfalfa grass, seen the sleek brown
cows standing with their young calves close beside them. Less often they
had run across a small drove of horses and young colts, as horses were
no longer so good an investment as in the old days. Yet the present
Rainbow ranch owners would prefer to have lost money than be without
them, the horses having always received Jack's especial affection and
attention as a girl and upon her occasional visits home to the ranch
after her English marriage.
"Can that be a herd of horses or cattle stampeding there toward the
east, Jim? We are too far off to see distinctly; suppose we ride in that
direction," Jack said unexpectedly.
Wasting no time in words Jim Colter nodded. The following moment both
horses, their noses pointing eastward, were galloping across the open
prairie fields and away from the road.
Experienced ranchmen, he and his companion appreciated that the cloud of
dust and the grouping of dark bodies advancing toward them with unusual
rapidity represented trouble of some kind. At this time of the year it
seemed scarcely possible that a wolf had stolen from the pack and
frightened one of the herds. Yet there was no accounting for the tricks
of nature. Moreover, frequently a number of horses or cattle suffered
from group fear, the one transmitting the fright to the other without
apparent reason.
Half a mile away the drove of young horses, which Jim Colter had finally
located with his field glasses, turned and swerved south.
Almost as swiftly the two riders moved off in the same direction,
hoping they might be able to divide the frightened animals and drive
them apart.
A quarter of a mile farther along, riding at no great distance from each
other, Jim Colter heard an exclamation from his companion, so sudden, so
terrified and so unexpected that he reined his own horse sharply until
for an instant it stood trembling on its hind legs, its slender nose
snuffing the soft air.
"Tell me, Jim, is that Jimmie's pony ahead of us? The saddle is on the
pony, but no one is riding. Jimmie can't have ridden over here alone? He
can't be anywhere near-by?"
Yet even as the question was being asked, the man and woman saw and,
seeing, understood.
The pony which Jack had spied with the bridle dangling over its head was
moving from place to place nibbling at the most luxurious patches of
clover. Beyond, and closer to the trampling herd of panic-stricken
animals, lay a small figure, outstretched on the ground and probably
until this moment asleep.
Whether he now heard the oncoming horses or the cries of his mother and
guardian, in any case, awakening, he jumped to his feet and the same
instant turned, beheld, and understood his own danger. In a few moments,
seconds perhaps, the frightened animals would be upon him, trampling,
snorting, unconscious of his presence in their frenzy.
As the boy ran across the field toward his pony, he had the
consciousness that the two persons for whom he cared most in the world
were coming toward him to save him from harm. Yet he also appreciated
this would not be possible, as they could not reach him in time.
But Jimmie Kent was not to make the whole effort alone. As he ran he
called his pony's name.
"Whitestar! Whitestar!" The boy's tones remained firm and commanding.
Whitestar had observed her own danger. The pony's head went up, showing
the mark upon her pretty nose which had given her the name. A single
time she pawed the earth in front of her, appearing about to rush _away_
without her master, and then she cantered toward the boy.
The oncoming drove of terrified animals was now only a few yards away.
"Don't lose courage, Jack, he is your son, remember! He will win out,"
Jim Colter shouted, his own horse scarcely appearing to touch the earth
as it ran.
"Drive straight toward them, Jimmie, don't try to cross their path," Jim
called, his voice sounding unfamiliar to his own ears.
Yet either the boy heard or recognized his one chance.
Without hesitation the little figure lying close to his saddle was
riding straight toward the center of the drove of twenty or thirty
frightened animals. The leader, a few feet in advance of the others,
apparently ran in a direct line with the boy.
Her eyes never turning for an instant from the little figure, now not
thirty yards away, Jack understood what must take place. Should the
leader come on without swerving Jimmie would be unseated, his pony
struck down and the other horses would pass over them both. But, should
Jimmie possess the courage or, greater than courage, the strength of
will to force the horse in advance of the drove to swerve either toward
the right or left, the others would follow.
A moment later and Jack's arms were about her son.
"You've turned the trick, Jimmie," Jim Colter was saying roughly. "But
it is the front yard of the Rainbow lodge for you for the next week. How
dared you ride over the ranch alone when I have told you it was
forbidden? Now you and your mother get home as soon as you can and send
whatever men you come across in this direction. I suppose the horses
will have tired themselves out after a few more miles of running, but it
is just as well to see they are quieted down."
So Jim Colter rode away in one direction and Jimmie and his mother in
the other toward the Rainbow lodge.