ELIZABETH'S STRANGE CONFESSION
Jean stayed upstairs, but when Jack came back with the wraps she found
Ruth and Jim gone, leaving word that she and Olive were to put Frieda to
bed without waiting for her, as she might come back fairly late.
Over in a quiet corner Jack saw Olive and Frieda still with the Harmons.
In a moment she meant to join them, but first she must conquer a queer
sensation that overmastered her. Jack bit her lips and her eyes clouded.
Never before in her life had she known what it was to be overtaken by a
premonition; now she felt almost ill, she longed to escape and never set
eyes on the Harmons again. With all her soul she longed for Rainbow
Lodge and wished they had not rented it to strangers.
But Olive had seen Jack, and Donald was crossing over to ask her to join
them. Jack closed her eyes, opened them, shrugged her shoulders and
determined to think no more foolishness that evening.
When she reached Elizabeth Harmon's side, the girl caught her hand
eagerly and pressed it against her thin, hot cheek. "I have been telling
mother I knew none of you were pleased at our coming to the Yellowstone
while you were here," she declared pettishly, "and I suppose _I_ will be
in the way; but please won't you just say _you_ are glad to have me? I
don't care about the others."
"Elizabeth," Mrs. Harmon remonstrated; but Jack leaned over and gently
kissed the spoiled girl who had taken such an overwhelming fancy to her.
At the same moment a wave of remorse swept over her that she had not at
once been happy at her opportunity to add something to Elizabeth's
pleasure. How pitiful it was that the young girl so longed to take part
in their outdoor amusements, when she was able to walk only a few yards
at a time. Suddenly a feeling of thankfulness for her own health and
vigor rushed over Jack, and in that moment she determined, while they
were thrown together, to devote herself utterly to her new friend; for
Jacqueline Ralston possessed many of the traits of character of a brave
boy or man. Weakness and a need for her protection made an instant
appeal to her. It was her first instinct in caring for Olive and it was
responsible for what she afterwards did for Elizabeth Harmon.
"I am truly glad you are here with us, Elizabeth," Jack could now reply
honestly. "But haven't you enjoyed your two weeks at Rainbow Lodge, and
hasn't it done you good? I felt so sure you would soon grow stronger
there, perhaps because I love the ranch so dearly myself, and have been
so well and happy there."
Elizabeth shrugged her delicate shoulders until her loose mass of
red-gold hair almost covered her face. "Oh, yes, I like the ranch well
enough and I suppose I am better," she returned. "But I thought father
came west and rented your house so I might be out of doors all the time,
and go about wherever I wished, and now I am hardly allowed to get out
of sight of the Lodge. As soon as you went away such a queer lot of
people turned up at your ranch--a gypsy with his wagon and family. They
are camping somewhere on your place, because they are always being seen.
One day Don and I saw them near the stump of the old tree where you and
Olive made the compact of friendship with us."
Jack opened her lips to speak, and then changed her mind, Olive turned
from talking with Donald to stare in amazement, when from the depth of
Mrs. Harmon's lap a small voice said sleepily, "I bet you, Jack,
Elizabeth is talking about those same gypsies who came to our ranch and
told our fortunes. I thought Jim said he would not have them on our
place," Frieda ended.
Jack blushed. She too had guessed "Gypsy Joe" must be the intruder, and
intended to report the matter to Jim, but she did not wish any
discussion of the subject with the Harmons.
"Oh, but gypsies aren't the only queer people who have come to the
ranch," Elizabeth continued; "there are other rough looking men whom
father spends hours and hours with. He----"
"Elizabeth," Mrs. Harmon interrupted sternly, "how many times have I
asked you not to talk of your father's affairs with strangers? He would
be extremely angry with you for telling Miss Ralston this nonsense."
"It isn't nonsense, it's the truth and you know it," Elizabeth answered.
"I believe father sent us away from Rainbow Lodge at this time because
he wanted to get rid of us. And he promised me he would not attend to
any business while we were on the ranch. Now two men are coming on from
the East to see him, and he is as worried and excited over something as
can be and won't tell us what it is."
Mrs. Harmon lifted Frieda from her lap. "Donald, will you please
persuade Elizabeth not to bore Miss Ralston with our family history?"
she asked.
"Oh, shut up, Elizabeth. Why do you never do as mother asks you?" Donald
muttered, and Elizabeth began to cry like a spoiled baby.
Jack, Olive and Frieda kept their eyes on the ground; not being
accustomed to family quarrels they felt exceedingly uncomfortable.
"Suppose we say good night, Donald, dear," Mrs. Harmon suggested. "I am
sure Elizabeth must be tired. Miss Ralston, I believe my husband has
written your overseer of the presence of this gypsy on your ranch. In
regard to Mr. Harmon's present worry and excitement, we have not
mentioned it to Elizabeth, as we try to keep our annoyances from her;
but her father has recently lost a good deal of money in Wall Street,
so he is naturally concerned."
"I am sure I am awfully sorry," Jack replied, not knowing exactly what
she should say. But five minutes later she and Olive and Frieda breathed
a sigh of relief--the Harmon family had finally departed to their rooms
and the ranch girls were free to go to bed.
Half an hour later Donald Harmon was still in his mother's room.
Elizabeth was fast asleep in the room adjoining.
"Is there any way on earth to make Elizabeth stop talking when she
shouldn't, Don?" Mrs. Harmon sighed. "Poor child, she is so difficult! I
was wretchedly uncomfortable, not knowing what she might tell to-night."
Donald's handsome face clouded. "She don't know anything, so she can't
tell anything," he answered. "I almost wish she did; then the
responsibility would be off my conscience. And I know father would
forgive Beth anything."
Mrs. Harmon changed color. "Well, he wouldn't forgive you or me, son,"
she replied. "And, after all, this isn't our affair, and we must not
interfere with your father's plan."
Don shook his head, unconvinced by his mother's argument. "I don't know
whether you are right or wrong in this, mother," he answered. "It seems
to me this time we ought to interfere. By keeping silent and not letting
the Ralstons know of our suspicion, we are behaving pretty
dishonorably." Donald lifted his shoulders and shook them as though he
were trying to shake off the burden of the idea that oppressed him.
"Perhaps father's great find will come to nothing and he has been
deceived about the whole business," he added hopefully. "For my part I
wish things would turn out that way. I don't like to be mixed up in
this."
Mrs. Harmon looked worn and older. Before no one but her son did she
drop her society mask and show her true self. "Dear," she protested,
"remember you and I can bear being poor, but think how dreadful life
would be for Elizabeth if we did not have a great deal of money to do
for her."
Don sighed. Always he had been expected to sacrifice everything for his
sister, and now he was to be asked to sacrifice his honor as well. But
he wondered why his mother should talk of their being poor because his
father had lost a portion of his money in Wall Street. His mother had a
wealthy aunt who had always done everything for them, and he and his
sister were supposed to be her only heirs. It wasn't very probable that
Aunt Agatha would lose all her fortune or go back on them.
Donald bent to kiss his mother good night. "For goodness' sake, let's
don't worry over this scheme of father's until we know it is going to
amount to something," he argued. "We do want to have a good time on this
trip--the ranch girls are simply great!"
While all this was transpiring, Ruth and Jim Colter were rowing along
the northern border of Yellowstone Lake toward a small island known as
Pelican Roost. Earlier in the afternoon, on seeing a number of the
pelicans floating like a fleet of boats on the face of the water, Ruth
had idly suggested that she would like to see them at night, as they
must look, roosting on their island, like wicked old ghosts. And Jim had
planned then to bring Ruth out for a moonlight row alone.
When he returned to find Ruth waiting on the verandah for him, he had
made no explanation of his long absence and, as his face was unusually
serious, Ruth had asked no questions. In the hour of his absence the
face of the world had changed for Jim Colter! Before going to the hotel
clerk for the letters that had been sent him from the Rainbow Ranch, Jim
had made up his mind to tell Ruth he loved her to-night, and to try to
make her love him in return. The weeks of the caravan trip had ended a
fight with himself. Jim had finally decided that a man's past need have
nothing more to do with him than an old garment that has been cast aside
forever. He would tell Ruth he cared for her and they would begin a new
life together. But this was his idea before reading the letters from the
Rainbow Ranch.
Jim now rowed on in complete silence, while Ruth idly wondered when he
was going to make up his mind to talk and what special thing he could
wish to tell her alone. As Jim always took a long time to put his
thoughts into words she felt no impatience.
"I had a letter from that Harmon man," Jim remarked abruptly. It was so
different a speech from anything she expected him to say that Ruth felt
irritated. Wasn't it rather stupid for Jim to have brought her out alone
on the lake in the moonlight to talk of the Harmons?
"Did you?" she returned indifferently, slipping her white fingers in the
water to see if she could touch one of the yellow water lilies that
floated near.
Jim heaved a sigh so deep that Ruth laughed. "I never did want to rent
our Lodge to the fellow," he protested bitterly. "I knew nothing but
trouble could come from a New York money grabber."
"Why, Mr. Jim, you are unfair," Ruth declared. "You know you were as
anxious, after the first, to come on this caravan trip as the rest of
us. And we couldn't have come without the Harmon money. I am sorry you
haven't enjoyed it."
"I have liked it better than anything I ever did since I was born, Ruth
Drew," Jim replied so solemnly that Ruth was frightened into silence.
"But I suppose we might have managed it somehow without introducing the
plagued Harmon family onto our ranch. What do you think this Harmon man
has written me?"
"I am sure I don't know--what?" Ruth asked a little irritably.
"Oh, nothing but a cool offer to buy Rainbow Ranch off our hands at any
reasonable figure we choose to sell it for. He says he has gotten so
interested in the ranch, and thinks it such a fine place for his
daughter and son, that he would be willing to pay what our neighbors
might think a fancy sum for the place."
For just a half second Ruth's heart stood still, or felt as though it
had. She saw Rainbow Ranch, which had been saved for them once by
Frieda's discovery, slipping away again, the girls scattered, herself
back in the old Vermont village away from this wonderful western life,
and Jim--she wondered _what would_ become of Jim.
Then Ruth came to her senses. "Well, Mr. Jim, I don't see anything so
dreadful in Mr. Harmon's offer. I don't wonder he is in love with our
ranch, but we don't have to sell it to him because he wants it, do we?
Jack would never think of it."
"It isn't all just what Jack wishes, Miss Ruth," Jim answered sadly. "It
is because living on the ranch with you and the girls means more than
everything else in the world to me, that it kind of sinks into me that
we oughtn't to turn Mr. Harmon's offer down without thinking and talking
it over. The ranch don't pay such an awful lot these days--just barely
enough to keep things going; and maybe the girls ought to have
advantages like schools and traveling. You know better than I do, Ruth.
Won't you try and help me think this thing out and decide what is best
for them?"
For a moment Ruth was silent, knowing in her heart why Jim took Mr.
Harmon's offer so seriously. All his own hopes and plans depended on his
refusing it. If he were no longer the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch he
would have nothing to offer the woman he loved, not even a bare support.
The money he had saved for himself in the past years would not keep them
six months. Therefore, since Jim Colter's sense of honor was stronger
than any selfish desire, he feared that his own wish to turn down Mr.
Harmon's offer without wasting a moment's consideration on it was simply
because it would serve his own purpose and not because it was best for
the ranch girls.
"I don't believe it will be best for the girls to sell the ranch, I
don't honestly," Ruth replied. And then under her breath, "I promise you
I am not thinking of us."
What Ruth meant by her use of the word "us" Jim did not know. Of course
she too might lose her occupation if the girls gave up the ranch. But
whatever she meant the word sounded pretty good to him.
"Of course it would do no harm to talk over the proposition from Mr.
Harmon with the girls," Ruth added indifferently; "but I am as sure as I
ever was of anything in the world just how they will feel about it.
Don't let's speak of it now, though, Mr. Jim. Mr. Harmon can't expect
you to reply to his letter at once, and we don't want any business to
interfere with our first days in wonderland. Was there anything else in
Mr. Harmon's letter that annoyed you?"
"Yes--no," Jim answered shortly. "At least Harmon wrote that he had some
private business with the fellow who came junketing around in a gypsy
cart to our ranch one day, and he presumed I wouldn't mind the man's
staying on the place. Can't imagine what Harmon can want of a tramp like
'Gypsy Joe.' He never would have written me about him, I suppose, if he
hadn't known the boys at the ranch would tell me as soon as one of them
could get up the energy to write." Jim again relapsed into silence. The
moon went behind a cloud and the island was hardly visible ahead. Ruth
decided that the evening had been a disappointing one. She wondered why
the thought of this half-gypsy, half-gentleman tramp should give Jim the
blues. She had relieved his mind of the idea that it was his duty for
the girls' sake to sell them out of house and home.
"Let's row back to shore, Mr. Jim," Ruth said coldly, in the aloof
manner she still knew how to use when things did not please her. "I am
getting tired and sleepy, and I don't want the girls to worry about me."
Jim silently turned his boat to shore. After all, perhaps he had been
mistaken in the idea that a man can rid himself of his past. If Ruth
knew why this fellow, whom she heard spoken of as "Gypsy Joe," could
send the cold shivers up and down his spine, would she ever use the tiny
word "us" in the tone that she had spoken it a while before?
When Jim and Ruth said good night, instead of feeling a closer bond of
affection, they were colder in their manner toward one another than they
had been since the hour the caravan first rolled away from the Rainbow
Ranch and the days of their good comradeship began.