"MY WAY'S FOR LOVE"
For Ruth and Jim Colter had spent a wonderful day together while Jack
and Frank Kent were making their great discovery. They were finding
another of the world's great treasures which is not gold. Side by side
they had ridden slowly over the ranch with its waving fields of ripened
grass and its horses, sheep and cattle, sleek and fat and well content
with the earth's bounty. They had counted the herds and inspected the
sheep corrals, ordering new ones to be built before the coming of
winter; they had discussed whether Ruth alone would be able to take Jack
to New York to see the famous surgeon recommended by Peter Drummond, and
they had decided that Mr. Harmon must be given an answer in regard to
his purchase of a portion of Rainbow Ranch within the next few days. His
lease on the Lodge would end in a short time and already he seemed very
restless and was insisting that urgent business called him back to New
York.
Ruth was now able to ride horseback almost as well as the other ranch
girls, although she could never be quite so fearless, since her training
had come later in life. But to-day she and her companion laughingly
recalled her famous arrival at Wolfville not a year before and her
terrible ten-mile ride home to Rainbow Lodge. Ruth remembered
then--though she did not speak of it--how Jim's strength had upheld and
comforted her and brought her safely to her new home.
At noon, hungry and happy, Jim and Ruth had eaten their luncheon seated
opposite each other on the grass with two napkins spread between them,
drinking their cold coffee out of bottles, like a couple of school
children on a picnic.
Now it was almost sunset and the man and woman were riding slowly home.
Their backs were to the far-off line of hills, and beyond them the level
prairies seemed to stretch on and on until they dipped and melted away
at the uttermost rim of the earth. Above, the clouds floated, tinted
like soap bubbles against a skyey background of pale rose and blue, for
the sun was sinking without a display of gaudy colors upon the horizon,
that marked this waning season of the year.
Ruth was gazing at the sunset, wondering if Jack were not a little
better, when a low laugh from her companion surprised her and jarred on
her peaceful mood. She turned on him reproachfully, but found nothing in
Jim Colter's expression that spoke of laughter. His strong bronze face
was so serious and his lips so grave that the girl with him was suddenly
still and frightened. For many weeks she had thought this moment might
be approaching, and yet, now it had come, she was wholly unprepared.
"I was only thinking of how young you look in that riding habit, Miss
Ruth," Jim said simply. "I laughed because I remembered I thought you
would be an old maid of fifty when you first came out to the ranch.
Sometimes it seems years since the day you arrived, and then again only
a few weeks. Are you sure you like living on a ranch now? You know you
plumb hated it when you first came to Wyoming," he said boyishly.
Ruth smiled and nodded, wondering if she were relieved or disappointed.
One could always count on Jim's not doing or saying the thing expected
of him. After all, the moment she anticipated was not at hand.
"Of course I dearly love living on the ranch, Mr. Jim. But why do you
ask me?" she answered.
"Because I love you, Ruth," Jim returned as quietly as though he had not
been trying to speak the three magic words for months. "And I am a
ranchman and don't know anything else. I don't understand a whole lot
about women, but I believe they ought to like the kind of life a man has
to offer before they tie up with him. If you hadn't come to like living
out here I never would have told you I loved you, though it had eaten my
heart out to keep silent. But you do care for the life now, Ruth,
and--do you think you can care for me?"
The two horses were walking slowly side by side, and Jim put out a big
warm hand and closed it slowly over Ruth's small cold ones which still
held her reins. "I am only an overseer, and haven't much money or
education to offer you, and I know how much these things count, but I
will do my best for you and I do come of good people, dear, and it
wasn't their fault I never learned more----" Jim added at last,
hesitating as though even this slight reference to his past was torn
from him against his will.
The woman made no answer, and for a little while longer they rode on.
"Can't you tell me, Ruth?" Jim urged gently.
Ruth had not spoken, because she had not known what she wished to say.
Before she came out west Ruth Drew thought she hated men and had made up
her mind never to marry. Her brother was selfish and idle, her father
had been close and mean, and Ruth knew so little of other men she
thought them all alike, capable of ugly deeds that women never dreamed
of. Yet somehow Jim seemed different. Ruth was twenty-eight, which is
not old as women marry nowadays; but everything depends on the point of
view, and for a long time Ruth had thought she was to be an old maid.
"I am very fond of you, Mr. Jim, but I don't know that I love you," she
answered nervously, in a small voice as cold and aloof as in the early
days of her acquaintance with Jim.
But this time Jim laughed. "Don't be afraid of yourself, Ruth, dear," he
pleaded, "and don't go back to Vermont to think how you felt when you
lived there. I don't want you to be fond of me. You are fond of our old
dog, Shep. I want you to love me, Ruth, well enough to go through thick
and thin with me, to believe in me and fight for me to the last drop. We
are not little people, dear, and I don't want little loving. Love is the
biggest thing about us and I want all there is in it from you."
If Jim had leaned over at this moment and put his arm about Ruth, taking
her answer for granted he would have saved her and himself much sorrow,
for Ruth had one of those uncomfortable New England consciences which
would not let her accept the gift of happiness without days of
questioning and unrest.
Ruth turned toward her lover, with her eyes full of uncertain tears.
"Really I don't know whether I love you in the big way, Mr. Jim," she
faltered. "Will you let me wait a little while to find out?"
Poor Ruth--she knew that when she was weary she wanted Jim Colter's
strength to rest upon, that when she was sorrowful she wanted his
sympathy to comfort her, and that when she was happy she wished him to
be the sharer in her joys; yet she did not understand that this trinity
of simple emotions meant the big human mystery of love.
"Of course you may have all the time you need, Ruth," Jim replied, not
showing his disappointment. "You may have all my life if it takes you
that long to find out. But it would be easier for us both if you decide
this week. 'Tain't fair for a man to expect a woman to say her yes or no
right off at the first asking. He has had all the time beforehand to
decide that he wants her to be his wife, but she ain't supposed to think
of him as a husband until he has said the word. At least, that is the
kind of woman you are, Ruth, and there are plenty like you. I suppose,
though, there are some that do a little previous deciding before the
male has got right down to the point." Jim was patting Ruth's hands
softly, his eyes full of a new content and his face of strength and
dignity. Not having a New England conscience he did not feel it
necessary to worry, because he could see Ruth cared, and he was willing
to wait for the rest.
They were not talking, so the sound of two voices startled them. Through
a small clump of evergreen trees, not far from the trail along which
they were riding, the smoke of a camp-fire rose in slow circles. A
young woman was seated on the ground nursing a baby, and a man and old
gypsy woman were scolding at each other.
"It's that fellow, Joe Dawson. I have been having an eye open for him
all day," Jim announced curtly, with the sudden sternness in his face
and manner that made him feared even by the people who knew him most
intimately. "I have been wanting to tell him to clear off this ranch. No
matter what business Harmon has with him, he sha'n't stay about here,
now you and the girls have come home."
Jim was riding over toward the gypsies, but Joe had seen him and come
forward.
"Good evening," he remarked. "Pleasant evening for a ride."
Jim frowned and wasted no words.
"Glad I came across you, Dawson," he returned. "I want you to get off
this ranch. I'll give you two days if it takes that much time, but no
longer. I told you I wasn't going to have you hanging about here in the
early part of the summer, but I presume you have been doing some work
for Mr. Harmon, though I never heard of your doing any honest work in
your life."
"Oh, no, I haven't reformed to the extent of some people," Gypsy Joe
remarked sarcastically. "At least I haven't yet taken to playing the
part of 'gardeen' to a parcel of young girls. But look here, John, I can
get ugly same as other folks, and it ain't any the less true for being
an old saying, 'you had better let sleeping dogs lie.' I can wake up and
bite; and I've an idea where it would hurt you the most."
Ruth was walking her horse up and down not far away, trying not to hear
what the two men were saying, but they were so angry that their voices
carried for some distance on the quiet evening air.
"Get off the Rainbow Ranch, Joe Dawson, or you will be put off," Jim
replied roughly, and turned and rode back to Ruth.
The man laughed insolently. "Not if I don't choose to leave, John
Carter," he halloed. "You've made the mistake of your life in not making
friends with me again, for I can get even with you in more ways than
one, and I don't know but that I'll try."
These were the words Ruth thought she heard, but she gave them little
heed beyond wondering idly why the impudent tramp called Jim by the
wrong name.
These events in the lives of Ruth Drew and Jim Colter took place on the
same day that Jack and Frank Kent had their experience by the waters of
Rainbow Creek. They had been at home several hours when Frank Kent
appeared to disclose the startling news of the discovery of gold
deposits on the ranch. It was not until then that Jim Colter guessed why
Mr. Harmon had wished to purchase all or a portion of the Rainbow Ranch
before its owners could find out the secret of their hidden wealth, and
for this same reason had kept the first discoverer of the gold, "Gypsy
Joe," lurking about the ranch all summer and had refused to give up the
Lodge to the Ralston girls and let them come home when they wished.