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THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge
BOOKS BY MARGARET VANDERCOOK
THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
THE RANCH GIRLS AT RAINBOW LODGE
THE RANCH GIRLS' POT OF GOLD
THE RANCH GIRLS AT BOARDING SCHOOL
THE RANCH GIRLS IN EUROPE
THE RANCH GIRLS AT HOME AGAIN
THE RANCH GIRLS AND THEIR GREAT ADVENTURE
THE RED CROSS GIRLS SERIES
THE RED CROSS GIRLS IN THE BRITISH TRENCHES
THE RED CROSS GIRLS ON THE FRENCH FIRING LINE
THE RED CROSS GIRLS IN BELGIUM
THE RED CROSS GIRLS WITH THE RUSSIAN ARMY
THE RED CROSS GIRLS WITH THE ITALIAN ARMY
THE RED CROSS GIRLS UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES
STORIES ABOUT CAMP FIRE GIRLS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AMID THE SNOWS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ACROSS THE SEA
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' CAREERS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN AFTER YEARS
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE DESERT
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT THE END OF THE TRAIL
[Illustration: SHE WAVED HER WONDERFUL PAPER BEFORE HER FRIENDS]
THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
The Ranch Girls
AT
Rainbow Lodge
BY
MARGARET VANDERCOOK
ILLUSTRATED BY
HUGH A. BODINE
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright, 1911, by
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LOST TRAIL 9
II. IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANT'S FACE 27
III. FRIEDA AND THE OTHER GIRL 39
IV. THE RESCUE 54
V. SEEKING ADVICE 66
VI. THE ARRIVAL AT THE HOUSE PARTY 78
VII. A VISIT TO OLD LASKA 86
VIII. THE ESCAPE FROM THE DANCE 99
IX. JACQUELINE'S MISFORTUNE 108
X. BACK TO RAINBOW LODGE 122
XI. BREAKING THE NEWS 132
XII. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DIVIDE 147
XIII. THE WET BLANKET 160
XIV. AN UNFORTUNATE ARRIVAL 172
XV. ALL SAVE, JACK! 181
XVI. WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 193
XVII. THE ROUND-UP 202
XVIII. A RACE FOR LIFE 218
XIX. NO NEWS 227
XX. OLIVE 243
XXI. THE WAY OF ESCAPE 258
XXII. A VOICE IN THE NIGHT 266
XXIII. JACK IS HAPPY 275
XXIV. CHRISTMAS EVE 282
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SHE WAVED HER WONDERFUL PAPER BEFORE HER FRIENDS _Frontispiece_
PAGE
FRIEDA FLUNG HERSELF VALIANTLY IN THE PATH OF
THE INDIAN WOMAN 40
"CAN I DO ANYTHING FOR YOU, MA'AM?" 173
SOMEONE CREPT UP BEHIND HER WITH THE STEALTHINESS
POSSIBLE ONLY TO AN INDIAN 243
The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge.
CHAPTER I.
THE LOST TRAIL.
OVER the brown plain a shaggy broncho trotted slowly, with its head
drooping.
A girl stood up in her saddle with one hand to her lips. "Halloo!
Halloo!" she cried. "I wonder where on earth I am? I thought I knew
every inch of this country, yet here I am lost and I can't be but a few
miles from our ranch. I must have missed the trail somewhere. Jim! Jim
Colter! If there is anybody near, please answer me."
Jacqueline Ralston rode astride. Her eyes and cheeks were glowing and
her gold brown hair, deep grey eyes and brilliant color, formed an
unusually attractive picture.
She leaned over and gave her pony a penitent hug. "Poor little Hotspur,
you shall have a rest pretty soon, even if I have to spend the night out
of doors. But won't Jean and Frieda be frightened? Jim will scour the
prairies for me."
The pony was treading through a vast field of purple clover fading to
brown in the autumn sun. It was just before sunset. Away to the right,
Jacqueline could see a group of slow moving objects, which she knew to
be cattle. Half a mile on the opposite side was a sparse group of
evergreen trees and low bushes. But there was nothing else that broke
the vision of a long line of level country, until the snow-capped peaks
of the distant mountains shone like gold in the rays of the setting sun.
"We will try the trees, Hotspur," Jacqueline urged coaxingly. "Perhaps
we may find a trail over there. Anyhow I believe I would rather be a
solitary babe in the woods, than to wander around here in the alfalfa
fields until to-morrow morning."
The girl wore a short, brown corduroy jacket and skirt, leather leggings
and riding boots. Over the pommel of her saddle hung a bunch of silver
grouse and a smart little rifle was suspended at her side.
"I am desperately hungry," she announced aloud. "I do wish I had a match
so I could light a fire. Jolly good advice that of Jim's for a ranch
girl, 'never try to find your match, always carry it with you.'"
Jacqueline laughed. She was not willing to confess that she was tired,
although she had been riding since eight o'clock that morning. Against
the wishes of her sister Frieda, her cousin Jean, and the overseer of
their ranch, Jim Colter, she had gone off alone to inspect the corral
which had been recently built to protect their sheep for the winter.
Inside the woods the way was darker and there was no sign of a road.
Jacqueline let the reins slacken on her pony's neck. Really Hotspur
would have to find the right trail home, if they were to reach the ranch
house that night. She could hear the rabbits and squirrels scurrying
back into their retreats. They were not accustomed to being disturbed at
their supper time and at first there was no other sound.
"Who goes there?" suddenly a rough voice demanded, and a horse came
plunging through an opening in the trees.
Jacqueline's color paled. She recognized the rider, a boy of about
sixteen, nearly her own age. "I am Jacqueline Ralston," she answered
quietly. "I have lost the trail. Will you please show me the way to the
Rainbow Ranch?"
The young fellow laughed rudely. "Miss Ralston, is it?" he sneered.
"Don't tell me you are lost on our ranch. You have been over here spying
at our cattle. Just you trot along home as fast as you can. I shall
report to my father what I caught you doing." The boy's light blue eyes
blazed angrily.
Jacqueline had reined in her pony and waited. Her temper was not her
strong point, but she replied politely: "I am not spying, Dan Norton; I
wonder why you should think it necessary. I will leave your ranch as
soon as I can get away from it. Will you please show me the trail?"
Jacqueline held her head very high. "Won't you tell me?" she asked
again. "Because we happen to be enemies is no reason why you shouldn't
believe my word." The young girl's tones were gentle, but her face was
white with anger in the gathering dusk. Her firm red lips were pressed
tight together to keep her from saying the things she really felt.
Dan Norton rode closer toward her and for reply struck her pony sharply
with his short riding whip. Tired little Hotspur quivered with pain,
but stood still under his mistress' gentle words.
"Don't do that again, Dan," Jacqueline protested, feeling the hot blood
rush to her face and then leave her cold and still with anger. "There is
not another person in Wyoming who would be so rude to me. But there has
been trouble enough between you and us. I shall not speak of this, but I
shall never be able to forgive you to the longest day I live;" and
Jacqueline's grey eyes looked so proudly and so scornfully into the
boy's that his own dropped.
"Your way's to the left," he muttered. "If you ride quick, you will soon
be on the boundary of your own ranch. Hurry, there is some one else
coming this way."
Jacqueline did not stir. A few minutes before, she would have trotted
off gladly. Now nothing would have induced her to go. She would not run
away from her enemy. Indeed she preferred to explain her presence on his
ranch to Mr. Norton.
In the silence between the two young people another voice entered, but
it was not Mr. Norton's. Some one was singing.
Dan Norton rode hurriedly out of sight and Jacqueline lifted her rifle,
letting it rest in her arm.
"If a body meet a body,
Comin' through the rye;
If a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
Every lassie has her laddie,
Nane they say have--
"Oh!" the song stopped abruptly. The singer threw up both hands and
burst into a merry boyish laugh. "I surrender in the name of--in the
name of most anything, if you will only put down that gun," he declared.
"Who would have thought of meeting a girl in these woods? Whatever are
you doing here? Poaching? No, I believe you don't have game preserves in
this country, so poaching isn't against your law." The stranger laughed,
though he had taken off his hat and bowed courteously to his fellow
traveler. "Please tell me, are you Rosalind in the forest of Arden? You
look like her, although I never heard of her on horseback," he ended
merrily.
Jacqueline bit her lips. The young man was evidently a newcomer in the
neighborhood and at any other time Jacqueline would have liked him. He
must have been about seventeen and was tall and slender, with light
brown hair and clever brown eyes. His dress was that of a cowboy, but
Jacqueline saw with a feeling of instant disdain that his clothes were
too new and his face too white for him to have lived long in her
country. Besides he did not ride or talk like a Westerner.
"I am Frank Kent, at your service," he explained, puzzled by
Jacqueline's haughty silence. "I am an Englishman and I don't quite know
what I ought to do or say out in Wyoming. But may I be of any service to
you?"
Jacqueline's feeling of hurt and anger began to subside and she smiled
in a more friendly fashion. Frank Kent decided that he had never seen
such a pretty girl before in his life. Had she been a city girl, her
skin would have been fair, but from her outdoor life it had become
exquisitely darkened by the wind and sun of the prairies. Her hair was
like bronze and her color a deep rose.
"I ought not to be asking favors of you," Jacqueline replied in her
usual manner. "You are a stranger in a strange land, while I have lived
out West since I was a baby. But can you show me the trail to the
Rainbow Ranch? Anyhow tell me how to get off of this place. I have
never been on it before, and--" To save her life Jacqueline could not
keep her voice from trembling.
"Surely I can show you," Frank answered. He spoke with such a funny
English accent, that Jacqueline would have liked to have made fun of
him, if she had known him better.
"I have heard a lot about the girls who run Rainbow Ranch," he went on
quickly. "They sound like such an awfully good sort that I have made Dan
Norton tell me a lot about them. I am visiting him, surely you must know
him," the young fellow concluded eagerly.
What in the world had he said? Frank Kent was startled. The girl he had
just met seemed quite friendly a moment before. Now she stiffened up on
her pony, her cheeks turned scarlet and her eyes flashed.
"I won't trouble you any further," she announced. "I will find my own
way home from here." Without another word or a backward glance,
Jacqueline gave her pony a gentle cut and Hotspur galloped quickly away.
"Whew," Frank Kent whistled, "methinks some one told me that the people
one met out West were awfully friendly and informal. That girl was as
touchy as you find them. But I wonder who she is? I think I will ride
after her and show her the trail, even if she is so high and mighty."
Jacqueline pretended not to hear the young man trotting along behind
her, and did not turn her head. She rode faster and faster until a sound
like a stifled moan arrested her. Jacqueline paused and saw that the
young fellow who had been so polite to her a few minutes before was
ghastly white. He was swaying so in his saddle that he had not the
strength to stop his horse.
Jacqueline caught his bridle. "Rest a minute," she urged gently. "You
will soon be all right. You have ridden too far and you are not used to
it. People always do too much, when they first come to Wyoming. My name
is Jacqueline Ralston and I am one of the girls at the Rainbow Ranch. I
am sorry I was rude to you a little while ago, but the Nortons are not
our friends." Jacqueline was talking so that the young man could get his
breath. She could not help admiring the brave fight he made. He seemed
to be dreadfully ashamed of his own weakness.
"You will let me show you the right trail, won't you?" he asked. "I am
sorry you are not friendly with my hosts. I thought I heard you talking
to Dan, when I rode up to you, but that won't matter about me, will it?
I don't know anything about your quarrel and if we were properly
introduced, don't you think we could be friends? I can't tell you how
plucky I think it is for you three girls to be managing your own ranch.
Don't you think you might tell me a thing or two about it? It is pretty
lonely out here for a stranger."
The young fellow looked so nice, and so ill, in spite of his efforts to
hide it, that Jacqueline almost relented. Then the thought of Dan
Norton's rudeness and the long feud between them swept over her, and
Jacqueline shook her head firmly.
"I am sorry," she returned. "With any one else it would not matter, but
we can't be friendly with any guest of the Norton's." Jacqueline
hesitated, "I can't explain it to you, there isn't time. Good-bye. I
know the way home from here."
Frank Kent watched Jacqueline ride out of sight, sitting on her pony as
though she had been made on it, like a figure cut from bronze, all in
soft tones of gold and brown.
It was quite dark when Jacqueline at last spied the lights of her own
ranch house twinkling at her warmly through the open windows and doors.
The broncho hurried faster, forgetting his hard day and Jacqueline
talked low in his ear.
"Home and supper, Hotspur! See the lights of home ahead. Soon they will
hear us coming. Suppose I give our call and relieve the suspense." Three
times in rapid succession, Jacqueline touched her red lips with her
slender fingers and gave a shrill, clear whistle like an Indian's call.
Instantly figures moved about in the ranch house. A dark lantern was
swung off its place over the front door and a man and two girls hurried
down the drive. Jacqueline was lifted off her horse. Her sister, Frieda,
seized her by one arm, her cousin, Jean, by the other.
"What has kept you so long?" Frieda demanded anxiously.
"If you have had an adventure and wouldn't let me go with you to-day, I
shall never get over it," Jean insisted. "Come into the house this
minute. Do tell us where you have been. Jim telephoned over to the other
side of the ranch three hours back, but the sheep herders said you
started for home long ago. We have been frightened to death ever since."
Frieda pulled at her sister's jacket. Jean, although she kept up her
scolding, got a pair of soft, red felt slippers and placed them
invitingly in front of the big, living-room fire.
Rainbow Lodge was built of pine logs. The great sitting-room was forty
feet long and two-thirds as wide and it looked like a man's room, but
the three ranch girls did not know it. The floor was covered with
buffalo robes and beautiful bright Navajo blankets made by the Indians
in the nearby villages, and the head of an elk thrusting forth giant
antlers dominated the scene from above the stone fireplace. An Andrew
Jackson table made of hewn logs, with a smooth polished top, occupied
one side of the fireplace, holding a reading lamp and some half-opened
books.
In another corner the home-made book shelves were filled with much-read
novels and books of travel. There were low, comfortable chairs about
everywhere. It was an odd room to be occupied by three young girls, but
a very noble one. The ranch girls had kept it just as their father had
left it when he died, six months before.
Jacqueline gave a comfy sigh. "I _am_ glad to be at home," she murmured.
"I haven't had any special adventure. Jean, I know you will be disgusted
with me, but I got lost and wandered over on the Norton ranch. I met Dan
Norton and he was horrid to me. Oh, Frieda darling, hasn't Aunt Ellen
saved me anything to eat? I am simply starving," Jacqueline ended,
anxious to change the subject.
Aunt Ellen came in at this moment bearing a waiter. She was nearly six
feet tall, part Indian and part colored, and she had lived with the
Ralstons ever since Mr. and Mrs. Ralston came to Wyoming from the East,
bringing Jack, who was then only two years old.
The old woman was frowning and shaking her head, as she put down Jack's
supper. "Ought never to have ridden off across the ranch alone, ought
not to be coming back home way after dark. I am sure the master never
would have liked you chilluns living here and trying to run things for
yourself," she muttered.
Jack flushed, although she patted the old woman's hand affectionately
and said nothing. Jack knew she deserved the scolding and that she would
have another from Jim Colter, the manager of their ranch, in the
morning. To-night he had led Hotspur away without a word and retired to
his own quarters.
No one, excepting strangers, ever called Jacqueline Ralston anything but
Jack. She never thought of herself by her pretty French name, except
when she wished to appear very grown up and impressive. As for little
Frieda, she had been born at Rainbow Ranch house thirteen years before
on Christmas eve. She was such a fair little German-looking baby, with
her blue eyes and flaxen hair, that her mother gave her the pretty
German name of Frieda, which means peace. Mrs. Ralston died when Frieda
was only a few months old, but the little girl had fairly earned her
name all her life. Peace and War, Jean used to call the two sisters,
when she wanted to tease Jack, for Jacqueline was as high-tempered and
determined as Frieda was gentle and serene.
Jean was a slender, graceful maiden, with hair and eyes of the same nut
brown color. She had come to live at the ranch ten years before, when
her mother, Mr. Ralston's sister, died, and Mr. Ralston decided it would
be better to bring up three motherless girls than two. Jean had a
gentle, far-away expression, though Jack always asserted that Jean was
present when she wanted to be. She only dreamed dreams and wore her
aloof expression when people bored her, or when she felt sad and thought
she needed sympathy. Jack and Frieda knew no difference in their feeling
for Jean and for each other.
When Jacqueline finished supper, she curled herself in a big armchair in
front of the fire. Frieda sat on a low stool at her feet while Jean,
with an open book, was not far away. Jean was the reader of the three
girls, but to-night her book was neglected.
"Out with it, Jack," Jean insisted calmly. "You know perfectly well that
you haven't told us all that happened to you this afternoon. Fire away
and get it over with, I want to finish my book to-night."
After much urging, Jack told her story in full and Jean flung her book
down and danced about the room on her tip-toes, she was so angry, when
she heard how Dan Norton had treated her. But she had a different
feeling about the young English fellow.
"I really think you were rather horrid, Jacqueline Ralston," she
announced coolly. "Of course we can't be having visitors or making
friends with any one visiting those hateful Nortons, but I think you
might have told that young fellow we would be nice to him when we met
him other places. He is a far-off cousin of the Nortons, whose health
broke down while he was at college in England and his people sent him
over here to recover. His father is a Lord, or a Sir or something, I
can't remember which. But Mrs. Simpson says he is awfully nice and--"
Jack put both fingers in her ears. "For goodness sake, hush, Jean
Bruce," she protested. "You are such a snob. What difference can it make
to us, whether this Frank Kent is a lord or a prizefighter? We certainly
can't have anything to do with him. I shan't even speak to him again if
I can help it. For the life of me, Jean, I don't see how you happen to
find out the gossip in Wyoming with our ranches five miles apart."
Jean's brown eyes sparkled. She and Jack had many differences of
opinion, but to-night Jack was tired and her cousin decided not to
answer back.
"Have you gotten your lessons, Frieda?" Jack asked gently a moment
later, kissing her hand apologetically to Jean.
Frieda shook her head. She had two long blonde plaits, like a little
German girl, with a curl at the end of each one of them. Her cheeks were
a faint pink, and her nose tilted just enough to curl her lips up into a
smile.
"No," she replied calmly. "Jean offered to hear me recite, but I didn't
feel like it. You and Jean haven't studied your French for three
evenings. I don't see why I have to do all the studying, because I am
the youngest. When we planned to live by ourselves this winter, you and
Jean declared that you were going to study three or four hours every
day."
Jack pulled Frieda's hair and Jean had just picked up her French grammar
with a sigh when there came the noise of some one riding up to the ranch
house.
The three girls flew to the window. It was too dark to recognize the
figure on horseback. But a few moments later, Aunt Ellen brought in an
envelope addressed to "Miss Jacqueline Ralston."
It was a surly note of apology from Dan Norton for his rudeness to her
in the afternoon. The girls wondered what in the world had induced him
to write it.
Long after Jean and Frieda were asleep, Jacqueline lay awake. She was
the oldest and most responsible member of the ranch girl family of
three. Frieda was right, she and Jean had been neglecting their studies
shamefully. Now and then Jack could not help thinking that perhaps it
was not wise for them to live without a teacher or a chaperon. They did
not want to grow up perfect greenhorns, yet how they hated the idea of
introducing a stranger into their home at Rainbow Ranch. Jack was still
puzzling, when she fell asleep, with the familiar sound in her ears of
the far-off lowing of the wild cattle across the prairie and the distant
bark of the faithful sheep dogs.