SEEKING ADVICE.
JEAN giggled. Frank Kent and Jack were so funny. They both turned and
glared at her with reproachful eyes.
"I hope you don't think I have intruded," Frank protested hotly.
"Oh, no, certainly not," Jack answered with frozen politeness. "That is,
at least,--I don't understand."
The scene was enough to have bewildered almost anybody. The quiet room
where Jack had left the Indian girl half unconscious and guarded only by
tranquil Frieda, was now in a state of suppressed excitement.
Olilie lay back in her chair with the same expression on her face that
she had worn on the day she was discovered. Aunt Ellen had her eyes
rolled back so that only the whites were showing. Frieda was bouncing up
and down, she was so agitated, and Jean looked as though she had been
through the war. And in the midst of the family group stood the strange
young fellow whom Jacqueline had met on the Norton ranch and most
cordially requested not to make their acquaintance.
Frieda rushed into the breach. "Oh, Jack, the most awfullest thing
almost happened!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands and forgetting her
grammar in her hurry. "That dreadful old Indian woman and a boy came
here and tried to drag Olilie away. I hollered and hollered out the
window for Jim or you or anybody to come drive them off, and he came,"
Frieda bobbed her head at their visitor.
She was so excited that Jean and Jack laughed. But Frank Kent did not
smile the least bit. You see he was English and English people don't see
jokes quickly. Besides, he was angry at Jack's first suspicion of him.
He guessed by her high and mighty manner that she thought he had come to
the ranch against her wishes.
He looked so stiff and unfriendly that Jacqueline did not know what to
say first.
"Your cousin will tell you how I happened to be near," he said icily,
backing out the door.
Jack rushed after him, nearly tripping over the spurs on her riding
boots. "Please don't go quite yet," she begged. "At least let me thank
you for whatever you did." Jack had a way of smiling suddenly that
changed her whole expression, and made people forgive her almost
anything. "Won't you please come into the living-room and one of you
tell me calmly exactly what has happened, or I shall simply die of
curiosity."
Jack led the way into the big, sunlit room, followed by Jean and more
slowly by Frank Kent.
"O! dear here's a kettle of fish," Jack sighed, when Jean finished her
story. She didn't think of her slang till she saw Frank's puzzled
expression, then she blushed. "I am afraid we can't keep this little
Indian girl at the ranch, Jean, if her own people will have her," Jack
went on. "You see I had a long talk with Jim this morning. He says we
must not make the Indians in the neighborhood angry with us. They will
say we kidnapped the girl, or something horrid. And we have troubles
enough without that." A second after Jack was ashamed of having spoken
of their difficulties before a perfect stranger.
To tell the truth affairs were not going very well at Rainbow Ranch.
The big creek which ran along through Rainbow Valley for nearly a mile
and supplied their ranch with water was almost dry in the middle of
October. There might soon be nothing for the cattle and horses to drink
until the winter snows fell. Jim had confided to Jack that he suspected
some one was draining their creek by digging a channel for the water
lower down the valley. He could not find out, but if it were true, it
meant ruin for the ranch girls! There was another, even more serious
difficulty, that might be in store for them, but of this the girls would
not speak.
"Has anything happened, Jack?" Jean asked hurriedly.
Jack shook her head. "Nothing unusual," she replied. "Only I shall feel
dreadfully sorry if we have to send the Indian girl back to her people.
You and Frieda must not think I am hateful if we find we have to."
Frank Kent forgot his English shyness.
"You girls are just bully to be fighting this strange girl's battles,"
he broke in. "I wonder if you wouldn't let me help you! I believe there
is something queer about her parentage anyhow. Even an English duffer
like I am, can tell by looking at her that she isn't a full-blooded
Indian."
Frank's face turned red as a beet and he stammered hurriedly. "Of course
if you let me help you in this, we need not know each other afterwards."
Jacqueline was as fiery red as her guest and Jean giggled again.
"We couldn't be as horrid as all that," Jack declared in a
straightforward fashion, exactly like another boy would have done. "We
would not make use of you and then cut you afterwards. And please don't
be angry with us, if I tell you again, that we simply can't be anything
but just acquaintances with the Nortons' relatives or friends. You
understand, don't you?" Jack held out her hand as though she did not
know just what to do or say. Jean wouldn't utter a word to help her.
Frank Kent shook Jack's hand warmly and this time he did not seem
offended.
"All right," he answered sadly. "But if there is ever anything I can do
to help you, I am going to do it, whether we are friends or not."
And though Jack and Jean did not see how this strange fellow could ever
be mixed up in their affairs, they were comforted somehow by what he
promised.
"I am going over to Mrs. Simpson's this afternoon, Jean," Jack announced
a few minutes after their guest's departure. "I know people say that we
ranch girls never take anybody's advice, but just the same I am going to
ask Mrs. Simpson what we had better do about this Indian child. Will you
come along?"
Mrs. Simpson, the ranch girls' most intimate friend, and her husband
were the wealthiest ranch owners in that part of Wyoming. She was a
typical Western woman, with a big heart and a sharp tongue. She used to
lecture the girls and at the same time was awfully proud of their
courage and independence.
"I'm game, Jack," Jean agreed, "but I haven't any proper riding habit. I
wouldn't mind a bit if that wretched niece of Mrs. Simpson's wasn't
there. I wish you had seen how she stared at me the other day when I
called Mrs. Simpson, Aunt Sallie, as though we hadn't called her Aunt
all the days of our youth. Do you think Aunt Ellen could mend this for
me before we go?" Jean held up a green broadcloth riding habit very
much the worse for wear, with a long ugly rent in it.
"You need a new habit dreadfully, Jean," Jack declared. "I am afraid we
haven't any really proper clothes. The worst of it is, I don't know just
what we ought to have or where to get them. I wonder if we are too much
like boys?"
"What's the odds, Jack, so long as we are happy," Jean sang out
cheerfully. "Besides, Jim says that money hasn't been flowing in to
Rainbow Ranch any too plentifully lately. It takes pretty much all he
can get hold of to run things, so I thought I wouldn't trouble about
another habit. But the idea of that fashionable Miss Laura Post, from
Miss Beatty's school, New York City, staring at me with her china-blue
eyes does rattle me. She and her mother treat us exactly as though we
were a Wild West show. Besides it is my unpleasant impression that I had
this same tear in my skirt when I rode over to Aunt Sallie's the last
time."
"Jean, you are lazy; why didn't you mend it yourself?" Jack scolded.
"You know Aunt Ellen can't sew a bit. Isn't it dreadful that little
Frieda is the only one of us who ever touches a needle and she has no
one to show her how to sew, poor baby. Come along, I'll see what I can
do with your old skirt. Let's go in the Indian girl's room while I do my
worst, best, I mean."
Olilie had very little to tell her rescuers of her history. She could
not explain why Laska wanted her to live with her, because she had
always hated her and been unkind to her. Olilie had but one friend, a
teacher in the Indian school in the Indian village in Wind Creek valley.
The sick girl did not talk so freely before Jack, as she seemed a little
afraid of her, but she begged the girls to find her a home at one of the
ranch houses where she might earn her living, for she declared that she
would never go back to the "Crow's nest," as old Laska's hut was called.
Jack and Jean galloped swiftly over the ten miles that lay between their
ranch and the Simpson's. No one could grow tired, no matter how long the
ride, in this glorious October air in Wyoming, as clear and sparkling as
crystal. The girls forgot their difficulties, also they quite failed to
remember the languid young lady from the East who was Mrs. Simpson's
adored niece.
A mile from the Simpson ranch house, Jean stood up in her saddle and
waved a challenge to Jack. "Beat you to the veranda!" she called back,
loosening the reins on her pony's neck and giving him a light cut with
her quirt.
Jean was off like a shot before Jack could get a start. She reached the
porch several yards ahead of her cousin. But Jack was determined not to
be outclassed as a rider. Just in front of the house was a row of
hitching posts about five feet high. "Clear the track," Jack shouted.
She thrust her feet forward in their long, loose Western stirrups, threw
her body back and her pony rose in the air like a bird, straight over
the posts, and she landed at Jean's side with a small Indian war-whoop
of triumph.
A languid clap of hands from the front porch and a horrified
exclamation, made Jean's cheeks burn and Jack's grey eyes kindle.
"Buffalo Bill at his best! I congratulate you," a soft voice exclaimed.
"I wish you had more of an audience."
Jack laughed lightly. "Oh, we can do ever so much better than that, when
we try, Miss Post; perhaps if you stay out West for a while we may show
you how to ride. We would be glad to do anything for Aunt Sallie's
guest." Jack's tones were sweetly innocent, but Jean snickered.
Laura Post bit her lips angrily. "Teach Laura to ride?" her mother
protested indignantly. "Why my daughter has been trained in the best New
York riding academies. I am afraid they would not care for your Western
riding in Central Park."
Jean did not see how in the world Jacqueline could appear so undisturbed
by the vision of elegance which confronted them. Laura was dressed in a
soft cream flannel skirt and coat with a pale blue blouse and wore a big
felt hat with a blue pompon on it, to shade her delicate
peaches-and-cream skin. Jean felt Laura's eyes fasten on the long rent
in her riding skirt, which Jack had mended, with such an expression of
superior amusement that she wanted to pull her hair or to scratch her,
or to do something else that was violent.
Laura Post was a very pretty girl, all daintiness and fluffiness. She
had very light curly hair and blue eyes, and she looked as though she
had never done anything for herself in her life. Her mother was just
like her, only a more faded and dressed-up edition. Jean did not know
why they both made her feel so awkward, as though it were dreadfully
inelegant to have one's skin tanned and hair blown by a long, glorious
ride across the open country.
Mrs. Post and Laura would not go when Mrs. Simpson came out and sat down
by the ranch girls, holding Jean's hand in one of hers and Jack's in the
other, and wondering why Jean, who was her favorite of the three ranch
girls, looked so hot and uncomfortable.
"The first thing for you to do, Jacqueline Ralston, is to bring this
Indian girl over here for me to take a look at her," Mrs. Simpson
announced at the end of Jack's story. "I was going to send a note over
to you this very afternoon. I want you children to come over to spend a
few days with us. I would like Laura to have some real Western parties
and good times, and I think the best way is to have you stay right here
with us. There isn't any other way to manage with you young people so
far from one another, so bring your Indian girl to our house party. I
confess I am curious to see her."
"You are awfully good, Mrs. Simpson, but I am afraid we can't come,"
Jack answered gratefully. In spite of the fact that Laura and her
mother were both staring at her, Jack went on: "You see we have not the
right clothes to stay on a house party. I am afraid we don't even
understand just what we ought to have. Father did not know much about
girls' things and we have never had any one else to tell us, and besides
I don't think your niece would like to have an Indian girl for her
guest. Olilie is awfully shy, and I don't expect she would know how to
behave."
Mrs. Simpson gave Jack a little shake.
"Nonsense, Jacqueline Ralston, what perfect foolishness you are talking!
When did you begin to worry about clothes? You know that you and Jean
are belles wherever you are. As for Laura, I am sure she will be glad
enough to have the Indian girl and I'll look after the child. I want to
study her. If she is a regular Indian, she would probably be hard to
manage."
Laura shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Oh yes, please do bring the Indian
maiden with you," she remarked with an innocent, babyish expression that
fooled her Aunt but not her visitors. "I am sure the Indian can't be any
queerer than the other people one meets out West."