BREAKING THE NEWS.
JEAN and Jack came down the wide sunlit hall with their two heads close
together. It was three days since their return from the house party to
their own home.
Outside a half-opened door they stopped. "Listen, Jack," Jean whispered,
swallowing a giggle. "They have been doing it every single day."
"If three fifths of a number is fifteen, what is the number?" Frieda's
voice read slowly and solemnly. She paused fora long moment. "The number
is fifteen, isn't it Olive? The sum said so."
Jean would not have swallowed her giggle this time, except that Jack
pinched her on the arm. "Do be quiet, Jean," she entreated. "You will
hurt their feelings."
"No, Frieda," Olive explained patiently. "You see one fifth of fifteen
is five--"
Jack knocked lightly on the door. "May we interrupt the school a minute,
please?" she begged. "I have to go away in a little while with Jim and
I do want to see what is going on. I think it is perfectly sweet of you,
Olive, to be trying to teach Frieda. It makes Jean and me awfully
ashamed."
Olive laughed shyly: "Oh, I am not teaching," she answered, "Frieda and
I are just studying together. There are such a lot of things I ought to
know so you won't be ashamed of me, and I am trying to learn the few
that I can. Frieda likes to study too."
Frieda was chewing the end of her stubby pencil and making queer figures
on a crumpled piece of paper. Her little round face wore such a virtuous
and studious expression that Jack laughed. Jean went over and pulling
Frieda's hair said: "Since when, Frieda Ralston, have you developed into
a student? Far be it from you ever to get your lessons for _me_ without
a fuss; something must have come over the spirit of your dreams."
Frieda shook her head impatiently. She was a very matter-of-fact person
at all times. "No such thing, Jean, dreams haven't anything to do with
it, it is only that Olive really takes an interest herself and is
awfully patient and does not laugh--"
But Jean had put her fingers in her ears and slipped out the bedroom
door.
Olive and Frieda were in their own room at a small table drawn up near
the window, and looking out, Jack saw Jim Colter come up the drive to
the door on horseback, leading a horse for her. Jean ran out in the yard
and stood for a moment talking to him.
Jim had been away from Rainbow Ranch since the day of the girls' return,
and Jack could see that he looked tired and serious, not like his usual
self.
Jack kissed Frieda. "Perhaps Jim and I won't be back until late, little
sister, don't worry. You know we are going to ride along the side of
Rainbow Creek to see about some of the cattle and horses. Maybe the poor
ponies and calves haven't any water to drink in some parts of the ranch.
Don't study until your pigtails turn grey."
Frieda laughed, but the Indian girl looked at Jacqueline closely. There
was something odd in Jack's manner, as though she were trying to hide a
secret that she was not sure whether or not she wished to tell.
"Good-bye, Olive," Jack called lightly, "don't talk about our being
ashamed of you, child. If you knew all I do not know, you would be
quite the wisest person in the world. Maybe Jean and I will have news
for you to-night. You have got to think it is good news, for Jean and I
hope it is. Anyhow, you two good, industrious children have made me make
up my feeble mind. _Auf wiedersehen._ That being about all the German I
know, I will translate it for you: 'Till we meet again.'"
Jack stamped out on the porch to Jean and Jim.
"Morning, overseer," she said brightly.
Jim lifted his Mexican hat. "Morning, boss," he returned gravely. "How
is the wounded member?"
Jack shrugged her sprained shoulder the least little bit. "It's not
first class yet, pard," she stammered, mimicking one of the cowboys on
the ranch. "But I think I can get over a good piece of ground by
catching hold on the reins with this here one good arm, if it's the same
to you. Is that the horse you mean me to use now, Jim?" Jack asked, her
voice and manner changing.
"Best I can do at present," Jim replied soberly. "Tricks ain't up to
Hotspur and you may have to watch him a bit."
"Jean," Jack whispered, just before she mounted her horse. "We have made
up our minds to it, haven't we? Do you think we will be able to endure
it?"
Jean cast her brown eyes up to heaven. "Bear it?" she groaned. "Well I
suppose if we must, we must. Only tell Jim, maybe he will say we must
not, then think of the relief!" Jean sighed, half in fun and half in
earnest, and watched Jim and Jack scamper out of sight.
"Wonder what old Jim and Jack are up to?" she murmured. "If they only
were going to see how nearly dry Rainbow Creek is, they would have taken
one of the cowboys with them. They are sure to have to pull a cow or a
calf out of a mud hole, before they are through. Jim looks as sober as a
judge. I hope he hasn't heard anything about the--" Jean broke off her
musing, with a stamp of her foot. "Of course not, I am a goose to think
of it," she told herself sternly.
Jim Colter and Jack galloped on in silence, Jim riding high in his
saddle, standing nearly erect, with his feet well out in the Western
cowboy fashion. He wore a pair of fringed trousers, with a cartridge
belt around his waist and two big Colt's revolvers were stuck in the
holsters on either side. A forty-foot rope was coiled and hung at the
pommel of his saddle. Jim's Irish blue eyes were black with anger this
morning and his lips set in a firm, hard line.
The two riders had followed the bed of Rainbow Creek for two miles
through the ranch before either one of them spoke.
Jim wheeled and looked Jack straight in the eyes. "You have a piece of
news for me, haven't you, Jack?" he asked.
Jack nodded. "My news will keep. What is it you have to tell me? I know
it is important."
"Can you bear it, girl?" Jim asked abruptly. "It's pretty bad."
Jack lifted her eyes without speaking. A moment later they filled with
tears and her lips trembled. "It isn't true though, Jim, is it?" she
entreated. "He can't prove what isn't true."
Jim squared his shoulders. "That is just the point, Miss Jack, and what
we have got to fight. Daniel Norton says he can prove that he is the
rightful owner of Rainbow Ranch. He has papers to show it and we haven't
a sign of anything. What we have got to establish is that his claim is
a lie and that Rainbow Ranch don't belong to nobody on this earth but
John Ralston's daughters."
"But how, Jim?" Jack asked. "You know we have lost the title to the
estate. We have never been able to find a sign of a paper to show that
the ranch is our property. I have looked through every one of father's
papers a thousand times. The deed is gone!"
"Then it will have to return before January first," Jim answered coolly,
snapping his fingers in the wind. "That is the date Mr. Norton means to
bring suit. Remember the game we used to play with a bit of paper, when
you were a little girl, Jack, 'Fly away Peter, Come back Paul'? Paul
used to come back, so don't you be frightened. Daniel Norton hasn't
gotten our ranch from us yet, and before he does, he will see some
pretty tall scrapping. But I am afraid we have got to find our deed. I
was one of the witnesses when your father's title to this ranch was
drawn up. The other witness was a fellow from the East, who just
happened to be passing through the country. He stayed with us a few days
and then goodness only knows what became of him. He may be living in
New York or New Mexico for all I know."
"But you can advertise for him, can't you, Jim?" Jack pleaded, her face
looking white and drawn. "Maybe if he would swear that father bought our
ranch and that Mr. Norton couldn't have any right to it, it might do
some good. What was his name?"
"Will Corbin," Jim answered shortly. "But don't build your hopes on that
idea. I have been advertising for the fellow for months. Not a word from
him."
"But the court records," Jack continued. "Of course I don't know
anything about law or business, Jim, but I am sure that I have heard
that if a person buys or sells a piece of property, some kind of record
of it is kept in a big book. Can't you get hold of that?" Jack begged
faintly. "If Mr. Norton brings suit and makes us leave our ranch in
January, what can we do? Where will we go? It will be so hard for Frieda
and Jean." Jack choked and could not go on for a moment.
Jim was looking in every direction except at his companion and cleared
his throat once or twice. Jack was gazing out over the sweep of low
country bordered by the distant hills. To one side was an open field,
where a herd of wild horses was munching the dried buffalo grass; on the
wooded slope of the ravine on the further bank of the creek, cattle were
leading their calves to drink. It was all their own, hers and Jean's and
Frieda's; their beloved Rainbow Ranch! Jack could recall no fairer
picture than the scene before her. Her eyes had looked out only on the
western lands since she could remember. "Well, Jim, don't you think it
would be a good scheme for us to look up this court record?" Jack
inquired more hopefully. "Mr. Norton couldn't say it was false."
"Look here, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim answered more gruffly than he had
ever spoken to her before. "Do you think that you are the only member of
Rainbow Ranch who has any business head? What have I been doing these
last few days but looking up that very record of the sale of Rainbow
Ranch to John Ralston, Esq.? But I have wasted my time. It wasn't any
use. The court record is gone, same as our own deed."
"But that isn't possible, Jim," Jack argued faintly, feeling the world
begin to spin round faster and faster, so she could hardly sit on her
horse. "I thought nobody ever dared touch anything that belonged to a
court of law."
"Jack," Jim demanded severely, "will you kindly remember that we are
living in the State of Wyoming and that we haven't been a State but a
powerful few years? When your father first came to Wyoming, this country
was pretty well filled up with wild beasts, wild Indians and some pretty
wild white men. There weren't but a few towns and they weren't slow
towns either. Things used to go on in them that a girl don't need to
know about. One of the tricks the bad men used to play was to change the
county seat over night, just for their own convenience. A band of men
would ride up to the courthouse, gather up the court records, the law
books and anything else that came in handy, and carry them off to a new
town. Next morning when folks woke up, they would find the county seat
moved and maybe a new judge and a new sheriff. In one of these here
little midnight excursions, they must have carried off the court records
which showed your father bought our old ranch fair and true. The book
must have been lost, for the record has disappeared, same as our own
title to the place. You can kind of see that old man Norton has got us
in a tight place, can't you, Jack?" Jim ended gloomily.
"We don't have to tell Jean and Frieda yet, do we, Jim?" Jack pleaded
wistfully. "It won't do any good to make them miserable so long as we
can keep the news from them."
Jim shook his head. "No sense in your bearing the whole burden alone,
Jack. You ain't much older than Jean, you know. Besides, maybe little
Frieda will be the very one of us to find our lost title to the old
ranch. Ain't things often revealed unto babes that are hid from the rest
of us?" Jim quoted reverently, not remembering exactly the great words
of the text, but sure enough of its meaning.
"Wait here a minute for me, please, Jack," Jim remarked suddenly, "there
is one of our calves stuck in the mud in the creek bottom. Funny how the
farther we get away from the Lodge the slower our creek runs! It didn't
used to be that way. Ought to be five or six feet of water along here
and there's only about one, and that silly calf has sunk to her knees in
mud and slime."
Jim rode away from Jack, a few feet into the creek, feeling his way
cautiously for fear of quicksands. The calf bleated and struggled, but
with a skillful swing of his lasso, Jim caught the mired animal securely
and dragged her back safe to dry land. When he joined Jack again, the
worried expression had disappeared entirely from his face.
"Cheer up, pard," he resumed affectionately. "You have got the best head
on your shoulders of any girl on this side the great divide. We will
straighten things out some way and have one of the jolliest Christmases
that ever took place at Rainbow Lodge, as a celebration. But didn't you
and Jean have something on your minds that you meant to ask me about?
Out with it! We don't want to do any talking when we get along toward
the end of our creek. Sure as fate, some way the water is being drained
from our creek and I have got to find out how it's done."
"Oh, my news doesn't amount to anything now, Jim," Jacqueline announced.
"After what you have just told me, there wouldn't be any point in trying
to carry out our plan. Indeed it is entirely out of the question."
"Tell me the plan just the same, Jack," Jim insisted, anxious to get
Jack's mind off the subject of their troubles.
"You will be awfully surprised, Jim," Jack declared, her face
crimsoning, "but Jean and I had just about decided that we ought to have
a chaperon to come to live with us at Rainbow Lodge."
Jim gave a long drawn out whistle. He gazed meditatively up at the blue
sky. "Good thing it ain't night," he replied slowly, "because if it had
been, the stars would have fallen at that remark of yours. You and Jean
think you ought to have a chaperon! Well, my word!"
"Don't be silly, Jim," Jack remonstrated. "You know we have talked over
our having a chaperon at the Lodge dozens of times since father died.
And even when I haven't talked, I have been thinking. We did hate the
idea of one and I am afraid I do still. But since our visit to Aunt
Sallie," Jack's beautiful straightforward face colored hotly, "Jean and
I believe we ought to have an older woman to live with us. You see it is
this way, Jim; we don't want to do things that even look wrong, just
because we don't know any better; and then we don't want to grow up
into perfect dunces. Jean and I don't seem to study at all with no one
to teach us, and Olive and Frieda are so anxious to learn that they make
us ashamed." Jack sighed. "What's the use of telling you all this? Of
course we can't think of sending for a chaperon now when we do not know
how long we will have a home to live in ourselves."
Jack had been crying a little, but now she threw her head back with a
familiar gesture and winked bravely. "Let's don't talk about our
troubles any more, Jim. Mr. Norton hasn't taken possession of Rainbow
Ranch yet by any means. Who knows what may happen in two months?"
"Shall I go to Laramie to-morrow and order out a chaperon, Miss
Ralston?" Jim queried calmly. "Suppose I put an ad in the paper.
'Wanted: a long-suffering lady, who knows everything, to chaperon and
instruct four young ladies who know nothing, but have difficult and
unmanageable tempers, particularly the eldest.' Sounds an attractive
advertisement. Ought to get a lot of answers."
Jack gazed inquiringly at their devoted friend and counsellor.
"You mean, Jim, that you think we had better go on and have a chaperon,
just as we planned, as though there was no danger of our losing the
ranch?"
Jim nodded silently. He placed a cautious finger on his lips. He was
leaning forward in his saddle, intent on something ahead.
Jack did not notice. "We don't want to have any one to live with us whom
we know nothing about," she went on, "so I expect we had better send for
mother's cousin, Ruth Drew. She is a fussy New England old maid, and
terribly prim, but she wrote she would come out to us, and if she can
stand for us, why,--what was that, Jim?" Jack finished breathlessly.
"Shsh!" Jim whispered softly. "Keep perfectly still until we know."