FAREWELL
The September day was cloudy with gusts of wind and rain.
The ranch lands, usually fair and appealing, to-day looked bleak and
forbidding.
At the frame building which served as a railroad station were gathered
a number of persons who were indifferent to the conditions.
A large group of them surrounded a young girl, dressed in a dark-blue
serge traveling costume with a black hat trimmed with a blue bird's
wing. Her face was flushed with excitement and in her hands she was
carrying a new suitcase which she had failed to place on the platform.
She looked extremely stylish and efficient, and yet was not actually so
self-possessed as she appeared.
"Will you please put down your bag, Jeanette, or allow one of us to
carry it for you?" Cecil Perry protested.
"With half a dozen boys in your immediate neighborhood one would
receive the impression that we had no manners, or else that you were
afraid to trust any one of us."
Laughing, Jeanette surrendered her bag.
"Don't employ that lofty tone with me, Cecil. I know you have traveled
often and far. But kindly remember this is the first journey of any
length that I have ever taken in my life. I am trying to give the
impression that I am thoroughly accustomed to it, but realize that I am
obliged to make mistakes now and then."
Jeanette glanced about until her eyes fell upon a young woman whose
costume indicated that she also was waiting for the train.
"A profound secret, Cecil! If your mother were not leaving with me I
should somehow manage at this instant to slip away from all of you and
hide myself in a clump of sage. Then back to the beloved Rainbow Ranch
in the morning! I could climb up into my own room at Rainbow Castle
without the family knowing in case they decline to shelter a coward."
Olivia Colter had come up to her sister's side and at this moment put
her arm around her, clinging fast.
"Please don't go, Jeanette. I wish you would change your mind even at
this last instant. I know you will never be the same again. Boarding
school, away from your own family and our Western country! You are sure
to change."
"And can you think of no possibilities for improvement in one Jeanette
Colter, Via?" Cecil inquired. "There are those among us who may even be
hopeful that she will alter in one or two characteristics."
"Then speak for yourself alone, Cecil Perry," Via flashed with
unexpected fire. "I am perfectly well satisfied with Jeanette as she
is. If any one else feels differently it is not your place to mention
it."
A little chorus of laughter followed Via's response.
Cecil made a bow of mock humility.
"Forgive me if I have offended your two highnesses," he entreated. "I
was not really serious, as I hoped you might guess. Neither was I aware
that one had to regard Jeanette as faultless to admire her. As a matter
of fact I do chance to admire her."
Jeanette shook her head.
"Cecil, I naturally possess a trusting nature and most of the things
that people tell me I believe. So far as you are concerned, any other
statement you make I will accept, but never your last!"
Cecil Perry's expression changed. Until this moment he had been
jesting, not for Jeanette's sake alone, but partly to sustain his own
courage.
He was remaining in Wyoming for the winter. His mother and Jeanette
Colter would depart in the next quarter of an hour, were the train on
time, for New York. Jeanette would enter a boarding school on Long
Island.
The choice had been Cecil's own. Even now he was not regretting it,
only it was difficult to escape a natural sense of loneliness, a slight
sensation of being deserted.
"Jeanette, suppose you walk down to the end of the platform with me
alone. I wish to say something to you. Via may of course come with us.
I have not the cruelty to suggest that Via give up having you with her
for a moment."
Jeanette hesitated, looking at the other friends surrounding her. Lina
and Eda, a few yards away, were at present saying good-by to Mrs.
Perry. Eda had thrust her hand into her stepmother's and was holding
her as if she feared she might escape. Shy with strangers and of
unusual surroundings, she was excited and unhappy over the thought of
Jeanette's departure and of the approach of the train that was to bear
her away. Not often willing to reveal her dependence upon affection,
her stepmother felt as if a shy, wild bird was nestling inside her hand.
Lina was standing beside her father and talking at this moment to Mrs.
Perry.
In another moment Jeanette was planning to say farewell to her
companions and join her own family for the short time that remained to
her. Therefore she did not feel inclined to agree to Cecil's request.
"Please do what I ask, Jeanette. Remember how unfair you have been to
me in times past! Make up in this fashion."
Whether or not Cecil were in earnest, Jeanette Colter could not be
sure. However, his words decided her. She had not always been fair to
him and in a way owed him a great deal. In the future she might be very
dependent upon his mother's kindness and affection.
The two girls and their companion moved a few steps away from the
others, strolling leisurely toward the end of the station platform. At
the moment the rain was falling in a sheet of gray mist.
"Don't you think we somehow have changed places, Jeanette, since our
first meeting?" Cecil inquired. "In the first weeks after my arrival I
disliked the West and the outdoor life. I remember I regarded nothing
with favor, not even my neighbors. I was homesick, Jeanette, as I told
you then. I wasn't so bad as I appeared. Now I have learned to love
the ranch life. Why I even love the rain on the prairies and the way
it falls and disappears on the patches of desert sand, like jewels
being caught up by a great underground magician. Good gracious, am I
growing poetical, Jeanette? This must be due to mother's departure and
to yours. What I wanted to say is knowing you has done me a lot of
good. You did brace me up in those early days. I was determined no girl
should have a right to think of me as you did. So I set myself to learn
to like the Western life and have succeeded pretty well.
"_You_ have grown tired of it. You may not realize this and
I appreciate that you are sorry to be saying good-by to us this
afternoon. Still the fact remains that you are yearning to see new
places and meet new people and try a new kind of life. You are a Ranch
Girl no longer!"
"Please don't, Cecil. You are not being fair to me and besides will
make Via more unhappy. I was horrid to you during the beginning of our
acquaintance and you have been awfully kind of late to behave as if you
had forgiven me. The truth is that I was so intensely disagreeable at
the time that you only came in for a share of my unpleasantness. You
know there were other persons who suffered more. But mother and father
have decided to forget the past, so you might as well. However, I don't
ask that you admire me. That is too much to expect! Besides I _am_
a Ranch Girl and shall always love this Western country better than you
have any right to. You see, I was born and brought up here, while you
are the newest kind of a tenderfoot. I don't want to go East, I know I
shall detest boarding school and weep every night for the ranch. It was
sweet of your mother to give up Rainbow Castle to the family. I am sure
she decided to go back to New York earlier than she had planned, so we
might move back into our own home after the fire at the lodge. Alas, I
said 'we,' yet I shall not be there for the present. You don't believe
what Cecil said, do you, Via?"
The other girl shook her head.
"I am not sure, Jeanette. Of course I know you are devoted to all of
us, but I don't think you mind going away half so much as we do giving
you up."
"Come, no comparisons, Via," Cecil returned, "else I shall be forced
to mention the obvious fact that you have me to take Jeanette's place.
I have no thought of posing as a Ranch Girl, yet I'll be a fairly good
substitute, especially as your father has agreed to let me work for
him this winter. I am to acquire a little practical knowledge of ranch
life. I don't expect my work will amount to a great deal, but I'll
manage to be at the Rainbow Ranch every minute I am free. I suppose one
has to keep on at one's books now and then."
Cecil paused and colored.
Jeanette was accustomed to the fashion in which his fair skin reddened
when an emotion stirred within him.
At this instant, thrusting his hand into his pocket, he drew forth a
long, slender box.
"Please don't open this until you are out of the State of Wyoming,
Jeanette, one hour across the border, then you may.
"If we were not friends at the beginning of our acquaintance this will,
I hope, make you believe that I was in earnest when I said a few
moments ago that I admired you very much at present. Who knows, I may
admire you even more some day? In any case I am glad you and mother are
such friends. She has always wished for a daughter and you'll do fairly
well. I could not have let her go back to New York without me, unless
you had been with her. She will have you to be interested in this
winter and to take my place."
Jeanette's eyes rested curiously upon the slender box, carefully
wrapped and tied.
She had no opportunity to reply, merely to receive the gift, since at
this instant she heard her father coming toward them.
"See here, Cecil, you are not to absorb Jeanette's society at the last
like this! A man wants a chance at his own daughter now and then."
"I don't feel like leaving home, father. Suppose I give up and stay
here and take charge of the ranch this winter?" Jeanette demanded, half
joking, half in earnest, and holding tight to her father.
She looked and felt like a very small girl at this instant, boarding
school, which had been a long dream, now appearing as a kind of
impossible nightmare.
Mrs. Colter and Eda joined them.
Not far away sounded the whistle of the approaching train.
Jeanette seized her stepmother's free hand.
"You'll take good care of father and the girls and the ranch? And you
will forgive my being so, so abominable?" she pleaded. "I do admire and
like you ever so much now--I mean really, as if you were not a member
of the family."
This speech did not sound graceful or what she had intended to say and
Jeanette paused. She had the uncomfortable impression that there would
not be time to explain.
She and her stepmother had never kissed each other during their entire
acquaintance. If this was unusual, it was because their temperaments
were in many ways alike. Save with the people to whom they were deeply
devoted demonstration was difficult.
Now Jeanette lifted up her face and the older woman bent toward her.
On her lips the girl felt another pair of lips rest for a fleeting
instant. This was unimportant beside the fact that eyes met in a long,
intimate and soul-revealing glance.
"It is all right, Jeanette, and wise for you to go," her stepmother
answered her unspoken thought. "Things may be difficult at school, but
you'll get a great deal from it. As for me, I promise to do my best at
the Rainbow Ranch and to let you hear if anything goes seriously wrong.
Good-by."
The three other Ranch Girls were waiting to say farewell. Jeanette's
last embrace was for her father.
"Say I am your favorite daughter just this minute?" she begged.
He nodded and drew her toward the train, which had at this instant
stopped.
A few moments after she was wiping the mist from the car window and
trying to catch farewell glimpses of her family and friends. They
receded all too quickly from her vision.
A surprisingly quiet Jeanette sat beside Mrs. Perry for the next few
hours.
The older woman read a magazine. Now and then she glanced at the girl
when she felt she was not aware of her scrutiny.
After a time Jeanette's sensation of loneliness began to be dissipated
by her interest in her surroundings. Her color came back. The small
head with the bobbed brown hair and firm chin and the gray-blue
eyes was lifted first to stare out the window, then to study her
fellow-travelers.
She and Mrs. Perry were eating dinner in the dining-car just before
dusk, when Jeanette inquired:
"Are we still in Wyoming?"
Mrs. Perry shook her head.
"I don't know, dear, I'll ask some one. Why are you interested? Will
you feel you really are on the way then?"
A middle-aged man in the seat opposite leaned across.
"Yes, we left Wyoming half an hour ago. We will be in the mountains
before dark."
Mrs. Perry nodded, smiling.
"That is, if nothing happens," amended the stranger. He was a lean,
wiry man, with furtive eyes.
"Why, nothing is likely to happen!" exclaimed Jeanette, a little awed
by the man's manner.
"You never can tell," he answered. "The motto of Tom Furniss--that's
myself--is, 'Expect the worst, and you won't be disappointed.'"
Mrs. Perry frowned.
"I think that is the very stupidest motto in the world," said Jeanette
indignantly. "It seems to me that the real man is he who goes through
the world expecting the best things; and if the worst things come, he
meets them courageously and with the belief that the misfortune is but
momentary."
"Perhaps you are right," said Mr. Furniss; "indeed, for people like you
two ladies, whose lines are cast in pleasant places, you are right; but
I've lived in the Bad Lands where humanity is raw, and where the man
who isn't alert for trouble is sure to meet disaster. I don't say I go
around looking for trouble, but----"
He did not finish the sentence. Came a hissing of steam, a screeching
of brakes, then a crash.
The man was flung sprawling across the table. Mrs. Perry and Jeanette
were jerked from their seats. The dishes were swept crashing to the
floor. The train had come to a stop.
In a panic the passengers rushed to the doors.
Jeanette and Mrs. Perry lay huddled in a corner of the seat.
Laboriously Mr. Furniss gathered himself up from the table. "I expected
something like this," he grunted. "This is a bad neck of woods."
"Is--is it a hold-up?" murmured Mrs. Perry, with her arms around
Jeanette.
"Yes, but not the kind of hold-up you mean," answered Tom Furniss, with
a wry smile. "It's a hold-up due to faulty signals, or one of those
unaccountable accidents that all railroad men must be prepared for.
It's a collision. We've run into a train ahead, I suspect. You're not
hurt?" he asked solicitously.
Mrs. Perry and Jeanette arose shakily. "I don't think there are any
bones broken," said Jeanette.
"And I think I'm all right," added Mrs. Perry, "except that I am
suffering from shock."
"I'm never shocked," said Mr. Furniss gloomily. "You see, I always
expect the worst, and----"
"Oh, please stop that pessimistic talk," pleaded Jeanette. Then to Mrs.
Perry: "Don't you think we had better go out and see what has happened?"
Mr. Furniss shook his head. "Now you ladies stay right here and I will
bring you the report. I expect there may be scenes that women folks
wouldn't like to see."
Mrs. Perry caught Jeanette's arm and moved toward the door.
"No, Mr. Furniss," she said. "I begin to be superstitious of people who
expect the worst; and as Jeanette and I expect the best we will do our
own investigating."
"Besides," added Jeanette, "we may be able to help, if there is need."
Tom Furniss sank back in his chair with the feeling that some one had
thrown a pail of water over him.
"I never could bear women folks," he muttered querulously. "If a man
gets snappy with you, there's a way of settling him; but when a woman
floors you with a word or two there's no come-back."
Somehow he no longer had any desire to find out what had happened, and
he slumped back in his seat and began idly to rearrange what dishes
were still left on the table.
* * * * *
Presently Mrs. Perry returned. She had left her vanity case and had
come to retrieve it. There was a look of relief on her face.
She looked at Mr. Furniss and frowned. Then a quizzical smile illumined
her countenance. "It's your turn to be disappointed, Mr. Furniss,"
she said, smiling. "There were none of the gruesome scenes that you
pictured in your mind. The accident was not a serious one. We bumped
into the rear end of a freight train, but our brakes were working
splendidly, and apparently nobody was hurt, though a few people
were foolish enough to faint. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but your
predictions were not verified."
Tom Furniss said nothing.
Mrs. Perry was going away, but a feeling of pity for the man whose
whole life was built on the expectation of coming misfortunes made her
halt.
"Mr. Furniss, will you let a woman give you a piece of advice?"
"I don't need it," he said promptly. "I'm cured."
"And in future?" she asked, as she held out her hand.
He grasped it.
"In future I'm going to follow your lead: expect the best, and see how
it works."
"Oh, it _will_ work," said Mrs. Perry, and smilingly, she went
back to join Jeanette, who had taken her seat in the car behind.
"All's going to be well now," she said, laughing, as she settled
herself beside Jeanette. "I've reformed our inveterate pessimist."
"You don't mean our dinner companion, Tom Furniss?" exclaimed Jeanette.
The older woman nodded.
"Yes, indeed. He's promised in future to expect only the best things in
life--and if we all could concentrate on the best things, why, we could
turn this curious old world into a paradise."
"You're a dear," said Jeanette. "But," she added suddenly, "I wish we'd
hurry and get away from Wyoming."
Mrs. Perry looked in surprise at the girl. "Why are you so anxious to
get away from the state which you should be very fond of?"
"Just because," said Jeanette.
"A woman's answer!" exclaimed Mrs. Perry.
Jeanette made no response, but her fingers closed tighter on the little
box Cecil had given her. She stared out of the window at the gathering
dusk. The landscape was fading out of sight. Night was at hand.
The train was in motion again, but it was a backward motion. The
freight train ahead blocked their line. A broken axle was the cause,
and it would be some time before it could be repaired.
Meantime orders had come for the switching of the east-bound passenger
train to the west-bound tracks.
They ran back for some time, till they reached a switch, then swung
across the rails to the west-bound track.
As they gathered speed and carefully crept past the crippled freight
they could see men with lanterns working in the gathering gloom.
"We are on the wrong track," said Jeanette. "I do hope we won't run
into a west-bound flier."
"Now you're talking like our friend Tom Furniss," said Mrs. Perry.
"Before you reformed him," added Jeanette, and they both laughed.
In a little while the danger zone was passed and they were switched
back to the east-bound track.
* * * * *
Mrs. Perry had closed her eyes and apparently was asleep.
Jeanette glanced at her watch. It was fully an hour and a half since
they had crossed the Wyoming border. Cecil had said "One hour."
Allowing half an hour for the time lost at the accident, they must be
fully "one hour out of Wyoming."
Slowly and carefully she untied the package which Cecil had presented
her.
The box was a little too long for an ordinary jewel box and yet had
somewhat this appearance.
She lifted the lid. Inside on a bed of white satin was a long pin. The
pin was a beautiful silver arrow. It bore but little resemblance to the
small pins that were the insignia of the Club of the Silver Arrow.
This pin had been made for an especial purpose and after a beautiful
design. In the point were three tiny jewels, a sapphire, a ruby and a
diamond.
Within the box there was also a small strip of closely folded paper.
"This is for Jeanette Colter, who, I still believe, earned the right to
the possession of the silver arrow."
No name was signed.
A little later, when they were both commencing to feel weary and
planning to retire to bed, Jeanette said slowly:
"Mrs. Perry, do you think it ungrateful of me and lacking in affection
that I really do want to go East to school? I did not feel this at
the last and would have stayed on at the ranch if I had received any
encouragement. Cecil understood me better than I understood myself. He
was always insisting that I wished to leave. In the last few hours I
have decided this is true. I want to see what the world is like beyond
my home surroundings."
The older woman smiled, then answered the girl with entire seriousness.
"There are some natures that are more adventurous than others, dear.
Some of us wish to go forth early and one way or another to seek our
fortunes. You see, our fortunes may mean a great variety of things.
Other people are willing to wait and perhaps have their adventures seek
them out. What does it matter? We must fulfill ourselves."
* * * * *
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 Ranch Girls and their Heart's Desire
The Ranch Girls and the Silver Arrow
THE RED CROSS 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
The Red Cross Girls Afloat with the Flag
The Red Cross Girls with Pershing to Victory
The Red Cross Girls with the U. S. Marines
The Red Cross Girls in the National Capital
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 on the Edge of the Desert
The Camp Fire Girls at the End of the Trail
The Camp Fire Girls Behind the Lines
The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor
The Camp Fire Girls in Glorious France
The Camp Fire Girls in Merrie England
The Camp Fire Girls at Half Moon Lake
THE GIRL SCOUTS SERIES
The Girl Scouts of the Eagle's Wing
The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest
The Girl Scouts of the Round Table