OLIVE'S REMORSE
BACK at the Lodge Olive undressed and lay down upon the bed for a short
rest. Afterwards, when she felt that Jack must surely have received her
message she rose and put on the lavender frock that was the other girl's
especial favorite.
Olive was by this time no longer tired, but in better spirits than she
had been for several weeks. For in less than an hour, perhaps, things
would be entirely cleared up between herself and her best friend.
"Dear old Jack, was there ever anyone else in the world quite so
generous or so absurd? Did Jack really think that she had the privilege
of bestowing her lover upon her friend, simply because she was under the
impression that the friend desired him? What would Frank have had to say
in the matter?"
Then Olive blushed. Possibly after all she had been more absurd in
allowing herself even for an hour or a day to think that she cared for
a man as far beyond her reach as the moon. Let her be honest with
herself at least! Had she not actually shed tears in secret? And this
when from the very beginning of their acquaintance, Frank Kent had
always been her only loyal and devoted friend and nothing else. Well,
matters would soon be sensibly adjusted.
In the living room Olive found Ruth and Jean sewing, but in reality
devoting by far the greater portion of their time to admiring the baby,
who from inside his crib was placidly surveying the world with the
dignity of a philosopher.
"Where is Jack, Olive?" Ruth inquired at once, frowning and glancing
toward an open window. "It is so hot I am afraid we are going to have a
storm and I have been reproaching myself all day for letting you girls
start out on such a wild goose chase this morning. Why on earth did Jack
not send the men after the stock?"
Jean looked up from her work. "Oh, don't worry about Jack, she has been
doing this kind of thing ever since she could walk or ride and she began
both at about the same time. I believe Jack did send one of the cowboys
off in one direction while she and Olive and Carlos took the other. But
you know most of the men have gone with Jim and Frank to a round-up a
good many miles off. I wonder if they will be back in time for dinner?"
During this speech the door of the living room had slowly opened and
Frieda in a white muslin frock with a big book under her arm had quietly
entered. Her cheeks were flushed and her expression so uncommonly
serious, that remembering Jack's story of her younger sister's devotion
to the Professor, Olive smiled.
However, Frieda's first remark was an odd one.
"I am sorry if you have left Jack and Carlos together, Olive," she
began, puckering her white brow. "I don't believe any one in this family
realizes how Carlos hates Jack. I think if he could he would like to do
her an injury. You see she tries to boss him and he perfectly loathes
having any one dare interfere with him. Then Carlos is so lazy and Jack
has no use for any one who is lazy, except me. I wish she would come
home. If I had not promised Mr. Russell to go on reading to him I should
go out and look for her."
Frieda walked over to the front window and the next moment Ruth had
joined her. They both stood staring ahead of them hoping for a sight of
the familiar brown figure on horseback. For Jack usually rode up to the
house with such a splendid rush toward the end that even under ordinary
circumstances a vision of her was worth while.
"Don't be tiresome, Baby, and frighten Ruth," Jean expostulated.
Olive said nothing, but slipped out of the room and hall into the
garden. It would not be worth while to trouble the others with the story
of the difficulty between Jack and Carlos that morning. Nevertheless it
was not pleasant to recall the expression on the Indian boy's face
during their ride home, nor his long silence. Of course he rarely spoke
to other persons, but ordinarily he engaged in long confidences with
her, talking of the birds, wild flowers, any outside thing which he saw
and loved.
Surely in ten or fifteen minutes more the two wayfarers must return. In
the meantime Olive would not go back to join the others as it would not
be wise to communicate her own nervousness to them. So for the next
quarter of an hour she walked up and down outside the Lodge, making
several trips to the stables to see if the stable men had any
suggestions to make and to inquire what they thought concerning the
possibility of a storm. For there was little use in trying to argue the
truth away. The atmospheric conditions were strange and depressing.
Unless the wind changed, driving the single black cloud in an opposite
direction, something out of the common was sure to occur. If only Frank
Kent or Jim Colter or even the cowboys belonging to the ranch were at
home, in order that they might go out and look up the wanderers!
Finally Olive sent the two men who took care of the private stables to
reconnoiter. Then on her way back to the Lodge she found Jean hurrying
in the direction of the Ranch house.
"I want to find Ralph Merrit and ask his advice as soon as possible,"
Jean explained. "It is so late now he is sure to have quit work at the
mine. Ruth is convinced that we are going to have a cyclone and is
nearly frantic over Jack and Jim and Frank, all away from home. Yet I
hate having Ralph start out alone--he does not understand what the
weather out here means so well as the rest of us, even if he has been
here a good many years now. But I must confess I wish that Frieda had
not made that uncomfortable speech about Carlos' disliking Jack so much.
I am afraid it is true. Oh, Olive, what a pity it is that you happened
to leave them!"
This was the only word of reproach that any member of the Rainbow ranch
family made to Olive Van Mater during all the excitement and distress
that came afterwards. And of course Jean did not mean her words to carry
a sting--they were only an obvious exclamation.
Nevertheless Olive did not require outside censure to make her suffer as
keen remorse as was possible to her sensitive and devoted nature. For
she knew herself to be far more responsible for the day's catastrophe
than any one would ever dream.
Only the edge of the sand storm swept the neighborhood of the Rainbow
Lodge. Half a mile from the house it veered in its unaccountable way,
carrying its destructive force straight across the adjoining ranch,
wrecking half a dozen valuable buildings and killing a large number of
cattle. Yet it came sufficiently near the Lodge for everybody inside the
house to understand what was happening, even if Jim Colter and Frank
Kent and a dozen of the cowboys had not ridden home furiously only five
or ten minutes before, having raced the wind storm across the prairies
and come off victorious. Both looked fairly worn out, as they came
clanking into the living room, still in their riding clothes and boots
and covered with a fine coating of yellow sand.
"Jehoshaphat, but it is good to be indoors!" Jim exclaimed at once,
putting his arm about his wife and gazing around him. "It is a good
thing Frank isn't a tenderfoot, even if he is an Englishman. For if that
sand storm had struck us--well, I am not going to put on airs. I have
been a ranchman now for a good many years, but I never feel very hopeful
that anybody such a gale hits is going to come out alive." Then perhaps
in answer to the thought in the mind of every person in the room Jim
ended abruptly: "Where's Jack? Hasn't she manners enough to say 'howdy'
to two fellows who have nearly ridden themselves to death?"
Following his speech, Jim was not immediately aware of the peculiar
strained silence in the room, although Frank knew instantly that
something had occurred in which Jack had a part. Under the western tan
of the past few weeks his face whitened. But he set his teeth and
straightened his broad shoulders. For his was a strength of will and of
character worthy to match with Jack and capable of longer endurance.
For a moment no one seemed to dare to answer Jim's question. And then it
was not Ruth or any one of the three Ranch girls who replied, but Henry
Russell, who had hobbled into the living room on his crutches,
forgetting his terror and dislike of girls in his effort to offer his
friendly sympathy, and incidentally, though he himself was not aware of
it, to keep the lovely blond doll of his first acquaintance from making
herself more miserable than necessary.
"I, I am afraid Mrs. Colter and--and the others are feeling a little
uneasy about Miss Ralston," he murmured. "She went out this morning with
the Indian boy, Carlos, to ride over the ranch and she has not come in
just yet. I have told them that she certainly must have taken refuge
with a neighbor or else that the storm has not come within her vicinity.
They tell me that these western siroccos are very freakish."
But neither Jim Colter nor Frank had heard anything except the first
part of their visitor's speech.
Afterwards Jim paid no attention to any one in the room except to lean
over and kiss Ruth. "We will find her in a little while, don't worry.
Jack is always getting into scrapes and being grown up seems to make
little difference," he remarked grimly as he marched off.
But Olive clung desperately to Frank Kent's arm as he tried to follow
him.
"Please let me speak to you a minute alone before you go," she pleaded.
Then when they were out in the yard and away from the others she put her
hand on Frank's arm and looked at him with an earnestness which he did
not in the least understand.
"When you find Jack will you please give her this message from me," she
asked. "Tell her that she has been making a dreadful mistake all along
and that there is nothing in the world that will make me so happy as to
hear of her engagement to you. Please tell her this when you first find
her, don't wait until you are at home again."
With a rather unusual show of emotion Frank pressed both of Olive's
hands in his. "You believe that Jack really cares for me?" he demanded.
And then as Olive bowed her head without replying he mounted a fresh
horse, riding away in the direction that Olive had indicated.