JACK SURRENDERS AT LAST
IT was almost dawn when Frank Kent believed that he heard a faint answer
to his last shouting. He was several miles from the outskirts of the
Rainbow Ranch and in a neighborhood where he might least expect to find
the girl he sought. But every acre of the ranch had been thoroughly gone
over during the night, and still the men under Jim Colter's leadership
were continuing the search along the track swept by the storm, but
without finding a trace of Jack or the Indian boy or of the two horses
which they were known to have been riding.
[Illustration: "THE STARS HAD DISAPPEARED AND BEYOND THE UNIVERSAL
GRAYNESS THERE WAS NOW A FAINT ROSE LIGHT"]
So, independently of the others, Frank had recently decided to try a new
neighborhood, not because he had any faith in its being the right one,
but because he felt that he must work alone. It was unendurable to
continue longer hearing the other men declare that there was little
chance of finding Jack or Carlos alive. For had they not been within
the track of the sand storm they must certainly have returned home
before this. Now Frank plunged on in the direction of the recent sound,
although he had heard nothing a second time in reply to his continued
calling.
Deep in his heart he was devoutly grateful that the dawn was finally
breaking. The stars had disappeared, and beyond the universal grayness
there was now a faint rose light. A moment before a western lark had
risen before his aching eyes, poising, fluttering and then sailing
straight overhead, singing its song of praise at the approach of the
sun.
So Frank in a measure could behold the objects ahead of him, though
among them he saw nothing to suggest Jacqueline Ralston. He was riding
over flat country with little before him but sand and low scrub plants.
And there were no signs of a horse's hoofs having lately struggled
through it. Finally, however, Frank got down off his own horse and,
stooping low, examined some faint tracings in the sands. He had not been
trained to making observations of this sort and even with the best of
scouts it is difficult to find footprints, in so fine and shifting a
soil. Nevertheless when Frank straightened up again his face was less
haggard and discouraged. For he had found a suggestion of a girl's
riding boot printed in the sand and now and then in curious circles
there were other such impressions.
With her head resting on a sand dune as though it were nature's pillow
Frank at length came upon the girl. And even when within a few feet of
Jack it was impossible to tell whether she was asleep or had fainted--or
whether her silence and rigidity meant something worse. Yet the girl's
expression was too worn and exhausted for the last great mystery; it had
not the ineffable peace that comes after nature's final surrender. Even
before he could touch her Frank had recognized this.
Quietly he began bathing her face with water poured upon his
handkerchief from the water flask which he had carried all night in his
pocket. Jack's own little water jug told its own story, since it was
lying empty at her side, drained to the last drop. Then, when the girl's
heavy lids fluttered slightly, Frank poured water between her scorched
lips. Her first sign of consciousness was when she put up her hands to
try and cling to his flask that she might have more. Yet the man drew it
away, telling her to keep quiet and close her eyes for a few moments
longer. Afterwards he allowed her another drink of water and then a few
drops of beef tea from a smaller bottle, which Ruth Colter had given
him.
Finally, with Frank's arm about her, Jack managed to sit up.
"I am so glad it was you who found me, Frank," she said a moment later.
"All night I have thought you would come." She did not even try to walk
or to explain what had happened, but let Frank lift her up on his horse,
where she leaned against him in utter weakness and dependence, while the
horse started slowly toward home.
The ride needs must be a long and fatiguing one even though aid reach
them before their arrival at the Lodge. And Jack's pulse was still too
faint to have her suffer further exhaustion. But after a while Frank
leaned over, pressing his lips against the girl's heavy gold brown hair
which had become unloosened from her long wandering and hung in two
curled braids down her back.
"Are you glad I found you because you care for me, Jack?" he whispered,
feeling that it was not altogether fair of him to ask such a question at
such a time, and yet too impatient to wait.
The girl answered, "Yes" quite simply. A little later she added like a
child: "Besides I knew you wouldn't scold, Frank. And of course I have
been foolish and headstrong. I don't seem to know how to grow up. You'll
ask Ruth and Jim not to make me explain to them until I have rested."
Frank smiled, but felt a curious lump in his throat--this new humility
and dependence were so unlike Jack. Unconsciously the arm that had been
holding her up closed more firmly about the girl's figure.
"Jack, Jack," he murmured, leaning low down until his lips were not far
from her ear. "I have waited so long, I can wait no longer. You have
just said that you cared for me, and for the second time I have believed
you. Then you mean, you must mean that you are willing to be my wife."
For just an instant the girl's body quivered as though with a weakness
beyond her power of control. The next moment she was shaking her head
quietly and firmly, and although her companion could not see her face he
heard her whisper, "No," with a measure of her old decision.
"Very well then," Frank returned just as firmly, "you shall never be
troubled by my asking you that question again. As soon as possible I
shall go home to England."
Once more the girl's shoulders trembled as if she had been struck an
unexpected blow, but she made no reply. Frank realized that he was not
playing fair and that she should not be troubled further.
For five or ten minutes more they rode on in complete silence, while
Jack felt herself growing weaker and weaker. She was ashamed to be such
a burden and yet only her own will power and Frank's arm were sustaining
her.
A little later and Jack had again to be put down on the ground in a half
fainting condition. By this time they had passed beyond the stretches of
sandy desert and were in one of the outlying meadows of the Rainbow
Ranch, not far from a branch of their creek. As Jack was almost
unconscious Frank was able to bathe her face more comfortably, pushing
back the tangled hair out of her eyes, that she might look more like the
girl he loved. Then he shut his lips close together and his chin became
squarer and his jaw firmer than ever Jacqueline's had been in her most
obstinate days.
"I have just told a lie," he said to himself and yet rather grimly.
"For of course I shall go on asking Jack to marry me until she finally
consents. If she did not care for me that would be another matter and I
should be a cad to annoy her. But there can't be any other barrier real
or fancied that is big enough to come between us permanently."
Then, as Jack opened her eyes for the second time, and sat straight up
as though vexed with her own weakness, Frank had a sudden recollection
of Olive's strange message to him when he had first started on his
search.
"Tell her it has all been a dreadful mistake and that there is nothing
in the whole world that will make me so happy as her engagement to you."
"What could Olive's words mean? Who had made a mistake? Had Jack been
under some cruelly false impression?" Frank was utterly mystified. Yet
he held out his hand. "Come, dear, we will walk for a few minutes," he
said gently, "and I will lead the horse. You will feel less stiff and
tired with a little exercise. See, the daylight has come. How beautiful
and fragrant the world is!"
Some change in Frank's voice, or in his manner--the girl did not know or
care to think what the change might mean--made her take the hand held
out so quietly toward her and hold it close in her own cold fingers. How
exquisitely she could always be at peace with Frank, how perfectly he
understood things without having them explained to him! After all, he
was not going to be angry with her because of her unreasonable and
unkind behavior. She had felt his anger a little more than she was
willing to endure in her present state of exhaustion.
So Jack looked overhead with more of her accustomed sparkle and
animation than she had yet showed. The sky was a radiant rose color, so
deeply pink that it cast its reflection on the ground at her feet. They
were near a group of trees and the birds were beginning to waken one
another with mild reproaches and then sudden bursts of eloquent song.
"Frank," Jack began pensively enough, "I never saw a more wonderful
dawn. But do you happen to have anything in your pocket more substantial
than beef tea? I have not had anything to eat since yesterday at noon
and I think perhaps I am dying of hunger."
With a laugh her companion let go her hand, drawing a package from his
pocket. "Ruth gave me this at midnight along with the beef tea, but I
have not been interested enough to see what was in it," he explained.
Greedily Jack tore open the bundle and had devoured a large chicken
sandwich before good manners even suggested her sharing the luncheon
with its owner. Afterwards Frank also confessed to being hungry, and so
they walked on toward the Lodge like happy, runaway children, almost
safe at home again.
Yet while he talked and laughed and ate Frank Kent was not forgetting
Olive's words nor her final injunction to him. "Please tell her what I
say when you first find her. Don't wait too long," she had begged.
"Jack, dear," Frank began casually in the midst of something else they
had been discussing, "there is something I want to ask your forgiveness
for before another five minutes have passed. Because I don't think I can
hold out much longer. Back there on horseback when you were nearly dead
with fatigue I was angry with you and told you that I never meant to ask
you to marry me again. That was the most untruthful speech a man ever
made! Because if you are too tired to listen I may have to wait until
you have rested a little while, but not any longer. You know you care
for me, dear. You are not the kind of a girl who would deceive a man by
your words or your manner after all these years of friendship! There is
some mystery that is keeping you from showing me your real feelings. I
can't guess what it is. Yet Olive must think so too, for she told me to
tell you that you had been making a dreadful mistake about something or
other, heaven only knows what! And that our engagement would make her
happier than anything in the world."
Jacqueline Ralston stood ankle deep in the rose-touched meadow grass
with her straight-forward, honest gray eyes looking into the blue eyes
of her companion.
"Did Olive tell you to say that to me? Did she really and truly seem to
mean it?" she asked wonderingly.
Frank Kent nodded, not trusting himself to speak, nor wishing to lose an
instant's vision of the girl's face, or an inflection of her voice.
Jack had been pale before; but now her face had flushed with such a look
of exquisite gentleness and surrender, that in spite of all she had
recently endured she had never been so beautiful.
Then it was like her to say with self-evident sincerity: "Of course you
are right, Frank dear, I could not hide how much I cared for you even
though I have done my best. It will be hard for me to leave the ranch
and the people I love, but it would be harder to stay on here--without
you!"