All of the girls, except Jack, laughed and Ruth shrugged her shoulders.
"The thing is quite impossible, Frank!" Ruth argued. "I don't mean to doubt your word, but Mr. Colter could not have lived on the ranch all these years without finding out whether there was gold in the creek."
"Oh, yes, I could, Ruth," Jim answered slowly. "I told you I didn't know a chunk of gold from a lump of mud. I – " Jim always talked slowly, but to-night it seemed as though his words would never come – "I ain't one to go off half cocked and I'm a pretty hard fellow to convince of good luck, but I believe what Kent has found out is true. I have been puzzling my brains ever since we come home to know why this man Harmon is so anxious to buy our ranch that he will give almost any price for it and why he has had Joe Dawson hanging around here all summer. Seems like I kind'er guess now. Dawson found the gold lode and Harmon thought it would be a good business to buy the ranch and take his chances on striking it rich before we got on to things. Girls, you've got to take Mr. Kent's advice and keep this discovery a secret until we find out for sure if there is enough gold on the ranch for us to get happy." Jim lowered his voice. "Who can we send for to investigate for us, whom we can trust with our secret?"
"Ralph Merrit," Jean suggested.
"Ralph Merrit, the very man!" Jim replied instantly. "Who would have thought of your having so much practical sense, Jean? But don't get excited over this business, for heaven's sake, don't get excited," he repeated, charging up and down the room like a lion. "I tell you all is not gold that glitters and there is many a slip between – "
"The creek and the lip, Jim," Jean ended roguishly, and everybody laughed and went away to dream; Ruth and Jim of something even more important than the discovery of a gold mine.
CHAPTER XXI
"MY WAY'S FOR LOVE"
FOR Ruth and Jim Colter had spent a wonderful day together while Jack and Frank Kent were making their great discovery. They were finding another of the world's great treasures which is not gold. Side by side they had ridden slowly over the ranch with its waving fields of ripened grass and its horses, sheep and cattle, sleek and fat and well content with the earth's bounty. They had counted the herds and inspected the sheep corrals, ordering new ones to be built before the coming of winter; they had discussed whether Ruth alone would be able to take Jack to New York to see the famous surgeon recommended by Peter Drummond, and they had decided that Mr. Harmon must be given an answer in regard to his purchase of a portion of Rainbow Ranch within the next few days. His lease on the Lodge would end in a short time and already he seemed very restless and was insisting that urgent business called him back to New York.
Ruth was now able to ride horseback almost as well as the other ranch girls, although she could never be quite so fearless, since her training had come later in life. But to-day she and her companion laughingly recalled her famous arrival at Wolfville not a year before and her terrible ten-mile ride home to Rainbow Lodge. Ruth remembered then – though she did not speak of it – how Jim's strength had upheld and comforted her and brought her safely to her new home.
At noon, hungry and happy, Jim and Ruth had eaten their luncheon seated opposite each other on the grass with two napkins spread between them, drinking their cold coffee out of bottles, like a couple of school children on a picnic.
Now it was almost sunset and the man and woman were riding slowly home. Their backs were to the far-off line of hills, and beyond them the level prairies seemed to stretch on and on until they dipped and melted away at the uttermost rim of the earth. Above, the clouds floated, tinted like soap bubbles against a skyey background of pale rose and blue, for the sun was sinking without a display of gaudy colors upon the horizon, that marked this waning season of the year.
Ruth was gazing at the sunset, wondering if Jack were not a little better, when a low laugh from her companion surprised her and jarred on her peaceful mood. She turned on him reproachfully, but found nothing in Jim Colter's expression that spoke of laughter. His strong bronze face was so serious and his lips so grave that the girl with him was suddenly still and frightened. For many weeks she had thought this moment might be approaching, and yet, now it had come, she was wholly unprepared.
"I was only thinking of how young you look in that riding habit, Miss Ruth," Jim said simply. "I laughed because I remembered I thought you would be an old maid of fifty when you first came out to the ranch. Sometimes it seems years since the day you arrived, and then again only a few weeks. Are you sure you like living on a ranch now? You know you plumb hated it when you first came to Wyoming," he said boyishly.
Ruth smiled and nodded, wondering if she were relieved or disappointed. One could always count on Jim's not doing or saying the thing expected of him. After all, the moment she anticipated was not at hand.
"Of course I dearly love living on the ranch, Mr. Jim. But why do you ask me?" she answered.
"Because I love you, Ruth," Jim returned as quietly as though he had not been trying to speak the three magic words for months. "And I am a ranchman and don't know anything else. I don't understand a whole lot about women, but I believe they ought to like the kind of life a man has to offer before they tie up with him. If you hadn't come to like living out here I never would have told you I loved you, though it had eaten my heart out to keep silent. But you do care for the life now, Ruth, and – do you think you can care for me?"
The two horses were walking slowly side by side, and Jim put out a big warm hand and closed it slowly over Ruth's small cold ones which still held her reins. "I am only an overseer, and haven't much money or education to offer you, and I know how much these things count, but I will do my best for you and I do come of good people, dear, and it wasn't their fault I never learned more – " Jim added at last, hesitating as though even this slight reference to his past was torn from him against his will.
The woman made no answer, and for a little while longer they rode on.
"Can't you tell me, Ruth?" Jim urged gently.
Ruth had not spoken, because she had not known what she wished to say. Before she came out west Ruth Drew thought she hated men and had made up her mind never to marry. Her brother was selfish and idle, her father had been close and mean, and Ruth knew so little of other men she thought them all alike, capable of ugly deeds that women never dreamed of. Yet somehow Jim seemed different. Ruth was twenty-eight, which is not old as women marry nowadays; but everything depends on the point of view, and for a long time Ruth had thought she was to be an old maid.
"I am very fond of you, Mr. Jim, but I don't know that I love you," she answered nervously, in a small voice as cold and aloof as in the early days of her acquaintance with Jim.
But this time Jim laughed. "Don't be afraid of yourself, Ruth, dear," he pleaded, "and don't go back to Vermont to think how you felt when you lived there. I don't want you to be fond of me. You are fond of our old dog, Shep. I want you to love me, Ruth, well enough to go through thick and thin with me, to believe in me and fight for me to the last drop. We are not little people, dear, and I don't want little loving. Love is the biggest thing about us and I want all there is in it from you."
If Jim had leaned over at this moment and put his arm about Ruth, taking her answer for granted he would have saved her and himself much sorrow, for Ruth had one of those uncomfortable New England consciences which would not let her accept the gift of happiness without days of questioning and unrest.
Ruth turned toward her lover, with her eyes full of uncertain tears. "Really I don't know whether I love you in the big way, Mr. Jim," she faltered. "Will you let me wait a little while to find out?"
Poor Ruth – she knew that when she was weary she wanted Jim Colter's strength to rest upon, that when she was sorrowful she wanted his sympathy to comfort her, and that when she was happy she wished him to be the sharer in her joys; yet she did not understand that this trinity of simple emotions meant the big human mystery of love.
"Of course you may have all the time you need, Ruth," Jim replied, not showing his disappointment. "You may have all my life if it takes you that long to find out. But it would be easier for us both if you decide this week. 'Tain't fair for a man to expect a woman to say her yes or no right off at the first asking. He has had all the time beforehand to decide that he wants her to be his wife, but she ain't supposed to think of him as a husband until he has said the word. At least, that is the kind of woman you are, Ruth, and there are plenty like you. I suppose, though, there are some that do a little previous deciding before the male has got right down to the point." Jim was patting Ruth's hands softly, his eyes full of a new content and his face of strength and dignity. Not having a New England conscience he did not feel it necessary to worry, because he could see Ruth cared, and he was willing to wait for the rest.
They were not talking, so the sound of two voices startled them. Through a small clump of evergreen trees, not far from the trail along which they were riding, the smoke of a camp-fire rose in slow circles. A young woman was seated on the ground nursing a baby, and a man and old gypsy woman were scolding at each other.
"It's that fellow, Joe Dawson. I have been having an eye open for him all day," Jim announced curtly, with the sudden sternness in his face and manner that made him feared even by the people who knew him most intimately. "I have been wanting to tell him to clear off this ranch. No matter what business Harmon has with him, he sha'n't stay about here, now you and the girls have come home."
Jim was riding over toward the gypsies, but Joe had seen him and come forward.
"Good evening," he remarked. "Pleasant evening for a ride."
Jim frowned and wasted no words.
"Glad I came across you, Dawson," he returned. "I want you to get off this ranch. I'll give you two days if it takes that much time, but no longer. I told you I wasn't going to have you hanging about here in the early part of the summer, but I presume you have been doing some work for Mr. Harmon, though I never heard of your doing any honest work in your life."
"Oh, no, I haven't reformed to the extent of some people," Gypsy Joe remarked sarcastically. "At least I haven't yet taken to playing the part of 'gardeen' to a parcel of young girls. But look here, John, I can get ugly same as other folks, and it ain't any the less true for being an old saying, 'you had better let sleeping dogs lie.' I can wake up and bite; and I've an idea where it would hurt you the most."
Ruth was walking her horse up and down not far away, trying not to hear what the two men were saying, but they were so angry that their voices carried for some distance on the quiet evening air.
"Get off the Rainbow Ranch, Joe Dawson, or you will be put off," Jim replied roughly, and turned and rode back to Ruth.
The man laughed insolently. "Not if I don't choose to leave, John Carter," he halloed. "You've made the mistake of your life in not making friends with me again, for I can get even with you in more ways than one, and I don't know but that I'll try."
These were the words Ruth thought she heard, but she gave them little heed beyond wondering idly why the impudent tramp called Jim by the wrong name.
These events in the lives of Ruth Drew and Jim Colter took place on the same day that Jack and Frank Kent had their experience by the waters of Rainbow Creek. They had been at home several hours when Frank Kent appeared to disclose the startling news of the discovery of gold deposits on the ranch. It was not until then that Jim Colter guessed why Mr. Harmon had wished to purchase all or a portion of the Rainbow Ranch before its owners could find out the secret of their hidden wealth, and for this same reason had kept the first discoverer of the gold, "Gypsy Joe," lurking about the ranch all summer and had refused to give up the Lodge to the Ralston girls and let them come home when they wished.
CHAPTER XXII
A PARTY AT THE RANCHO
RALPH MERRIT arrived in two days at the Rainbow Ranch, and he, Frank and Jim worked continuously in the vicinity of the muddy creek. Soon there was little doubt of the wonderful value of the diggings, for the miners, even with primitive methods of gold washing, found lumps of pure gold varying in size from a pea to a marble.
Jim was distracted. News of the find began to spread about the neighborhood and the ranch to be crowded with curiosity seekers of every kind, miners looking for jobs, tramps and ne'er-do-wells, besides kind and officious neighbors. Sternly as the ranch girls were ordered to remain in the house, Jean and Olive and Frieda had ways of stealing down to the creek on remarkably plausible errands; a message for Jim from Ruth, an inquiry from Jack to Frank Kent as to how things were going, and if Jean appeared with a pot of hot coffee for the workmen, she used to manage to find Ralph and sit and talk to him, until Jim scolded and made her go back to the ranch house.
It was pretty hard on Jack, who would have been the leading spirit in everything, to remain all day on the little porch without stirring, but Ruth rarely left her and there was a new bond of sympathy between them. Jack had guessed that her old and dearest friend had asked their chaperon to marry him and that Ruth was waiting to come to a decision, but Jack felt little doubt of her answer. Most of the time Jim Colter was obliged to be away from home – there was never a chance for a quiet moment with Ruth – machinery had to be ordered for the new mine, legal formalities to be gone through with. But just once Jim spared an hour for an interview with Mr. Harmon; and in a short time afterwards the New York financier announced to his family that they would leave Rainbow Lodge within the next few days. Fortunately Joe Dawson had disappeared and Jim was spared this additional annoyance.
Early one morning Ruth came down late to breakfast at the rancho to find a note from Jim saying he had been called away for the day and asking her to wait up for him until he got back that night.
Ralph Merrit and Frank Kent had finished eating and were deep in the consideration of the newest and most approved methods of placer mining. A hydraulic monitor was to be set up and Rainbow Creek dammed so that the water could be piped to the workings. Already negotiations had been started with a neighbor for a part of his water supply, so that the cattle business of the ranch need not be given up.
For the moment Jean, Olive and Frieda were listening to the conversation of the boys. It was most unusual, for the greater part of their time was now devoted to an endless discussion of what they would do when they were rich. But the ranch girls' idea of wealth was limited. Jean, who had the most gifted imagination of the four, had only conceived of a fortune of about ten thousand dollars.
"How's Jack, Ruth?" Jean inquired, as soon as their chaperon entered the breakfast room. "You are so late I feel kind of worried."
"Jack's all right," Ruth answered.
"Then tell her we are awfully sorry to leave her again to-day, but some of the new machinery has just arrived, and Frank and Ralph have promised to explain it to us. We won't be back until after lunch," Jean ended.
Ruth frowned. "Jack is pretty tired of just my society," she said. "You girls are away nearly all of the time. Don't you think we could think of something to amuse her? Everybody else is out of doors from breakfast till dinner and too tired at night to talk."
Jean flushed and Olive's eyes filled with tears.
"I'll not leave the house, Ruth," Olive replied. "I have been so excited lately it has never dawned on me that I was neglecting Jack. I don't see how I can have been so selfish!"
"I wish I could stay too, Miss Ruth," Frank Kent added; "but with Mr. Colter away I can't leave Merrit to shoulder the whole work."
"The Harmons are coming down to the rancho some time to-day to say good-by to Jack; you know they are leaving for New York in the morning," Jean interposed, feeling conscience-smitten, but anxious to escape a scolding.
All this time Frieda had been silent, but now she clapped her hands together so suddenly that she made everybody in the room start. "I have a perfectly lovely idea," she announced. "Let's give Jack a surprise party. We need not ask any outside people except the Harmons, for poor Jack can't dance or play many games any more, but she will like the surprise, I know."
Ruth leaned over and kissed Frieda, and there was a moment of silence. The girls were thinking that money would mean very little to any one of them if Jack did not regain her strength.
"It's a beautiful plan, Frieda," Jean answered at last, with hot cheeks. "We will stay at home to-day and decorate the rancho so no one will know it to-night. I suppose it will be nice to have a farewell party for the Harmons. We ought not to show that we have any feeling against them, but it is pretty hard," she concluded.
"Jack does not believe that Elizabeth or Donald or Mrs. Harmon knew why Mr. Harmon wanted to buy our ranch," Ruth interposed.
"Donald Harmon knew," Olive interrupted quietly, but no one could persuade her to say how she had found this out.
By half-past seven the front of the rancho was hung with Japanese lanterns. On the old divan in the sitting room Jack was enthroned like an Oriental princess, with her blue crepe shawl draped over a blue muslin gown and a wreath of red roses in her coronet of gold hair.
Peter Drummond had at last returned to his home in New York without paying a visit to the ranch, but never a week passed that he did not send a large box of red roses to Jack with a letter urging her to hurry to New York.
The girls had decided to have a fancy dress party, and, as there was no time for preparation, their costumes were an odd assortment of all the odds and ends they could find. Early in the day, when Jack guessed that something unusual was to take place, Ruth decided that she would enjoy the preparations more than the surprise. So it was she who helped dress Olive, who never looked so lovely in her life. Quite by accident her odd costume exactly suited her. She wore a simple white dress, with a short jacket of gold embroidery, and a round, gold-embroidered cap on her loose black hair; and around her throat on a chain the silver cross which she had found in the sandalwood box hidden by old Laska.
Jean and Frieda in kimonos, with sashes about their waists, were Japanese geisha girls, and found their costumes excessively inconvenient in their efforts to help Ralph Merrit freeze the ice cream in the back yard.
Olive and Jack were waiting for the party to begin, when Elizabeth Harmon arrived early to say good-by to Jack alone, and Olive stole out on the porch of the rancho to wait.
Frank Kent, in his evening clothes, coming from his tent across the fields on his way into the house, spied Olive. Suddenly he remembered the frightened, ignorant girl who had sought shelter at the Rainbow Ranch less than a year before, and marveled at the change. He stopped for a moment; and in the stiff English fashion, which no amount of American experience would make him lose, said admiringly: "I say, Miss Olive, you are looking awfully pretty to-night. I want to tell you how glad I am that you have never had any more trouble from the Indian woman and that things are now so jolly for you," and then he passed on indoors to find Jack.
Ten minutes later Donald and Mrs. Harmon found Olive still on the porch ready to receive them. Mrs. Harmon took Olive's hand and then dropped it and stared at her curiously. The image of a half-forgotten face came back to her; somewhere in her past had she not seen a girl who looked like this Olive Ralston? Yet when and where had she seen her?
"Olive," Mrs. Harmon questioned, for a moment losing her reserve and caution, "have you any Spanish or Italian ancestors? I have no right to be curious about you, but you are so unlike the other ranch girls, and I remember Jack said you were only an adopted sister."
Olive shook her head; but she looked straight at the older woman and there was something in her timid, appealing gaze that gave another pull to the chords of memory.
"I don't know anything about my people, Mrs. Harmon," Olive answered with quiet dignity. "Since you seem interested to know, I was brought up by an old Indian woman and her son, until Jack and the other girls found me and brought me home to live with them. I don't even know my own name."
A hundred questions came to Mrs. Harmon's mind and almost forced themselves from her lips, but she was resolutely silent. Why should she care to know more of this stray girl's past history; what could it mean to her? If she knew nothing she could always assure herself that the suspicion that had just crossed her mind was an absurdity. Without another word, followed by Olive and Donald, they entered the rancho.
At ten o'clock the party was going successfully. But Ruth found her interest waning; it seemed almost time for Jim to come home.
She must see him alone to tell him that life was worth while to her now only because of his love. Jim was not like other men, he was better and braver and stronger; the woman who loved him believed she trusted him utterly.
It was a clear, starlit night without a moon. Silently Ruth slipped away from the familiar company, and wrapping a white shawl around her, stole from the house along the trail.
A man came down the path toward her and she ran forward with hands outstretched to meet him. Then she stopped short, her heart fluttering and her knees trembling.