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CHAPTER XVII
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.

CHAPTER XVIII
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.

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!"