The Ranch Girls at Home Again. Vandercook Margaret
worldly person in our family, so we must watch and see how she lives up to her sentiments! Still you have not yet heard my most important piece of news. Olive has also written that she is completely worn out with all the business and worry of these last weeks and so she is coming to us at once. She asks if she may bring Miss Winthrop along with her for a visit?" Jack paused for a moment, looking inquiringly about at the faces of the others. "Of course she may," she ended. "It will be a pleasure to have Miss Winthrop, and besides I don't see how we possibly could refuse."
Frieda held up two white hands protestingly. She was not an industrious person and so devoted a great deal of her valuable time to her toilet instead of to more serious labors. "Oh, dear," she began, "it will be just like going back to Primrose Hall again to have Miss Winthrop staying in our house. Goodness, how she will disapprove of me for having no ambition to improve myself as Olive does. I shall have to lead a changed life!"
"Thank Providence, then. Do ask Miss Winthrop to come on the next train," Jim chuckled, returning at this instant, while Ruth shook her head thoughtfully.
"Naturally it will be an opportunity for all of us to have a woman like Miss Winthrop for our guest," she declared, in a slightly worried tone. "But has it ever occurred to any one of you where we are to put her? The poor old Lodge is so crowded now with babies and girls and Jim Colter that we have not a single spare room. Oh, of course Olive can be tucked in anywhere, but – "
"Jim, do take your son and let us walk over and look at our new house," Jack at once suggested. "Surely there will be enough bedrooms finished by the time Olive and Miss Winthrop arrive, for some of the family, so that we may give ours to our guests. Funny how we cling to the dear old Rainbow Lodge in spite of our new grandeur."
Then Jack moved on ahead, leading the way through the grove of cottonwood trees almost up to the old house. She turned to the left and about an eighth of a mile farther along came to a slight elevation, recently planted with shrubs and evergreens. There, facing the little party, was a splendid pile of stone and wood that was evidently growing into an old-time colonial house.
For of course now that the girls were older and wealthier, and Jim and Ruth married, Rainbow Lodge was no longer suited to their needs. And as the Rainbow Mine still continued to yield a handsome income, the new house had occupied a great deal of the family's time and attention since their return from Europe. For it had been both Jim's and Jack's desire to build a wonderful colonial mansion here in their own beautiful Western country, where in times past men and women had been content with rude cabins. Since a colonial house meant to Jim Colter the beauty and dignity of the old Virginia homes that he remembered in his boyhood and since Jacqueline had long cherished a photograph of the place owned by her Southern grandfather who had been killed in the Confederate army, the new house was to be as nearly as possible a replica of the latter.
In the interest of discussing what the workmen had accomplished since their last visit to the new building, no one noticed that the Indian boy, Carlos, who had followed the others up to this time, listening intently to every word of their conversation, had stalked silently away as soon as Olive's name ceased to be mentioned. His face wore a more pleasing expression, and unlike his usual habit he afterwards joined old Aunt Ellen in the kitchen, who was still the ranch girls' cook and devoted friend. To her he at once imparted the information concerning the expected visitors; then he retired to his own tent in the yard. For Carlos had absolutely refused to live in the ranch house with the other employees about the estate and had erected for himself an Indian tepee at some distance.
CHAPTER II
AN UNANSWERED QUESTION
ON a pile of boards in a great unfinished room Frieda Ralston stood facing – the unknown future.
In the family it was sometimes said that though on occasions the younger Miss Ralston could assume the airs of a social queen, at very many other times she was more of a baby than ever. For of course Frieda had not yet been touched by any of life's hard realities, and since her sister's recovery from her accident her way had been fairly plain sailing. For did she not have health, youth, plenty of money and an adoring family? What else was there to wish for? Thus far she had never taken any of her mild love affairs with the least seriousness and had no idea of "settling down," as she expressed it, for at least ten years to come. So what was there for Frieda to do but each day to grow fairer and more charming, like a lovely wax doll that had come to life and taken upon itself the airs and graces of a really grown-up person. Because Jack objected, Frieda some time ago had given up her former fashion of wearing her heavy yellow hair in a Psyche knot, and in these months at the ranch when no strangers were about had returned to her old childish custom of two long braids. On dress occasions, however, her coiffure, copied after a Paris model, could again be made bewilderingly lovely.
On this particular occasion Frieda had unfortunately neglected to attire herself for the rôle which she was about to play, as she happened to be wearing an old blue and white middy blouse and a short duck skirt with one long plait hanging over each shoulder.
"I wonder," she began at this moment, though no one chanced to be looking toward her, "which one of us will finally fall heir to this grand new house we are building? I have just been thinking, houses are not like clothes, meant for one person and to last through one or two seasons: they may last through many generations and no telling what changes in a family."
"Hear! Hear!" cried Jean, straightway whirling around to regard her cousin with astonishment and then striking an attitude of mock admiration. "Listen, everybody, please, Frieda is making a speech! She wants to know which of us shall become the royal family of Rainbow Castle. It is an interesting question, dear; I never should have thought it of you!"
Frieda hesitated, but the next instant went on quite seriously. "Of course it won't be you though, Jean, because of all of us, Ruth, Olive, Jim, and Jack and me, why I think you love the Rainbow ranch the least. You will never want to stay on in the West once you are married; that visit you made the Princess Colonna in Rome has completely spoiled you."
And now it was Jean's turn to endure the family laughter, and though she made no reply, she showed more annoyance than the accusation merited.
Still surprisingly thoughtful, Frieda continued: "I suppose that either Jim or Jack and their children ought to inherit the new house, for of course I am the youngest and have done nothing toward making the ranch a success as Jim and Jack have. Ruth, you and Jim would want Jack to have the place after she marries and has children, wouldn't you? And yet not long ago, do you know, I believed that in spite of loving the ranch best, Jack would be the first one of us to leave it for good. I don't think so now," she added hastily, catching an expression on her sister's face that she could not altogether understand.
But by this time Jack had marched across the room and was gently but firmly pulling Frieda down from her exalted position.
"I suppose hearing the news of old Madame Van Mater's will has gone to your head, Frieda darling," Jack protested. "But really no one of us wants to hear you arranging our futures and talking about our descendants, as if fifty years might suddenly pass away before tea time. Of course 'Rainbow Castle,' as Jean calls our new home, shall belong to the one of us who wishes it and needs it the most. But which of us that may be – well, in the words of Mr. William Shakespeare, 'that is the question.'"
Jack now turned to her cousin, Jean, who was standing before one of the unfinished windows looking out at the beautiful view. For the prospect from the new house was far lovelier than any outlook from Rainbow Lodge, since it stood on a higher incline and showed a wider sweep of the prairies.
"Jean," Jack asked, "I wonder if you happen to know where Ralph Merrit is? There is something Jim and I want particularly to talk over with him. I happened to notice he was with you last. Did he say whether he was going to have dinner with us tonight or with the men at the Ranch House?"
The other girl shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
"Really, Jack, I don't see why I should be expected to know Ralph Merrit's plans because I was talking to him for ten minutes. But what is all this mystery about anyway? What is going on down at the mine? Ralph looks either as if he were working himself to death or as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. To tell you the truth, I believe he did ask me to tell you that he was going