CHAPTER XI.
BREAKING THE NEWS.
JEAN and Jack came down the wide sunlit hall with their two heads closetogether. It was three days since their return from the house party totheir own home.
Outside a half-opened door they stopped. "Listen, Jack," Jean whispered,swallowing a giggle. "They have been doing it every single day."
"If three fifths of a number is fifteen, what is the number?" Frieda'svoice read slowly and solemnly. She paused fora long moment. "The numberis fifteen, isn't it Olive? The sum said so."
Jean would not have swallowed her giggle this time, except that Jackpinched her on the arm. "Do be quiet, Jean," she entreated. "You willhurt their feelings."
"No, Frieda," Olive explained patiently. "You see one fifth of fifteenis five--"
Jack knocked lightly on the door. "May we interrupt the school a minute,please?" she begged. "I have to go away in a little while with Jim andI do want to see what is going on. I think it is perfectly sweet of you,Olive, to be trying to teach Frieda. It makes Jean and me awfullyashamed."
Olive laughed shyly: "Oh, I am not teaching," she answered, "Frieda andI are just studying together. There are such a lot of things I ought toknow so you won't be ashamed of me, and I am trying to learn the fewthat I can. Frieda likes to study too."
Frieda was chewing the end of her stubby pencil and making queer figureson a crumpled piece of paper. Her little round face wore such a virtuousand studious expression that Jack laughed. Jean went over and pullingFrieda's hair said: "Since when, Frieda Ralston, have you developed intoa student? Far be it from you ever to get your lessons for _me_ withouta fuss; something must have come over the spirit of your dreams."
Frieda shook her head impatiently. She was a very matter-of-fact personat all times. "No such thing, Jean, dreams haven't anything to do withit, it is only that Olive really takes an interest herself and isawfully patient and does not laugh--"
But Jean had put her fingers in her ears and slipped out the bedroomdoor.
Olive and Frieda were in their own room at a small table drawn up nearthe window, and looking out, Jack saw Jim Colter come up the drive tothe door on horseback, leading a horse for her. Jean ran out in the yardand stood for a moment talking to him.
Jim had been away from Rainbow Ranch since the day of the girls' return,and Jack could see that he looked tired and serious, not like his usualself.
Jack kissed Frieda. "Perhaps Jim and I won't be back until late, littlesister, don't worry. You know we are going to ride along the side ofRainbow Creek to see about some of the cattle and horses. Maybe the poorponies and calves haven't any water to drink in some parts of the ranch.Don't study until your pigtails turn grey."
Frieda laughed, but the Indian girl looked at Jacqueline closely. Therewas something odd in Jack's manner, as though she were trying to hide asecret that she was not sure whether or not she wished to tell.
"Good-bye, Olive," Jack called lightly, "don't talk about our beingashamed of you, child. If you knew all I do not know, you would bequite the wisest person in the world. Maybe Jean and I will have newsfor you to-night. You have got to think it is good news, for Jean and Ihope it is. Anyhow, you two good, industrious children have made me makeup my feeble mind. _Auf wiedersehen._ That being about all the German Iknow, I will translate it for you: 'Till we meet again.'"
Jack stamped out on the porch to Jean and Jim.
"Morning, overseer," she said brightly.
Jim lifted his Mexican hat. "Morning, boss," he returned gravely. "Howis the wounded member?"
Jack shrugged her sprained shoulder the least little bit. "It's notfirst class yet, pard," she stammered, mimicking one of the cowboys onthe ranch. "But I think I can get over a good piece of ground bycatching hold on the reins with this here one good arm, if it's the sameto you. Is that the horse you mean me to use now, Jim?" Jack asked, hervoice and manner changing.
"Best I can do at present," Jim replied soberly. "Tricks ain't up toHotspur and you may have to watch him a bit."
"Jean," Jack whispered, just before she mounted her horse. "We have madeup our minds to it, haven't we? Do you think we will be able to endureit?"
Jean cast her brown eyes up to heaven. "Bear it?" she groaned. "Well Isuppose if we must, we must. Only tell Jim, maybe he will say we mustnot, then think of the relief!" Jean sighed, half in fun and half inearnest, and watched Jim and Jack scamper out of sight.
"Wonder what old Jim and Jack are up to?" she murmured. "If they onlywere going to see how nearly dry Rainbow Creek is, they would have takenone of the cowboys with them. They are sure to have to pull a cow or acalf out of a mud hole, before they are through. Jim looks as sober as ajudge. I hope he hasn't heard anything about the--" Jean broke off hermusing, with a stamp of her foot. "Of course not, I am a goose to thinkof it," she told herself sternly.
Jim Colter and Jack galloped on in silence, Jim riding high in hissaddle, standing nearly erect, with his feet well out in the Westerncowboy fashion. He wore a pair of fringed trousers, with a cartridgebelt around his waist and two big Colt's revolvers were stuck in theholsters on either side. A forty-foot rope was coiled and hung at thepommel of his saddle. Jim's Irish blue eyes were black with anger thismorning and his lips set in a firm, hard line.
The two riders had followed the bed of Rainbow Creek for two milesthrough the ranch before either one of them spoke.
Jim wheeled and looked Jack straight in the eyes. "You have a piece ofnews for me, haven't you, Jack?" he asked.
Jack nodded. "My news will keep. What is it you have to tell me? I knowit is important."
"Can you bear it, girl?" Jim asked abruptly. "It's pretty bad."
Jack lifted her eyes without speaking. A moment later they filled withtears and her lips trembled. "It isn't true though, Jim, is it?" sheentreated. "He can't prove what isn't true."
Jim squared his shoulders. "That is just the point, Miss Jack, and whatwe have got to fight. Daniel Norton says he can prove that he is therightful owner of Rainbow Ranch. He has papers to show it and we haven'ta sign of anything. What we have got to establish is that his claim isa lie and that Rainbow Ranch don't belong to nobody on this earth butJohn Ralston's daughters."
"But how, Jim?" Jack asked. "You know we have lost the title to theestate. We have never been able to find a sign of a paper to show thatthe ranch is our property. I have looked through every one of father'spapers a thousand times. The deed is gone!"
"Then it will have to return before January first," Jim answered coolly,snapping his fingers in the wind. "That is the date Mr. Norton means tobring suit. Remember the game we used to play with a bit of paper, whenyou were a little girl, Jack, 'Fly away Peter, Come back Paul'? Paulused to come back, so don't you be frightened. Daniel Norton hasn'tgotten our ranch from us yet, and before he does, he will see somepretty tall scrapping. But I am afraid we have got to find our deed. Iwas one of the witnesses when your father's title to this ranch wasdrawn up. The other witness was a fellow from the East, who justhappened to be passing through the country. He stayed with us a few daysand then goodness only knows what became of him. He may be living inNew York or New Mexico for all I know."
"But you can advertise for him, can't you, Jim?" Jack pleaded, her facelooking white and drawn. "Maybe if he would swear that father bought ourranch and that Mr. Norton couldn't have any right to it, it might dosome good. What was his name?"
"Will Corbin," Jim answered shortly. "But don't build your hopes on thatidea. I have been advertising for the fellow for months. Not a word fromhim."
"But the court records," Jack continued. "Of course I don't knowanything about law or business, Jim, but I am sure that I have heardthat if a person buys or sells a piece of property, some kind of recordof it is kept in a big book. Can't you get hold of that?" Jack beggedfaintly. "If Mr. Norton brings suit and makes us leave our ranch inJanuary, what can we do? Where will we go? It will be so hard for Friedaand Jean." Jack choked and could not go on for a moment.
Jim was looking in every direction except at his companion and clearedhis throat once or twice. Jack was gazing out over the sweep of lowcountry bordered by the distant hills. To one side was an open field,where a herd of wild horses was munching the dried buffalo grass; on thewooded slope of the ravine on the further bank of the creek, cattle wereleading their calves to drink. It was all their own, hers and Jean's andFrieda's; their beloved Rainbow Ranch! Jack could recall no fairerpicture than the scene before her. Her eyes had looked out only on thewestern lands since she could remember. "Well, Jim, don't you think itwould be a good scheme for us to look up this court record?" Jackinquired more hopefully. "Mr. Norton couldn't say it was false."
"Look here, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim answered more gruffly than he hadever spoken to her before. "Do you think that you are the only member ofRainbow Ranch who has any business head? What have I been doing theselast few days but looking up that very record of the sale of RainbowRanch to John Ralston, Esq.? But I have wasted my time. It wasn't anyuse. The court record is gone, same as our own deed."
"But that isn't possible, Jim," Jack argued faintly, feeling the worldbegin to spin round faster and faster, so she could hardly sit on herhorse. "I thought nobody ever dared touch anything that belonged to acourt of law."
"Jack," Jim demanded severely, "will you kindly remember that we areliving in the State of Wyoming and that we haven't been a State but apowerful few years? When your father first came to Wyoming, this countrywas pretty well filled up with wild beasts, wild Indians and some prettywild white men. There weren't but a few towns and they weren't slowtowns either. Things used to go on in them that a girl don't need toknow about. One of the tricks the bad men used to play was to change thecounty seat over night, just for their own convenience. A band of menwould ride up to the courthouse, gather up the court records, the lawbooks and anything else that came in handy, and carry them off to a newtown. Next morning when folks woke up, they would find the county seatmoved and maybe a new judge and a new sheriff. In one of these herelittle midnight excursions, they must have carried off the court recordswhich showed your father bought our old ranch fair and true. The bookmust have been lost, for the record has disappeared, same as our owntitle to the place. You can kind of see that old man Norton has got usin a tight place, can't you, Jack?" Jim ended gloomily.
"We don't have to tell Jean and Frieda yet, do we, Jim?" Jack pleadedwistfully. "It won't do any good to make them miserable so long as wecan keep the news from them."
Jim shook his head. "No sense in your bearing the whole burden alone,Jack. You ain't much older than Jean, you know. Besides, maybe littleFrieda will be the very one of us to find our lost title to the oldranch. Ain't things often revealed unto babes that are hid from the restof us?" Jim quoted reverently, not remembering exactly the great wordsof the text, but sure enough of its meaning.
"Wait here a minute for me, please, Jack," Jim remarked suddenly, "thereis one of our calves stuck in the mud in the creek bottom. Funny how thefarther we get away from the Lodge the slower our creek runs! It didn'tused to be that way. Ought to be five or six feet of water along hereand there's only about one, and that silly calf has sunk to her knees inmud and slime."
Jim rode away from Jack, a few feet into the creek, feeling his waycautiously for fear of quicksands. The calf bleated and struggled, butwith a skillful swing of his lasso, Jim caught the mired animal securelyand dragged her back safe to dry land. When he joined Jack again, theworried expression had disappeared entirely from his face.
"Cheer up, pard," he resumed affectionately. "You have got the best headon your shoulders of any girl on this side the great divide. We willstraighten things out some way and have one of the jolliest Christmasesthat ever took place at Rainbow Lodge, as a celebration. But didn't youand Jean have something on your minds that you meant to ask me about?Out with it! We don't want to do any talking when we get along towardthe end of our creek. Sure as fate, some way the water is being drainedfrom our creek and I have got to find out how it's done."
"Oh, my news doesn't amount to anything now, Jim," Jacqueline announced."After what you have just told me, there wouldn't be any point in tryingto carry out our plan. Indeed it is entirely out of the question."
"Tell me the plan just the same, Jack," Jim insisted, anxious to getJack's mind off the subject of their troubles.
"You will be awfully surprised, Jim," Jack declared, her facecrimsoning, "but Jean and I had just about decided that we ought to havea chaperon to come to live with us at Rainbow Lodge."
Jim gave a long drawn out whistle. He gazed meditatively up at the bluesky. "Good thing it ain't night," he replied slowly, "because if it hadbeen, the stars would have fallen at that remark of yours. You and Jeanthink you ought to have a chaperon! Well, my word!"
"Don't be silly, Jim," Jack remonstrated. "You know we have talked overour having a chaperon at the Lodge dozens of times since father died.And even when I haven't talked, I have been thinking. We did hate theidea of one and I am afraid I do still. But since our visit to AuntSallie," Jack's beautiful straightforward face colored hotly, "Jean andI believe we ought to have an older woman to live with us. You see it isthis way, Jim; we don't want to do things that even look wrong, justbecause we don't know any better; and then we don't want to grow upinto perfect dunces. Jean and I don't seem to study at all with no oneto teach us, and Olive and Frieda are so anxious to learn that they makeus ashamed." Jack sighed. "What's the use of telling you all this? Ofcourse we can't think of sending for a chaperon now when we do not knowhow long we will have a home to live in ourselves."
Jack had been crying a little, but now she threw her head back with afamiliar gesture and winked bravely. "Let's don't talk about ourtroubles any more, Jim. Mr. Norton hasn't taken possession of RainbowRanch yet by any means. Who knows what may happen in two months?"
"Shall I go to Laramie to-morrow and order out a chaperon, MissRalston?" Jim queried calmly. "Suppose I put an ad in the paper.'Wanted: a long-suffering lady, who knows everything, to chaperon andinstruct four young ladies who know nothing, but have difficult andunmanageable tempers, particularly the eldest.' Sounds an attractiveadvertisement. Ought to get a lot of answers."
Jack gazed inquiringly at their devoted friend and counsellor.
"You mean, Jim, that you think we had better go on and have a chaperon,just as we planned, as though there was no danger of our losing theranch?"
Jim nodded silently. He placed a cautious finger on his lips. He wasleaning forward in his saddle, intent on something ahead.
Jack did not notice. "We don't want to have any one to live with us whomwe know nothing about," she went on, "so I expect we had better send formother's cousin, Ruth Drew. She is a fussy New England old maid, andterribly prim, but she wrote she would come out to us, and if she canstand for us, why,--what was that, Jim?" Jack finished breathlessly.
"Shsh!" Jim whispered softly. "Keep perfectly still until we know."