CHAPTER X
BY THE WAYSIDE TENT
Hardly had the three more adventurous members of the caravan partyturned their backs on their wayside tent for their trip to the far-offgold mine, when Ruth, Jean, Olive and Frieda were seized with a furiousattack of housewifely energy. Everything was routed out of the tent andwagon. A flapping line of blankets hung on Jim's best lasso, which wasstretched from a tree to a tent pole. Then the girls collected theirlaundry and carried it down to the brook. The water of the stream was soclear that every pebble shone under it like a jewel, and the sand was aswhite as the sand of the sea. Over a shimmering pool a broad, flat rockformed a comfortable platform.
Jean and Ruth got down on their knees on this stone, swashing theirclothes up and down and smearing them with big bars of soap, like thelaundresses in Holland, until the clear water of the brook was a massof iridescent soap bubbles.
Olive and Frieda rinsed and squeezed and spread the clothes out on thegrass or hung them picturesquely over the low bushes. At the end oftheir labors, Frieda and Jean started a shadow dance with a big redtablecloth which Ruth had washed none too clean. Jean flapped it fromone end, Frieda swirled it from the other; it flew up in the air like ared balloon and collapsed just as suddenly. Ruth and Olive rested in apatch of sunshine watching them. Suddenly Jean attempted to twist herunwieldy scarf into graceful curves about Frieda, but instead, trippedher up, and the little girl lay in a heap of helpless laughter on thegrass. Straightway, Jean flung herself down beside her, beginning tounwind her long braids of hair.
"Ruth, make Frieda let me wash her hair," Jean urged. "She doesn't looklike our pretty blond baby any more, but a poor, neglected 'orfling.' Iam sure if she lies down flat on the rock, I can manage so she won'ttumble into the brook."
Frieda crawled out of Jean's embrace, looking quite unresigned to theexperience ahead of her. "You shan't do any such thing, Jean Bruce,"she protested; "you'll get gallons of soap in my eyes and make me allsandy."
Jean struck a dramatic attitude. "Frieda Ralston, if you will let memake you beautiful, I will give you all my share of the gold that Jimand Jack bring back from the mine," she exclaimed.
Frieda shook her head. "They won't bring any gold," she said firmly.
"But you'll feel lots better, Frieda," Ruth begged.
Frieda saw that the weight of opinion was against her, and, besides, shewas vain of her hair and did wish it to look pretty again, so she gavein graciously.
"All right, Jean, if you will ride horseback with me all day to-morrowand make Olive and Jack ride in the wagon, I guess I will let you," sheconceded.
Jean had the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up past her dimpled elbowsand the collar of her white blouse tucked in at the neck. She felt asmuch at home by the wayside pool as she did in Rainbow Lodge. Frieda waswrapped in a white towel like a shawl. Only once, toward the end of thewashing operation, did she utter a squeal of indignation, and Ruth andOlive immediately ran to her rescue.
"Jean's caught a minnow in my hair," she insisted wrathfully, with herface very red. "I saw the tiniest one sailing down the brook by me, andthen all at once it disappeared, and I am sure I can feel it wrigglingon my neck."
Ruth made a careful examination of the clean yellow hair before Friedawould be reconciled. Then she led the small girl away to a sunshinyspot, spreading her hair over her shoulders to dry, until she lookedlike the original "Miss Goldilocks" in the old fairy tale. Frieda wasgiven a piece of scalloping, which she had been working on for weeks, tokeep her quiet.
"Jean," Ruth called a minute later, "do you mind staying here withFrieda for a little while? Olive and I have to go foraging for somechips before we can make the fire burn for luncheon, naughty Carloshaving deserted us. Do you think you can make yourself lovely and keepan eye on things at the same time?"
Jean nodded peacefully from her throne of rocks, though a minute beforeshe had been hot from her exertions and angry at Frieda's ingratitude."Sure, as my name is Jean Bruce, I can," she answered cheerfully,letting down the masses of her dark-brown hair. She made such a prettypicture that Ruth watched her smilingly for a few minutes. She thoughtshe loved all the girls alike now, but Jack and Olive were her friendsand Jean and Frieda her children. She guessed her business of playingchaperon to the ranch girls would not be an easy one, if ever Jean gotaway from their western life into the gay society world of which shedreamed and talked.
But no frivolous ideas of a society existence now engaged Miss Bruce'sattention, and she had no more idea of being disturbed than if she hadbeen the original lady in the Garden of Eden. Jean was indeed thenut-brown maid of whom old-fashioned poets loved to write. Her hair hadno golden tones in it; only the rich browns of the autumn woods, and hereyes matched it in color. She was paler than the other ranch girls, witha soft, healthy pallor, although to-day a little tanned and rosier thanusual from her week's trip in the caravan.
Frieda glanced around to see Jean leaning over the water with her haircovering her face. It did not seem worth while to disturb her, sowithout a word, Frieda slipped away to their tent to search for morethread for her sewing.
Jean could not hear very well at this time had she spoken, for the brookmade a roary, gurgling noise of its own in her ears, and her head swamfrom being held upside down so long.
"Crunch, crunch, crunch." Some one was marching along the side of thestream right in her direction. Jean did not trouble to take her hair outof the water or to look around. Of course it could be no one but Frieda!
"Well, I never in all my life!" she heard a perfectly strange masculinevoice exclaim. "I know I have walked straight into fairy land, and youmust be the queen who has brought all this magic to pass over night, forI passed this stream just two days ago and there wasn't a sign of a tentor a caravan or a princess anywhere around."
Jean flung back her long, brown hair with a gasp of sheer surprise, andthe drops of crystal water showered around her like the diamonds thatfell from the mouth of the good sister in the fairy story.
"I have been washing my hair," she announced to the strange youth, andthen because her explanation was so obvious, they both laughed. "Yousee, I hadn't the faintest idea anybody could turn up in this wildernessexcept us," she explained, not very grammatically. "We are making acaravan trip through the state."
"I suppose I ought to say I am awfully sorry I intruded," the youngfellow answered. "Of course, you know, I would say it if I had bobbedinto a lady's boudoir unexpectedly, but I am so glad to see some one inthis out-of-the-way place that I haven't a social fib at my disposal.Don't you think you could let me stop to rest and perhaps talk to you afew minutes?"
Jean drew herself up in an effort to look as dignified andunapproachable as she felt sure Jack and Olive would have done under thesame circumstances. Far be it from either of them to engage in afriendly conversation with a stranger, even in a trackless waste; but tosave her life Jean couldn't keep her eyes from shining mischievously.The water was trickling down her back until her shoulders were dampthrough her shirtwaist. Knowing she looked dreadfully foolish, shecould not make up her mind to do anything so unattractive asdeliberately to squeeze the water out of her hair or roll up her head ina towel before this handsome young fellow.
He was somewhat older than Donald Harmon or Frank Kent, and his eyeswere as blue and his hair as golden as Siegfried's, thought romanticJean, if only he were dressed in a suit of silver armor instead ofdust-covered corduroys. The traveler had a knapsack strapped over hisshoulders and a gun in his hand; his whole appearance suggested a longtramp.
Jean gazed at him meaningly. Ordinary intelligence might suggest to himthat he turn his back for a few minutes while she repaired her damagedtoilet, but the young fellow evidently had no such amiable intention. Heseated himself by the edge of the brook a few feet from Jean. "My nameis Ralph Merrit. I'm a mining engineer," he announced briefly.
Jean slightly inclined her wet head. "If you don't mind, I must beg youto excuse me?" she returned as haughtily as even
Jack could havedesired. Suddenly she made up her mind to snub this uncomfortably stupidacquaintance. Off she marched in as stately a fashion as possible, whenone considers her damp, flowing locks and the fact that she had to pickher way through their various articles of laundry spread on the grass.
Inside the security of the tent Jean rubbed her hair vigorously andwaved it energetically through the opening at the door, so it might dryas soon as possible. Frieda stationed herself outside the tent so as tocommunicate all possible information about the intruder to Jean.
"Has he gone yet?" Jean inquired for the fifth time in ten minutes.
Frieda shook her head. "He isn't going for a long time, Jeanie, Ibelieve," she returned. "He is sitting by our brook just as though henever means to leave it. Now he has gotten up and is drinking somewater. Now he is washing his face," she whispered excitedly, "and istaking a mirror out of his pocket to prink."
Jean and Frieda giggled and Jean joined her little cousin out of doors.She had piled her hair in a loose, damp mass on top of her head, for shewas now determined, with Frieda for a chaperon, gently but firmly topersuade the young man to leave their Adamless Eden.
"Oh," said Jean, as, holding fast to Frieda's hand, she got withinspeaking distance of the stranger, "are you still here?" As there wasnothing in the world to interrupt Miss Bruce's vision of the young man,even if she had been hopelessly near-sighted, he was obliged tounderstand her meaning. Coloring hotly under his already rosy skin, hegot up.
"I thought you wouldn't mind if I rested a bit," he explained. "I havebeen tramping around this neighborhood for the last two days and I wascounting on slowing up when I got back to this place. I need to fill mywater bottles. And look here, I wonder if you would give me something toeat. You don't know it, but it is a custom for travelers of the openroad to help each other out."
Ralph Merrit knew he had never seen a girl whose expression changed asswiftly as Jean's. A minute before, her eyes had been cool and reserved,and now they were brimming pools of kindness.
"Oh, I am so sorry you are hungry. I'll get you something to eat rightaway," she replied sympathetically. "If you will stay until Cousin Ruthand Olive come back I know they will invite you to lunch. I am sure youwill tell how you happened to turn up here, and, of course, I can seeyou are a gentleman," she ended.
Ralph's face flushed gratefully, "You are awfully kind," he murmured,and then all at once Frieda saved the situation from furtherembarrassment. Suddenly she thrust into the young man's hand a large,red apple and a cracker, which she had concealed in her apron pocket.She had been foraging on her own account inside their tent, but hadforgotten her provisions in the interest of Jean's discovery.
Ten minutes later Ruth and Olive appeared on the scene, swinging a largebasket of chips and pine cones between them. In amazement they set downtheir basket and stared at a three cornered group composed of Jean,Frieda and a strange young man, seated comfortably on the ground,laughing and talking and lunching on their best jam and pickles andbread.