made fun of him, if she had known him better.
"I have heard a lot about the girls who run Rainbow Ranch," he went on quickly. "They sound like such an awfully good sort that I have made Dan Norton tell me a lot about them. I am visiting him, surely you must know him," the young fellow concluded eagerly.
What in the world had he said? Frank Kent was startled. The girl he had just met seemed quite friendly a moment before. Now she stiffened up on her pony, her cheeks turned scarlet and her eyes flashed.
"I won't trouble you any further," she announced. "I will find my own way home from here." Without another word or a backward glance, Jacqueline gave her pony a gentle cut and Hotspur galloped quickly away.
"Whew," Frank Kent whistled, "methinks some one told me that the people one met out West were awfully friendly and informal. That girl was as touchy as you find them. But I wonder who she is? I think I will ride after her and show her the trail, even if she is so high and mighty."
Jacqueline pretended not to hear the young man trotting along behind her, and did not turn her head. She rode faster and faster until a sound like a stifled moan arrested her. Jacqueline paused and saw that the young fellow who had been so polite to her a few minutes before was ghastly white. He was swaying so in his saddle that he had not the strength to stop his horse.
Jacqueline caught his bridle. "Rest a minute," she urged gently. "You will soon be all right. You have ridden too far and you are not used to it. People always do too much, when they first come to Wyoming. My name is Jacqueline Ralston and I am one of the girls at the Rainbow Ranch. I am sorry I was rude to you a little while ago, but the Nortons are not our friends." Jacqueline was talking so that the young man could get his breath. She could not help admiring the brave fight he made. He seemed to be dreadfully ashamed of his own weakness.
"You will let me show you the right trail, won't you?" he asked. "I am sorry you are not friendly with my hosts. I thought I heard you talking to Dan, when I rode up to you, but that won't matter about me, will it? I don't know anything about your quarrel and if we were properly introduced, don't you think we could be friends? I can't tell you how plucky I think it is for you three girls to be managing your own ranch. Don't you think you might tell me a thing or two about it? It is pretty lonely out here for a stranger."
The young fellow looked so nice, and so ill, in spite of his efforts to hide it, that Jacqueline almost relented. Then the thought of Dan Norton's rudeness and the long feud between them swept over her, and Jacqueline shook her head firmly.
"I am sorry," she returned. "With any one else it would not matter, but we can't be friendly with any guest of the Norton's." Jacqueline hesitated, "I can't explain it to you, there isn't time. Good-bye. I know the way home from here."
Frank Kent watched Jacqueline ride out of sight, sitting on her pony as though she had been made on it, like a figure cut from bronze, all in soft tones of gold and brown.
It was quite dark when Jacqueline at last spied the lights of her own ranch house twinkling at her warmly through the open windows and doors.
The broncho hurried faster, forgetting his hard day and Jacqueline talked low in his ear.
"Home and supper, Hotspur! See the lights of home ahead. Soon they will hear us coming. Suppose I give our call and relieve the suspense." Three times in rapid succession, Jacqueline touched her red lips with her slender fingers and gave a shrill, clear whistle like an Indian's call.
Instantly figures moved about in the ranch house. A dark lantern was swung off its place over the front door and a man and two girls hurried down the drive. Jacqueline was lifted off her horse. Her sister, Frieda, seized her by one arm, her cousin, Jean, by the other.
"What has kept you so long?" Frieda demanded anxiously.
"If you have had an adventure and wouldn't let me go with you to-day, I shall never get over it," Jean insisted. "Come into the house this minute. Do tell us where you have been. Jim telephoned over to the other side of the ranch three hours back, but the sheep herders said you started for home long ago. We have been frightened to death ever since."
Frieda pulled at her sister's jacket. Jean, although she kept up her scolding, got a pair of soft, red felt slippers and placed them invitingly in front of the big, living-room fire.
Rainbow Lodge was built of pine logs. The great sitting-room was forty feet long and two-thirds as wide and it looked like a man's room, but the three ranch girls did not know it. The floor was covered with buffalo robes and beautiful bright Navajo blankets made by the Indians in the nearby villages, and the head of an elk thrusting forth giant antlers dominated the scene from above the stone fireplace. An Andrew Jackson table made of hewn logs, with a smooth polished top, occupied one side of the fireplace, holding a reading lamp and some half-opened books.
In another corner the home-made book shelves were filled with much-read novels and books of travel. There were low, comfortable chairs about everywhere. It was an odd room to be occupied by three young girls, but a very noble one. The ranch girls had kept it just as their father had left it when he died, six months before.
Jacqueline gave a comfy sigh. "I am glad to be at home," she murmured. "I haven't had any special adventure. Jean, I know you will be disgusted with me, but I got lost and wandered over on the Norton ranch. I met Dan Norton and he was horrid to me. Oh, Frieda darling, hasn't Aunt Ellen saved me anything to eat? I am simply starving," Jacqueline ended, anxious to change the subject.
Aunt Ellen came in at this moment bearing a waiter. She was nearly six feet tall, part Indian and part colored, and she had lived with the Ralstons ever since Mr. and Mrs. Ralston came to Wyoming from the East, bringing Jack, who was then only two years old.
The old woman was frowning and shaking her head, as she put down Jack's supper. "Ought never to have ridden off across the ranch alone, ought not to be coming back home way after dark. I am sure the master never would have liked you chilluns living here and trying to run things for yourself," she muttered.
Jack flushed, although she patted the old woman's hand affectionately and said nothing. Jack knew she deserved the scolding and that she would have another from Jim Colter, the manager of their ranch, in the morning. To-night he had led Hotspur away without a word and retired to his own quarters.
No one, excepting strangers, ever called Jacqueline Ralston anything but Jack. She never thought of herself by her pretty French name, except when she wished to appear very grown up and impressive. As for little Frieda, she had been born at Rainbow Ranch house thirteen years before on Christmas eve. She was such a fair little German-looking baby, with her blue eyes and flaxen hair, that her mother gave her the pretty German name of Frieda, which means peace. Mrs. Ralston died when Frieda was only a few months old, but the little girl had fairly earned her name all her life. Peace and War, Jean used to call the two sisters, when she wanted to tease Jack, for Jacqueline was as high-tempered and determined as Frieda was gentle and serene.
Jean was a slender, graceful maiden, with hair and eyes of the same nut brown color. She had come to live at the ranch ten years before, when her mother, Mr. Ralston's sister, died, and Mr. Ralston decided it would be better to bring up three motherless girls than two. Jean had a gentle, far-away expression, though Jack always asserted that Jean was present when she wanted to be. She only dreamed dreams and wore her aloof expression when people bored her, or when she felt sad and thought she needed sympathy. Jack and Frieda knew no difference in their feeling for Jean and for each other.
When Jacqueline finished supper, she curled herself in a big armchair in front of the fire. Frieda sat on a low stool at her feet while Jean, with an open book, was not far away. Jean was the reader of the three girls, but to-night her book was neglected.
"Out
