with it, Jack," Jean insisted calmly. "You know perfectly well that you haven't told us all that happened to you this afternoon. Fire away and get it over with, I want to finish my book to-night."
After much urging, Jack told her story in full and Jean flung her book down and danced about the room on her tip-toes, she was so angry, when she heard how Dan Norton had treated her. But she had a different feeling about the young English fellow.
"I really think you were rather horrid, Jacqueline Ralston," she announced coolly. "Of course we can't be having visitors or making friends with any one visiting those hateful Nortons, but I think you might have told that young fellow we would be nice to him when we met him other places. He is a far-off cousin of the Nortons, whose health broke down while he was at college in England and his people sent him over here to recover. His father is a Lord, or a Sir or something, I can't remember which. But Mrs. Simpson says he is awfully nice and – "
Jack put both fingers in her ears. "For goodness sake, hush, Jean Bruce," she protested. "You are such a snob. What difference can it make to us, whether this Frank Kent is a lord or a prizefighter? We certainly can't have anything to do with him. I shan't even speak to him again if I can help it. For the life of me, Jean, I don't see how you happen to find out the gossip in Wyoming with our ranches five miles apart."
Jean's brown eyes sparkled. She and Jack had many differences of opinion, but to-night Jack was tired and her cousin decided not to answer back.
"Have you gotten your lessons, Frieda?" Jack asked gently a moment later, kissing her hand apologetically to Jean.
Frieda shook her head. She had two long blonde plaits, like a little German girl, with a curl at the end of each one of them. Her cheeks were a faint pink, and her nose tilted just enough to curl her lips up into a smile.
"No," she replied calmly. "Jean offered to hear me recite, but I didn't feel like it. You and Jean haven't studied your French for three evenings. I don't see why I have to do all the studying, because I am the youngest. When we planned to live by ourselves this winter, you and Jean declared that you were going to study three or four hours every day."
Jack pulled Frieda's hair and Jean had just picked up her French grammar with a sigh when there came the noise of some one riding up to the ranch house.
The three girls flew to the window. It was too dark to recognize the figure on horseback. But a few moments later, Aunt Ellen brought in an envelope addressed to "Miss Jacqueline Ralston."
It was a surly note of apology from Dan Norton for his rudeness to her in the afternoon. The girls wondered what in the world had induced him to write it.
Long after Jean and Frieda were asleep, Jacqueline lay awake. She was the oldest and most responsible member of the ranch girl family of three. Frieda was right, she and Jean had been neglecting their studies shamefully. Now and then Jack could not help thinking that perhaps it was not wise for them to live without a teacher or a chaperon. They did not want to grow up perfect greenhorns, yet how they hated the idea of introducing a stranger into their home at Rainbow Ranch. Jack was still puzzling, when she fell asleep, with the familiar sound in her ears of the far-off lowing of the wild cattle across the prairie and the distant bark of the faithful sheep dogs.
CHAPTER II
IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANT'S FACE
FRIEDA walked ankle deep in purple violets. Her hands were full of them and she carried a brimful basket on her arm.
"What a picture you are, Frieda," Jack called, as she came out on the broad veranda of the ranch house at about eight o'clock the next morning.
"I don't care if we don't make our everlasting fortunes with our violet beds, they are just too sweet for anything! Jean is coming out to help you pick the flowers in a minute; I have got to go down to the rancho to make my peace with Jim."
Jack walked briskly along. It was a gentle October day with a bright sun and warm wind. You seemed to be able to see half way across the world, the horizon line stretched so far beyond you.
One of the ways in which Jean and Frieda had been trying to help to make the ranch pay was by starting a violet farm. Nearly an acre of land near the house had been irrigated and glistened with the dark green leaves and purple stars of the young plants. The flowers were to be covered with glass later on. Now the fresh morning air was fragrant with their perfume. Of course the flowers had not yet had time to pay for the expense of planting them, but Frieda was eagerly calculating how many bunches she would have to send to the nearest town, when Jean joined her.
"Don't you wish we could spend this whole day out of doors, Jean?" Frieda suggested. "I forgot to say anything about it to Jack, but you know how we have talked about riding over to the Giant's Cañon to have our lunch. Aunt Ellen can pack our saddle bags, and we can join Jack at the rancho."
After a ten minutes' walk, Jacqueline Ralston touched the brim of her broad sombrero hat with a military salute and brought her heels sharply together, when a tall figure came down the path toward her from the rancho with his hands deep in his old leather trousers. She was near the mess-house, where the men who worked the ranch had their quarters. The girls called it "Jim's rancho," to distinguish it from their own home half a mile away.
Jim Colter returned Jack's salute gravely. He was a handsome man of about thirty, with black hair and skin almost as swarthy as a Mexican's. The queer thing about his appearance was that his eyes were as blue and as gentle as a baby's, except when he was angry and then there was no harder man in Wyoming to deal with than the overseer of Rainbow Ranch. Jack would not have dared to let him know how rude Dan Norton had been to her.
Jim was a man of mystery. He came from goodness knows where; no one knew anything of his past. One day, many years before, he rode up to the ranch house nearly dead from fatigue and hunger. Mr. Ralston took him in and he never went away again. But he would not say one word about himself and no one dared to ask him many questions, because his blue eyes would suddenly grow black and angry and he would look as though he were recalling something he wanted to forget.
Jim was devoted to Jack and Jean, but Frieda was his special favorite. She was only two years old when he came to live at Rainbow Ranch, but he taught her to ride and to swim, when other babies were only just learning to walk. He and Mr. Ralston used to ride all over the great ranch, with Frieda tucked up in front of Jim's saddle and Jack perched behind her father's when both little girls were almost babies. By the time she was fourteen, Jacqueline Ralston, who was her father's shadow, knew the trick of lassoing. There was not a cowboy on the ranch who could ride faster, shoot straighter, or understood more about the business of caring for the cattle and the sheep than she did, and since Mr. Ralston's death, Jim had always consulted Jack about each new business venture.
Jack made her report of yesterday's expedition, but without a word of her meeting with Dan. Jim said nothing about the fright Jack had given them, but Jack found herself blushing and feeling like a little girl, instead of the head of a thousand acre ranch as he looked at her.
"It really wasn't my fault I was out late, yesterday, Jim," Jack apologized. "But we girls have decided to turn over a new leaf. We have made up our minds to stay at home and study, until we are regular blue stockings."
Jim laughed and at this moment glanced up the road. Jean and Frieda were riding calmly toward them. Jean was leading Hotspur and the three girls' saddle bags were packed as though they were pioneers traveling across the Deadwood trail to the gold regions of California.
Jim chuckled. "Looks like a party of bluestockings from Boston, Jack, coming this way, 'specially that there fishing tackle Jean's carrying. Where was you expecting to spend to-day?" he drawled in a funny Western fashion.
