to the trampling herd of panic-stricken animals, lay a small figure, outstretched on the ground and probably until this moment asleep.
Whether he now heard the oncoming horses or the cries of his mother and guardian, in any case, awakening, he jumped to his feet and the same instant turned, beheld, and understood his own danger. In a few moments, seconds perhaps, the frightened animals would be upon him, trampling, snorting, unconscious of his presence in their frenzy.
As the boy ran across the field toward his pony, he had the consciousness that the two persons for whom he cared most in the world were coming toward him to save him from harm. Yet he also appreciated this would not be possible, as they could not reach him in time.
But Jimmie Kent was not to make the whole effort alone. As he ran he called his pony's name.
"Whitestar! Whitestar!" The boy's tones remained firm and commanding.
Whitestar had observed her own danger. The pony's head went up, showing the mark upon her pretty nose which had given her the name. A single time she pawed the earth in front of her, appearing about to rush away without her master, and then she cantered toward the boy.
The oncoming drove of terrified animals was now only a few yards away.
"Don't lose courage, Jack, he is your son, remember! He will win out," Jim Colter shouted, his own horse scarcely appearing to touch the earth as it ran.
"Drive straight toward them, Jimmie, don't try to cross their path," Jim called, his voice sounding unfamiliar to his own ears.
Yet either the boy heard or recognized his one chance.
Without hesitation the little figure lying close to his saddle was riding straight toward the center of the drove of twenty or thirty frightened animals. The leader, a few feet in advance of the others, apparently ran in a direct line with the boy.
Her eyes never turning for an instant from the little figure, now not thirty yards away, Jack understood what must take place. Should the leader come on without swerving Jimmie would be unseated, his pony struck down and the other horses would pass over them both. But, should Jimmie possess the courage or, greater than courage, the strength of will to force the horse in advance of the drove to swerve either toward the right or left, the others would follow.
A moment later and Jack's arms were about her son.
"You've turned the trick, Jimmie," Jim Colter was saying roughly. "But it is the front yard of the Rainbow lodge for you for the next week. How dared you ride over the ranch alone when I have told you it was forbidden? Now you and your mother get home as soon as you can and send whatever men you come across in this direction. I suppose the horses will have tired themselves out after a few more miles of running, but it is just as well to see they are quieted down."
So Jim Colter rode away in one direction and Jimmie and his mother in the other toward the Rainbow lodge.
CHAPTER II
THE YOUNGER SET
The front yard of the Rainbow lodge appeared an extremely small playground for a boy accustomed to covering many miles of the broad ranch and the adjoining country in the course of each day. Yet as Jim Colter's word was law on the Rainbow ranch Jimmie Kent had no thought of breaking parole.
He glanced up at the double rows of tall cottonwood trees which led from the lodge to the gate. Almost impossibly difficult trees to climb because of their tall, smooth trunks and the branches so high overhead! A warm September day and Rainbow creek not half a mile away! Jimmie taxed his imagination until he could well-nigh feel himself swimming about in the cool freshness of the little stream, deeper than usual at the present time because of the abundant September rains. When one's swim ended, not far away were his mother, his Aunt Jean and her husband Ralph Merritt, a clever mining engineer. The family was to meet this afternoon to discuss the possibility of sinking a new shaft into the old Rainbow mine with the hope of striking a new lode.
Moreover, Jim Colter (and Jimmie and the big man were so intimate as to use each other's first names) was attending to the branding of a herd of calves at one of the ranch houses. Any one, or all, of these entertainments might have been his, except for an unfortunate impulse to investigate the Rainbow ranch alone a few afternoons before.
A week of the front yard of the lodge appeared an interminable time to Jimmie Kent, yet even a week would pass in time. And one had better be half a prisoner at the old ranch than free in any other part of the world.
Six weeks before having arrived at the ranch after a long journey from England, at present this was Jimmie Kent's earnest conviction. Was there anywhere else in the world such a wide sweep of country, such plains and prairies and desert sands covered with sage brush and cacti? In the prairies there were wolves and deer and bear. Since his arrival at the ranch Jimmie believed he had heard one night the call of a wolf, the leader of the pack, and coyotes he had seen with his own eyes, sniffing about the edge of the woods not far from Rainbow creek. Jim Colter had suggested that the buffalo were not all destroyed, but might be found roaming in certain western portions of the state, now inhabited only by wandering Indian tribes. He had hinted at mountain lions as not wholly a figment of a boy's dreams, but as realities, creatures Jim Colter had beheld with his own eyes long years before, when the west was the west indeed.
Yet here he was, Jimmie Kent, late of Kent House, Kent county, England, suddenly transformed into an American boy, but shut up within an acre of ground for a week and, moreover, face to face with the tragic possibility that within a month or more he might be forced to return to England. He had nothing against England except that it was too small for a boy's energies and hopelessly devoid of wild animals outside the London Zoo.
India of course was a possession of the British Empire, and South Africa, but Jimmie felt that probably for a number of years he might not be permitted to explore these regions. So why the present discussion? If he and his mother both desired to remain at the Rainbow ranch at least for a number of years, they ought to be able to decide for themselves. Nevertheless his mother had explained that she must continue to think the situation over and to ask the advice of her family. To-night the grown-up members of the family were even to dine together for this purpose.
Discovering a cottonwood tree not far from the gate, Jimmie now climbed up and seated himself upon one of the lower branches. Here he was enabled to have a wide outlook.
Behind him was the Rainbow lodge where he and his mother were living at the present time. So often Jimmie Kent had been told its history! Here his mother with her sister, Frieda Ralston, and her cousin Jean Bruce, had lived when the three of them were little girls and under the guardianship of Jim Colter, the manager of their father's ranch after his death. Later the fourth ranch girl had found refuge with them, escaping from an Indian woman in whose charge she had been for so many years that her early childhood was enshrouded in mystery.
From his present viewpoint Jimmie Kent was able to observe two figures not at a great distance away. They were Captain MacDonnell and his wife, who had been Olive to the other ranch girls until the discovery of her parentage.
Captain MacDonnell, injured in the great war, later had developed his talent as an artist. Jimmie possessed the ordinary small boy's attitude toward pictures, nevertheless he had something to say in favor of Captain MacDonnell's, since his reputation had been acquired through his painting of western scenes.
At the present moment he was sketching a mustang pony, which one of the ranch boys was leading back and forth in an effort to persuade the pony to remain within the range of the artist's vision. Jimmie would have enjoyed changing places with the other boy. In spite of Captain Bryan MacDonnell's lameness he had an especial understanding and love of the
