midnight. Good-night."
CHAPTER III
OLD PASTIMES
One Saturday afternoon several days later Jacqueline Kent, escaping from her family, rode alone down to the great ranch house a mile or more from the Rainbow lodge. She had not had an opportunity to visit the ranch house since her arrival at her former home. Yet as a young girl she always had enjoyed slipping off to the big ranch house unaccompanied by the other Ranch Girls and usually without Jim Colter's knowledge or consent. In the ranch house lived the ranchmen, or the cowboys who looked after the livestock on the great place.
To-day as Jack rode up to the house only three or four of the ranchmen were visible and they were standing on the rough log porch smoking and talking to one another.
But the four sombreros were immediately lifted, and one of the men came forward.
"Glad to see you, Lady Kent. Is there any order you wish to give, or any message? Sorry the greater number of the fellows are not here at present. This is Saturday afternoon, you see, and a half holiday. They are off entertaining themselves, but we'll have the laugh on them when we tell them that we have had a visit from you."
The Wyoming cowboy spoke with a courtesy and self-possession Jack had often seen lacking among more distinguished persons. However, perhaps "distinguished" is not the proper adjective, since her present companion possessed, stored inside his kit, among the personal treasures in his rough, pine-wood chamber a Distinguished Service Medal presented him by the United States Government and a Croix de Guerre, the gift of a grateful France.
Jack shook her head.
"No, I haven't a message or an order. I merely wanted to see the old ranch house and be introduced to the men. But don't call me Lady Kent. I am Mrs. Kent; now that I have returned to my own country a title strikes me as an absurdity. It is hard enough to remember, these days, that I am not Jacqueline Ralston; the ranch is so like it used to be when I was a young girl. I am sorry not to find the other men, as I rode over this afternoon knowing it was Saturday and hoping I might meet them. May I be introduced to the three men who are here, if they don't mind?"
Jack spoke with a mixture of shyness and friendliness entirely natural to her, but in the present circumstances, perhaps unusual.
The man to whom she was speaking was John Simmons, one of the assistant managers of the Rainbow ranch to whom Jim Colter had introduced her shortly after her arrival at her old home.
At a summons from him, the three other men rushed forward as if only awaiting the opportunity, and leaning from her horse, holding the bridle in her left hand, Jack shook hands cordially with her new acquaintances.
"More sport this, ma'am, than lassoing a wild colt!" one of the cowboys drawled, as Jack smiled upon him. His three companions, after first shouting with laughter, proceeded to frown upon the young fellow. He was only a boy not yet twenty-one, from the Kentucky mountains, who nevertheless had served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France for eighteen months.
"But are the men practicing lassoing this afternoon? If they are, please do take me to see what is going on. Is there to be a contest?" Jack inquired. "I used to know something about the business myself, long ago when I was a girl. I have even tried using the lasso, although I was never a great success according to Jim Colter, who did his best to teach me."
"If you'll wait until we get our horses," John Simmons replied.
A few moments later Jack and her four masculine companions were galloping toward one of the farther boundaries of the Rainbow ranch.
After half an hour's steady riding they came upon from twenty to thirty young ranchmen gathered about an open stretch of country. A third of the men were employees of the Rainbow ranch, the others were from neighboring places.
The men were grouped together, some of them on horseback, others at present afoot. Not far away were a dozen western ponies still unbroken either for riding or driving, but captured and brought to this particular spot. Firmly tethered to stakes, they were now pawing the earth, tossing their pretty heads in the air and kicking and bucking if any one approached.
If the men were astonished by the appearance of Jacqueline Kent upon the scene, they were sufficiently polite to make no mention of the fact. If they exchanged glances of surprise or whispered comments, Jack was too little self-conscious and too interested in the spectacle before her and what was about to take place to consider her own position.
Apart from the group, facing a broad, flat prairie field were two of the ranchmen, a few yards separating them. Over their right arms hung their long lariats, coils of rope with a slip noose at the end.
A pony unloosed at a given signal would make a plunge for liberty. Then the two men with the lassos would be after him. The pony has a fair start in open field, and the race for freedom lies before him.
In her eager interest, scarcely realizing what she was doing, Jack made her way to the front line of the group of spectators, the men giving way to her partly from amusement and partly from courtesy. The larger number of them had no personal acquaintance with her, yet she was well enough known by reputation. One of the owners of the famous Rainbow ranch, herself a Ranch girl until her marriage to an Englishman, the fact that since her husband's death Jacqueline Ralston Kent had returned home with the avowed intention of resuming her American citizenship was already become a subject for gossip, for approval or disapproval among her neighbors.
Staring at her secretly when the chance offered, there was in all probability the usual difference of opinion concerning her among the onlookers. But with one fact they would all have agreed: Lady Kent, or Mrs. Kent, as she was said to prefer being called, looked younger than any one who had heard her history could have thought possible.
In truth, this afternoon, in her usual informal fashion, Jack was wearing an old corduroy riding habit which she had left behind her at the Rainbow lodge several years before upon the occasion of her previous visit home. It was of dust color, plainly made with a long, close fitting coat and divided skirt. Her riding boots and gloves, however, were of the softest and most beautiful English manufacture; her hat of brown felt, with a broad brim.
This afternoon Jack's cheeks were a deep rose color, her eyes were glowing, her full red lips were parted from excitement and pleasure as she watched.
Away toward the outermost bounds rushed the little untamed colt, his pursuers close on his track. Then a long rope swung through the air, coil on coil unloosed, rose beautiful as bubbles afloat, with the noose ready to capture and bring the pony to a standstill.
The first man is unsuccessful and the bystanders raise a shout of derision. This changes to applause when the second man slips his noose easily over the pony and gently draws it until the four protesting feet are held fast.
Then the pony is brought back, again tied to its stake and a second contest begins anew.
There was no cruelty in this sport, only a test of courage and skill, since sooner or later the wild ponies must be captured and tamed and taught to do their portion of the world's work.
Had she forgotten how exhilarating, how thrilling the lassoing was? Jack felt her heart pounding, her blood coursing more swiftly in her veins as she half stood in her saddle waving her applause at each victory.
"I suppose I should not dare attempt to find if I have altogether lost my skill?" she asked of her companion, the assistant manager of the Rainbow ranch, who had managed to keep near her all afternoon. "Would it bore the men dreadfully to have me take part, do you think? Of course I ought not to be willing to disgrace myself before so many people."
