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CHAPTER XVII
THE OVERSEER OF THE RAINBOW RANCH

"OH," sighed Frieda sleepily, "isn't it too delicious to hear the American language spoken once again!"

Ruth and the three other Ranch girls laughed almost as sleepily as Frieda had spoken. They were on the night train coming up from Folkestone to London, after having crossed the English channel from Boulogne earlier in the afternoon. It was now the first week of June.

"Bravo, Frieda!" teased Jean. "One can always count on the younger Miss Ralston's saying the memorable thing as soon as the Rainbow Ranch party arrives on a new soil. Who would have thought of the American tongue being employed in the British Isles. I shall mention it to Frank Kent as soon as we see him."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't be funny, Jean Bruce," the first speaker protested, "for you know exactly what I mean. I suppose I should have said the English language. But even if the English do speak deep down in their throats and their voices are kind of choky and queer, at least one can understand what they mean without consulting a dictionary or trying to remember something one has learned at school. After having heard nothing but Italian, German and French for over two months, I could almost have hugged that porter who carried our bags off the boat."

Frieda had been resting her head on her chaperon's shoulder, but now lifted it to continue her argument with Jean. However, Ruth drew her back to her former place.

"Don't be a purist at this late date, Jean," Ruth murmured, shaking her head in a kind of mild reproof. "I must confess I am feeling pretty much as Frieda does. English or American, whichever you may prefer to call it, after our continental wanderings, England does seem almost like home."

And Ruth closed her eyes, she and Frieda both dropping off into a gentle doze, while Olive and Jean talked in whispers, and Jack stared out of the window into the darkness.

Since leaving Rome, the five young women had become proverbial Cook's tourists. They had been traveling almost continuously, sight-seeing during every possible hour, and allowing no time for loitering. For after Rome had followed Florence, Venice and then Paris, until now they were on their way to spend the fashionable season in London.

Such rapid journeying had not been Ruth's original idea, but somehow after Jack's experience in Rome it had seemed best to keep her constantly busy, allowing as little time as possible for reflection or argument.

Faithful to her word, Jacqueline Ralston had not seen Captain Madden since the afternoon of her talk with Ruth. At that time, it is true, she had promised to wait only until an answer could arrive from her own and Ruth's letters to her guardian, Jim Colter, but later she had made a further promise to Jim.

Almost from the day of his arrival at the Rainbow Lodge, the overseer of the ranch and afterwards the girls' devoted protector and friend, had had a peculiar understanding of Jack's character. When she was a small girl, insisting on some order of hers being obeyed or angered because it had not been, Jim's "Steady, boss!" used always to help her control herself. For reasonableness was ordinarily one of Jack's strongest characteristics. Always she wished to be just and patient. Her wilfulness came not so much from original sin as because she had had too much her own way as a child and had had to depend too much on her own wisdom.

Her mother had died when she was a very young girl and her father not so many years after. Why, when Jacqueline Ralston was fourteen, virtually she was, under Jim's guidance, the head of a thousand-acre ranch, and a kind of mother to little Frieda and Jean.

So, though Jim Colter was more broken up by the news in Ruth's and Jack's letters than he had been by anything since Ruth's refusal of his love, he wrote to Jack with more tact than you could have expected from a big, blunt fellow like Jim.

It took him almost one entire night, however, to write the letter.

For one thing, he did not say that he believed just what Ruth Drew had written him of Captain Madden, nor did he mention Frank Kent's information, which painted an even worse picture of Jack's friend. Nor did he demand that Jack immediately break off her engagement or stop writing Captain Madden. He simply suggested, as he had in the old days at the ranch, that "the boss go slow" and would Jack agree not to see Captain Madden and not to think of him more than she could help, until Jim himself could find out something more about him? For of course Frank Kent might be prejudiced and Ruth might be mistaken. Jim would see to the whole matter himself, and Jack could surely count on his wanting to give every man a square deal.

Jack had at once agreed to her guardian's request. She realized that Jim's efforts must take time, as he was a long way from proper sources of information. So she had meant to be and had been very patient, trusting that Jim would never believe Captain Madden the kind of villain that Frank Kent had declared him.

Jack was reflecting on this now as the lights from hundreds of small houses along the line of the road blinked at her like so many friendly eyes. Probably Jim would let her hear what conclusion he had reached some time during their stay in England. She was rather dreading this visit to London. For not once had she seen Frank Kent since their interview in the hotel sitting room in Rome. Frank had come to say good-bye the next day, as he was leaving that evening for home; but Jack had excused herself from meeting him. Now there would be no way of escaping, for Frank was Ruth's and the other girls' devoted friend, as he had formerly been hers. They would want to be with him as much as possible. Jack glanced at Olive. Had she not imagined several years ago that Olive liked Frank better than any other young man of their acquaintance? Certainly she had seemed to prefer him to Donald Harmon, in spite of Don's devotion.

Well, for the sake of her family, she must conquer her own unfriendly attitude. Candidly, she was sorry not to be able to like Frank herself as she once had. How much they had used to talk of her first visit to England! Then Frank had insisted that Ruth and the four Ranch girls were to make a long visit at his country estate in Surrey. He wished them to know his family intimately, as for several years he had been talking continuously of his western friends. Jack regretted the loss of this visit. Frank had made her almost love his beautiful English home in his homesick days in the west, when he was ill and had chosen her for his special confidante.

Just in time, a sigh that was about to escape into their compartment was surreptitiously swallowed. Ruth was stirring and begging Frieda to wake up. Olive and Jean were dragging down luggage from the racks overhead. And where the twinkling lights outside had been hundreds, now there were thousands. They must have reached the outskirts of London and would soon be entering the Charing-Cross station.

"I believe," announced Jack, who had not spoken for the past half hour, "that I have more real feeling about seeing London than any other city in the world. I think we have something more in common than just the language, baby." And she helped Frieda get into her traveling coat.

Perhaps Ruth had been asleep, for she appeared more than commonly flurried. "I hope you girls understand just exactly what we are to do," she began nervously. "I declare, I don't consider that I shall ever make a successful traveler, I do so hate the excitement and responsibility of arriving in places. I wish now I had allowed Frank to meet us. He was good enough to offer to come in from the country, but I declined."

"But, my beloved Ruth, what have we to do but get ourselves and our belongings into cabs and drive to our hotel? I will manage if you prefer it," Jack proposed.

Their train had stopped and a guard was opening the door. Several porters soon had their bags and steamer rugs, and almost before they were aware of what they were doing the five young women were following the men down the station platform, Jack in advance, Ruth and Olive together, and Jean and Frieda bringing up the rear.

Once inside the gate, however, the four girls were startled past speech on seeing the usually dignified Jack stop for an instant, clasp her hands tight together, then stare and with a cry rush forward and positively fling herself into a tall man's arms.

Their silence and stupidity only lasted for an instant. Ruth was next to run after Jack and seize the man's one disengaged hand.

"Oh, Jim, oh Mr. Colter, why didn't you tell us you were coming to London? I never was so glad to see anyone before in my life!" And this from the former dignified "school marm." Probably Ruth had never forgotten her reserve so completely in her life as at this moment. Tears of delight gathered unheeded in her eyes.

Jack and Ruth were both swept aside by the onslaught of Frieda, Jean and Olive.

"How on earth did you decide to come? When did you come? Why did you come?" Jean demanded all in one breath and then stopped to laugh at herself.

Jim was staring at the little party critically. He looked more western and unconventional than ever in his big, broad-brimmed, felt hat, his loose fitting clothes, with the tan of his outdoor life still showing on his strong, handsome face.

Jim's deeply blue eyes suddenly crinkled up at the corners in a way they had when he wanted to laugh or to show any particular emotion.

"Well," he drawled in his slowest and most exaggerated cowboy fashion. "I've been thinkin' lately that I was gittin' a bit tired of bein' everlastingly left at the post. Seems like you been acquirin' so much culture and clothes I was kind of afraid you might not want to know me when you got back to the ranch. I ain't so sure about the culture, but I'll capture the glad rags all right soon as you girls are able to go on a shoppin' party or so with me." And Jim, glancing at an Englishman just passing them, attired in a top hat and frock coat, pretended to wink.

No one was deceived in the least by his poor pretense of a joke. Jim was really so much upset by the pleasure of seeing Ruth and the girls that he was talking foolishness to cover his emotion.

Frieda's break, therefore, saved them all "Oh Jim, won't you look too funny, dressed like a gentleman!" she exclaimed, and in mock wrath Jim marched the five of them off to their cabs.

CHAPTER XVIII
RELIEF OR REGRET?

"TELL me what you have found out, Jim. I think I know why you have come all this way to London," Jacqueline Ralston said.

The man and girl were seated on a bench in Kew Gardens, the wonderful park a few miles out from London, two afternoons after the arrival of the Rainbow Ranch party. Ruth and the three other girls had gone to view Westminster Abbey. But Jack, pleading a need of fresh air, arranged for a few quiet hours with Jim.

The man rose and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, started striding up and down. His blue eyes were curiously gentle, but his mouth was stern. Indeed, he represented a strange combination of anger and nervousness. Finally, before speaking, he placed himself on the seat next Jack again, but this time so that he could look directly into her face.

Jack's eyes were down, her manner quiet and reserved. The man had no way of guessing how his news would affect her.

"See here, boss," he began after a moment, "you and I've been pretty much on the level with each other all the time, haven't we? We ain't tried to keep things back 'cause they hurt." He took the girl's gloved hand, patting it softly. "Sometimes, maybe, I've seemed harder with you, Jack, than with the others. But I always thought you'd understand. You kind of like to face the music, to know the worst and have things settled quick. Well – "

Possibly Jacqueline's face turned a shade paler; certainly her lips did. Nevertheless, they curved into a kind of a smile.

"Well, we aren't getting them settled very quickly today, are we, Jim?" she returned. "You are right, though, I do like to know the truth. What have you found out about Captain Madden."

"That he ain't no good," Jim replied, forgetting his grammar and all his carefully planned methods of breaking the unpleasant news to the girl. "Seems like the English know how to put it better than we do when they say a fellow is a cad. I tell you, Jack, this is honest. I've found out every thing I could from the time this man was a boy. He has never done an honest day's work in his life. Why, I even learned that he had written back to Wyoming to ask what the Rainbow Mine was worth. 'Course, I don't claim he don't care for you, child – most any man might be able to manage that. But to think of John Ralston's daughter and my old boss of the Rainbow Ranch marrying a man old enough to be her father, and such a man!" Jim had been trying his best to hold in, but now he swore softly under his breath. "Say, Jack, old girl, say you believe I'm telling you the truth. I hate to hurt you, the Lord only knows how much, but if you don't tell me you'll break it all off, I think I'll go plumb crazy." And Jim mopped the moisture from his brow, though it was a peculiarly cool day.

Jack was so painfully silent. Could a girl not quite twenty suffer much over an interrupted love affair? Jim did not know. He remembered his own grief when Ruth refused him. It had been awful! He carried the ache inside of him to this day. Glancing at the girl near him, he saw that the tears, which came so rarely, were now in her clear gray eyes.

"I believe you, Jim," she returned finally. "I believe you'd play fair with me and with Captain Madden even if you loathed the idea of my caring for him. Don't worry, old man. I promise this is the end. But, please, would you mind if I cried a while? No one is paying any attention to us and I think I'd like to very much."

Without waiting for permission, Jack's shoulders shook, and she covered her face with her hands. But a few seconds later Jim sighed so miserably that Jack slipped one of her hands inside his and held it close.

"I am not crying because my heart is broken, Jim dear," she explained; "I think I am crying because I am ashamed of myself. Sometimes I wonder how many lessons it will take before I learn not to be so self-willed. I have made things so hard for Ruth and for the other girls. Yet I believed what Captain Madden told me; I thought people were prejudiced against him just because he was poor. And I hate that. So when Ruth and Frank said such horrid things I told him I would marry him if you would give your consent. And, oh Jim, I have been so afraid lately – "

Jack began crying softly again.

"Been so afraid, poor little girl! If you only knew how I dreaded telling you this, I haven't had a good night's sleep in two weeks, and waiting for you to arrive in London nearly broke my nerve." Jim Colter probably had not shed any tears in almost twenty years, yet he looked perilously on the verge of them now.

Jack pulled at his coat sleeve uncertainly. "But Jim, dear, you don't know what I have been afraid of! I have been afraid you would discover that Captain Madden was all right and that I would then have to marry him. I had given him my word. It would not have been honest to go back on it. You see, when we were in Rome I did believe I cared for him. He was awfully kind and interesting and different from any one I had ever known. Then I suppose I was flattered in thinking a so much older, wiser man could care for a stupid girl like me. And Ruth and Frank were dreadfully dictatorial. But since we left Rome, I've been thinking – I feel I have not been doing anything else but think. And I realized that I did not really love Captain Madden. I felt as if I should die if he took me away from my family. Still I didn't know just what to do. I was so frightened, Jim, until I saw you there at Charing Cross."

Jim Colter took off his big western hat. The English sky of a June day can be a very lovely thing – soft fleecy clouds, floating over a surface of translucent blue. Jim looked up into it. "I thank Thee, Lord," he whispered reverently, and then, stooping over, kissed Jack.

The next moment he was up on his feet. And though he failed to electrify Kew Gardens by giving his celebrated cowboy yell, he waved his sombrero and the yell apparently took place inside him.

"Come on, Jack, let's do something quick to celebrate or I'm liable to bust with gladness!" he exclaimed. "This is a right pretty park we're in. I hear it's one of the most famous on the map, with every known tree growing inside it. Wouldn't you like me to buy it for you, or maybe you can think of some other little remembrance?"

Jack hung on to his arm and the man and girl started off on their sight-seeing expedition together, both feeling as though they were treading on air instead of the velvet softness of the English turf.

"I should like to go back and tell Ruth at once and apologize for being a nuisance," Jack confided, "but I don't want any one to guess I have been crying, and then Ruth will probably be mooning over tombstones in the Abbey until dinner time. I tell you what, Jim, we will have a wonderful dinner party tonight to celebrate and you can wear the new evening clothes you bought yesterday. Then, afterwards, you must take all of us to the theater. Now I have got you to myself, we might as well see Kew and have some tea. I am dreadfully hungry. You can bring Ruth some time by herself and I will promise to keep the girls away."

Jim did not answer. But, under the circumstances, it is perfectly certain that he could have refused Jack nothing in the world.

For the next two hours he could hardly keep his eyes off her. And he seemed especially happy when she devoured three English scones and drank two cups of strong tea.

"Ain't intendin' to pine away, are you, Jack?" he asked. And then, when the girl blushed, he laughed and held out his hand.

"Shake on it once more, boss," he demanded, "and you can count on this, sure thing. You ain't going to make but one man happier than you've made me this day. And that is when you say 'yes' to the right fellow."

CHAPTER XIX
RECONCILIATIONS

LATER that evening the four girls and Ruth were dressed and waiting in their sitting room for Jim Colter to come to them, when Frank Kent's card was sent up to their room. By accident the man at the door gave it first to Jack. The girl's face flooded with color, but she turned at once to Ruth.

"Frank Kent has come to see us," she explained, "and I want very much to see him by myself for a few minutes. If you don't mind, I will go down to meet him."

And as Ruth nodded, Jack disappeared.

Before she got near enough to speak to him, Frank realized that some change had taken place in his former friend since their last meeting in Rome.

For one thing, Jack looked younger and happier. Then she had on some thin white girlish dress, and was coming forward with a smile to greet him.

"I have been perfectly horrid to you, Frank, and I apologize with all my heart," she began immediately. "Yet you knew I had a bad disposition years ago, and still managed to like me a little. Please try again. Our dear Jim Colter is here from the ranch and has made me see things in the right light. But don't let's talk about my mistakes. We are having a dinner and a theater party tonight. Do join us. Olive and Ruth and everybody will be so glad."

In the elevator on the way upstairs to their apartment, Jack looked at Frank critically for a moment. Not until now had she been willing to make a fair estimate of the changes the two years had wrought in him.

In the first place she could see that Frank had grown a great deal better looking. He had lost the former delicacy which had sent him to the west, and seemed in splendid physical condition. He was six feet tall and had the clear, bright color peculiar to young Englishmen. Frank's expression had always been more serious than most young fellows', and this had been lately increased by his wearing glasses. Tonight, however, his clever brown eyes positively shone with relief. And though he could hardly dare express himself so openly or so eloquently as Jim Colter, Jack appreciated that he was unfeignedly happy over her escape.

Possibly the Rainbow Ranch party and their two men friends had never had a more delightful evening in their lives. They were in such blissfully good spirits. Indeed, each one of the seven felt as though an individual load had been lifted. And particularly because Jack appeared to be the gayest of them all. And Jack was happy in feeling herself released from an obligation which lately had begun to weigh upon her like a recurrent nightmare. Moreover, she was particularly anxious not to have her family regard her as broken-hearted.

She whispered to Jean and Frieda before starting for the theater that they were to leave Ruth and Jim and Frank and Olive together as much as possible, for in so large a party it was necessary to make divisions.

Olive and Frank did sit next one another at the play, but the three girls were not so successful with Jim Colter and Ruth. For there was no doubt but that Jim avoided being alone with Ruth whenever it was possible. He had always been perfectly polite to her, but not once since the night of their parting had he ever voluntarily spent an hour in her society, unless one of the Ranch girls happened to be present.

Of course Ruth was aware of this. What girl or woman can ever fail to be? Nevertheless on their way back to the hotel Ruth turned to Jim.

"Would you mind, Mr. Colter, staying in the sitting room with me for a little while after the girls have gone to bed. I am so anxious to talk to you?" And there was a gentleness and a hesitation in her manner that made it impossible for the man to refuse. Also, he understood what it was she wished to discuss.

Although Jim's manner was gay enough as he told the four girls good-night, Ruth saw with regret that it altered as soon as the last one of them had disappeared. He did not even sit down, but waited by the door, awkwardly fingering his hat like an embarrassed boy who wished to run away but did not quite dare.

Ruth did not ask him to have a chair. She, too, was standing by the open fire, with one foot resting on the fender and her head half turned to gaze at him. She looked a little unlike herself tonight, or else like her best self. For the Ranch girls had seriously objected to their chaperon's nun-like costumes, which she had had made in Vermont, and insisted on getting her some new clothes in Paris, while they were making their own purchases. Ruth had objected but Olive had solved the problem. Each one of the four girls had presented Ruth with a toilet shortly before leaving Paris. And so much care and affection had each donor put into her gift that she had not had the heart to decline.

Tonight she was wearing Jean's offering, which had been voted the prettiest of the lot. Over an underdress of flame-colored silk there were what Jim considered floating clouds of pale gray chiffon. And at her waist, with a background of the chiffon, was a single flame-colored flower.

Ruth had lost a good deal of her Puritan look; somehow the man thought she seemed more human, more alive. She had a vivid color, and her hair, which Jean had insisted upon dressing, was looser about her face. Jim remembered the moonlight ride they had had together when a lock of her hair had blown across his cheek. Then he brought himself sharply to task.

Ruth had already begun speaking.

"Mr. Colter," she said, "there are so many, many things I want to say to you I hardly know where to begin. I know how you must feel toward me, how you must feel that I have utterly failed in my duty toward Jack, and how nearly I have come to allowing her to wreck her life. There is nothing that you can think about me that I do not about myself. Of course, you know, I erred through ignorance, and yet ignorance is no excuse. A woman with so little knowledge, so little tact – " Ruth's face was crimsoning all over and she had to put her handkerchief to her eyes to wipe away her tears.

Jim had stepped forward and stood towering above her so that he had to bend his handsome head to see into her face.

"Miss Drew, you are not to go calling yourself bad names and then declare that I feel as you say I do. Honest Injun, Miss Ruth, I haven't had a single one of those feelings about you. Since I have known about this tragedy that poor Jack has nearly gotten us all into, I have been plumb sorry for you with all my heart. How could a little New England girl like you know anything about an accomplished rascal like this fellow Madden? Yet I guessed if Jack wouldn't give in (and she is usually a hard-headed customer), why you'd be blaming yourself for a thing you couldn't prevent until the end of your days. I tell you, Miss Ruth, that thought, besides my love for Jack, kept me hot on that man's trail. And it even helped me break the news to Jack today, which was the hardest part."

Ruth looked up into the deeply blue eyes above hers.

"Jim Colter," she announced quietly, "I believe you are the very best man in the world."

But instead of being pleased, Jim drew back as though his feelings had been deeply hurt. "Don't say that, Miss Ruth," he begged. "And don't you go and believe because I don't mention it that I have forgotten that sin I committed a way back in my youth and the way it made you feel about me. You have been awfully good treating me so kind and polite whenever you have to meet me around with the girls. I've done my best not to worry you any more'n I could help."

"Oh, Mr. Colter, oh Jim," Ruth faltered, "please don't say a cruel thing like that to me. Haven't you forgiven me after almost three years? You must have known that in a few months, as soon as I got away from the ranch, I realized how narrow and foolish and blind I had been. You are a good man; you are the bravest, kindest, most forgiving in the whole world. And I don't care, I know you have forgotten about me long ago, but I want you to know I love you. It seems to me sometimes a woman must have the right to say this just to prove she can be as generous as a man. But I don't care whether I have the right or not. I am just saying it because it is true."

"For heaven's sake, stop, Ruth," the big man implored.

But the little New England school teacher, who had hardly ever dared show her real feelings before in her life, would not be silenced.

"Don't worry, Jim, I shall never regret what I have said, though I shall never speak of it again – and perhaps never see you after you sail for America."

Jim swept the little woman off her feet and held her for a moment to his heart.

"Don't you dare say a thing like that to me, child," he threatened. "And don't you believe you are going to lose sight of me more than a few hours at a time while both of us are living in this world. Why, you little white, New England snow-maiden. The very idea of your having the nerve to stand up right before my face and say you love a big, good-for-nothing, sinful fellow like me. But I kind of wish you'd wake Jack and the other three girls up and tell them we are going to get married tomorrow."