Margaret Vandercook - The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge

OVER the brown plain a shaggy broncho trotted slowly, with its head drooping.

A girl stood up in her saddle with one hand to her lips. "Halloo! Halloo!" she cried. "I wonder where on earth I am? I thought I knew every inch of this country, yet here I am lost and I can't be but a few miles from our ranch. I must have missed the trail somewhere. Jim! Jim Colter! If there is anybody near, please answer me."

Jacqueline Ralston rode astride. Her eyes and cheeks were glowing and her gold brown hair, deep grey eyes and brilliant color, formed an unusually attractive picture.

She leaned over and gave her pony a penitent hug. "Poor little Hotspur, you shall have a rest pretty soon, even if I have to spend the night out of doors. But won't Jean and Frieda be frightened? Jim will scour the prairies for me."

The pony was treading through a vast field of purple clover fading to brown in the autumn sun. It was just before sunset. Away to the right, Jacqueline could see a group of slow moving objects, which she knew to be cattle. Half a mile on the opposite side was a sparse group of evergreen trees and low bushes. But there was nothing else that broke the vision of a long line of level country, until the snow-capped peaks of the distant mountains shone like gold in the rays of the setting sun.

"We will try the trees, Hotspur," Jacqueline urged coaxingly. "Perhaps we may find a trail over there. Anyhow I believe I would rather be a solitary babe in the woods, than to wander around here in the alfalfa fields until to-morrow morning."

The girl wore a short, brown corduroy jacket and skirt, leather leggings and riding boots. Over the pommel of her saddle hung a bunch of silver grouse and a smart little rifle was suspended at her side.

"I am desperately hungry," she announced aloud. "I do wish I had a match so I could light a fire. Jolly good advice that of Jim's for a ranch girl, 'never try to find your match, always carry it with you.'"

Jacqueline laughed. She was not willing to confess that she was tired, although she had been riding since eight o'clock that morning. Against the wishes of her sister Frieda, her cousin Jean, and the overseer of their ranch, Jim Colter, she had gone off alone to inspect the corral which had been recently built to protect their sheep for the winter.

Inside the woods the way was darker and there was no sign of a road. Jacqueline let the reins slacken on her pony's neck. Really Hotspur would have to find the right trail home, if they were to reach the ranch house that night. She could hear the rabbits and squirrels scurrying back into their retreats. They were not accustomed to being disturbed at their supper time and at first there was no other sound.

"Who goes there?" suddenly a rough voice demanded, and a horse came plunging through an opening in the trees.

Jacqueline's color paled. She recognized the rider, a boy of about sixteen, nearly her own age. "I am Jacqueline Ralston," she answered quietly. "I have lost the trail. Will you please show me the way to the Rainbow Ranch?"

The young fellow laughed rudely. "Miss Ralston, is it?" he sneered. "Don't tell me you are lost on our ranch. You have been over here spying at our cattle. Just you trot along home as fast as you can. I shall report to my father what I caught you doing." The boy's light blue eyes blazed angrily.

Jacqueline had reined in her pony and waited. Her temper was not her strong point, but she replied politely: "I am not spying, Dan Norton; I wonder why you should think it necessary. I will leave your ranch as soon as I can get away from it. Will you please show me the trail?"

Jacqueline held her head very high. "Won't you tell me?" she asked again. "Because we happen to be enemies is no reason why you shouldn't believe my word." The young girl's tones were gentle, but her face was white with anger in the gathering dusk. Her firm red lips were pressed tight together to keep her from saying the things she really felt.

Dan Norton rode closer toward her and for reply struck her pony sharply with his short riding whip. Tired little Hotspur quivered with pain, but stood still under his mistress' gentle words.

"Don't do that again, Dan," Jacqueline protested, feeling the hot blood rush to her face and then leave her cold and still with anger. "There is not another person in Wyoming who would be so rude to me. But there has been trouble enough between you and us. I shall not speak of this, but I shall never be able to forgive you to the longest day I live;" and Jacqueline's grey eyes looked so proudly and so scornfully into the boy's that his own dropped.

"Your way's to the left," he muttered. "If you ride quick, you will soon be on the boundary of your own ranch. Hurry, there is some one else coming this way."

Jacqueline did not stir. A few minutes before, she would have trotted off gladly. Now nothing would have induced her to go. She would not run away from her enemy. Indeed she preferred to explain her presence on his ranch to Mr. Norton.

In the silence between the two young people another voice entered, but it was not Mr. Norton's. Some one was singing.

Dan Norton rode hurriedly out of sight and Jacqueline lifted her rifle, letting it rest in her arm.

"Oh!" the song stopped abruptly. The singer threw up both hands and burst into a merry boyish laugh. "I surrender in the name of – in the name of most anything, if you will only put down that gun," he declared. "Who would have thought of meeting a girl in these woods? Whatever are you doing here? Poaching? No, I believe you don't have game preserves in this country, so poaching isn't against your law." The stranger laughed, though he had taken off his hat and bowed courteously to his fellow traveler. "Please tell me, are you Rosalind in the forest of Arden? You look like her, although I never heard of her on horseback," he ended merrily.

Jacqueline bit her lips. The young man was evidently a newcomer in the neighborhood and at any other time Jacqueline would have liked him. He must have been about seventeen and was tall and slender, with light brown hair and clever brown eyes. His dress was that of a cowboy, but Jacqueline saw with a feeling of instant disdain that his clothes were too new and his face too white for him to have lived long in her country. Besides he did not ride or talk like a Westerner.

"I am Frank Kent, at your service," he explained, puzzled by Jacqueline's haughty silence. "I am an Englishman and I don't quite know what I ought to do or say out in Wyoming. But may I be of any service to you?"

Jacqueline's feeling of hurt and anger began to subside and she smiled in a more friendly fashion. Frank Kent decided that he had never seen such a pretty girl before in his life. Had she been a city girl, her skin would have been fair, but from her outdoor life it had become exquisitely darkened by the wind and sun of the prairies. Her hair was like bronze and her color a deep rose.

"I ought not to be asking favors of you," Jacqueline replied in her usual manner. "You are a stranger in a strange land, while I have lived out West since I was a baby. But can you show me the trail to the Rainbow Ranch? Anyhow tell me how to get off of this place. I have never been on it before, and – " To save her life Jacqueline could not keep her voice from trembling.

"Surely I can show you," Frank answered. He spoke with such a funny English accent, that Jacqueline would have liked to have made fun of him, if she had known him better.