The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold Page 14

  CHAPTER XII

  CARLOS MAKES GOOD

  "Don't, please, Mr. Colter!" Olive faltered.

  Frieda clutched at Jean's skirts, with big tears in her eyes, and Jeanstared at the scene with a frightened face. Ralph Merrit had walked somedistance away and Ruth had gone back to their tent, worn out by hersecond disappointment over Jack's failure to return. The three girls whoremained had rarely seen anyone so angry as Jim Colter. He had notspoken when Carlos first returned; now he made the boy stand up beforehim and give an account of himself.

  Ruth was crying when she heard a swish of a whip through the air andthought she caught the sound of a sob from Frieda. She listened again.Jim was speaking in a voice she did not know he could use, and for aminute she turned quite cold.

  "You deserter," the voice said harshly. "I forgave you for running awayfrom camp this morning, when I told you to stay behind, and then when Ileave you for an instant you turn traitor the second time. There is noblood of an Indian Chief in your veins; they at least keep faith withtheir friends." Swish! Ruth knew the whip had struck again.

  She slipped quietly on the scene. Olive and Frieda were both crying, andJean was biting her trembling lips. Jim's face was crimson and his blueeyes blazed as only a man's can who is slow to anger. Only Carlos stoodas still as stone. He had but one thin shirt over his slender body, butwhen he staggered it was from fatigue not pain. He bore his punishmentwith the silence and fortitude of an Indian warrior.

  Jim had lifted his stick for the third time and this blow he meant tomake the severest of all. A small, white hand closed over the raisedwhip. "Stop, Mr. Jim," Ruth said quietly. "Carlos is a child andwhatever he has done he is too tired for you to punish him now. I thinkhe did not mean to desert Jack any more than you did." Ruth did notintend her words as a reproach, but Jim's arm dropped quickly to hisside and he turned so pale that she was frightened. "Take Carlos awayand see that he has something to eat," he ordered Olive, "and, Jean,make Frieda stop crying." Without glancing at Ruth, Jim picked up aflask of beef tea, which he had had prepared for Jack's return, andwithout another word set out to search for Jack.

  A little later Ralph Merrit proposed that he too should go out toreconnoiter. Having also met with misfortune at "Miner's Folly," he knewthe country all about the neighborhood. The young man was saying good-byto Ruth and Frieda, when Jean's face, paler and more wistful than usual,appeared over her chaperon's shoulder.

  "Ruth, dear, Olive and I want to go with Mr. Merrit to look for Jack,"she begged. "Yes, I know it is awfully selfish of us to leave you, butwe are perfectly worn out with waiting. Besides, Jack don't know Mr.Merrit and he will never be able to persuade her to return with him."

  Ralph laughed. "Frieda, won't you give me the blue ribbon on your hairto prove to your sister I have been a guest of the caravan party?" heasked. "Though, of course, I don't believe she would be so obstinate."

  Frieda solemnly unwound the band of ribbon which she used to keep herhair out of her eyes, and Ralph tied it in his buttonhole, where theends floated out like blue pennants; but understanding their impatience,Ruth let Olive and Jean go to assist in the search for Jack.

  It was now broad daylight; the birds were singing and the sun shiningwith the peculiar brilliancy that follows a rain-washed night. Ruth putFrieda to bed, as the little girl was exhausted; then she persuadedCarlos to lie down on her own cot. The boy had said nothing, only henever let go the gray ball of fur which he had brought home from thewoods, but kept it pressed close to him. Ruth had no idea what animalCarlos had found, though it had a sharp, pointed nose, restless eyes,and every now and then tore at something with its baby teeth. Hiddennear an old tree in the woods back of the gold mine, Carlos had runacross a baby wolf cub, and having a curious fellowship with animals,had brought it back with him, hoping he might be allowed to raise it asa dog.

  The ranch girls knew of Carlos' strange communion with birds and beasts.They would come at his call and eat out of his brown hand, but it didnot seem remarkable to them, as the boy had lived always in the open andwas only a half-tamed creature himself.

  Ruth left the children alone in the tent. Fifteen minutes later shereturned and Carlos had again disappeared. This time she made up hermind that the Indian boy must be sent back to his own people, since theycould do nothing to stop his disobedience. But Olive had been trying toteach the little fellow to read and write, and in straightening up herbed Ruth found a piece of torn yellow paper. On it Carlos had written inquaint, scrawling letters: "I Go Girl Never Afrid. Find Not, Come BackNot."

  Ruth put the letter away; her heart once more softened toward the lad,hoping for his sake that he might be the one to bring Jack to them.

  But no one need have been troubled about Jack on this wonderful summermorning. Quite comfortably she awoke in her nest of branches to abewildering chorus of song, a little stiff, of course; hungry andthirsty. But climbing out on the ground, she ran for half a mile untilthe soreness was out of her muscles and the surging blood warmed herheart and cheeks. Jack took off her sweater, carrying it under her arm,the wind blew back her hair, which had the colors of the sun in it, herlips were open and full and a deep crimson. If ever any of the old-timepagan goddesses that one reads of in mythology sheds her influence overthe modern girl, Jack had drawn some of her spirit from Diana. Shelooked as you might imagine Diana to have looked after she had spent thenight hunting with her maidens in some lonely forest--fresh, brilliantand gay.

  When Jack stopped to rest from her run she saw, near the rocky gorgesand in many of the waste places, red cacti blooming against the graybuttes, like splashes of flame. Gathering a little she stuck it in herbelt, but Jack hoped to discover a cactus plant of a different kind. Herfather and Jim had taught her all they knew of the plants and flowersthat grow in the American desert, for they wished her to be prepared forjust such an emergency as had now befallen her. At first Jack kept closeto the path at the side of the gorge, retracing the steps she hadwrongly taken the night before. When she came beyond the thicket throughwhich the cougar had followed her, a stretch of arid country spreadaway to her right on this side the gorge. Standing in the desert withnothing about it but sand and sage brush, Jack spied the cactus shesought. It rose like a tree, with thick, bunchy leaves at its base, anddozens of clusters of small mustard-colored flowers on separate branchessticking out from its summit like the ribs of an umbrella.

  The American aloe has been the salvation of many a traveler in thedesert country of the West. Hurrying to it, Jack cut away some of thethick leaves and then settling herself comfortably in the sand shesucked the sap from the leaves until her throat was no longer parchedand her hunger and thirst were both appeased.

  She was resting, trying to make up her mind to go back to the ravine,where Jim would surely find her, when she heard a well-known whistle. Itwas not like the note of a bird, and yet it did not seem to come from ahuman throat, yet Jack recognized it at once. It was the odd soundCarlos made when calling to the birds in the woods or fields. The callhad traveled a great distance in the clear morning air.

  Jack clapped her hands loudly. "I am coming, Carlos, I am coming," shecried; "wait for me." Then she ran back toward the edge of the cliff.She would have liked to cry out with pleasure when she first saw Carlos,but instead kept quite still.

  The lad had made himself a whistle from a stalk of wild grass that grewlike a reed. He was wandering along searching everywhere for Jack, yetbeguiling his way with wonderful woodland noises which he made throughhis whistle. A robin sat perched on his black hair, several other birdsfluttered over his head, afraid to alight and yet unwilling to leavehim. If Jack had suggested the huntress Diana, Carlos looked like afollower of Pan. Surely in mythological days just such red-brown boyshad accompanied the old wood god, making the weird and eerie music thatcaused a smile to hover ever on his wild face.

  The caravan party, except Jim and the truants, were eating luncheon whenJack and Carlos burst in upon them. Jack flew to Ruth, flinging her armsabout her an
d giving her a breathless hug. "It was all my fault, asusual," she explained, "but there is nothing the matter with me except abruise on my forehead and an empty feeling in another place." Jackstopped, suddenly discovering the presence of the stranger, RalphMerrit.

  Hugging Jack with one arm, Ruth respectfully shook hands with Carloswith the other. The small lad tried not to show emotion, but a light oftriumph shone in his eyes. He and not the "Big White Chief" had found"The Girl Who Was Never Afraid." Now surely he would be forgiven the sinof his failure to keep faith.

  Worn and haggard, Jim returned a few hours later to find hisfellow-travelers engaged in cheerful conversation and seeminglyforgetful of the strain.

  "I hope nothing will happen to me again while we are on this trip," Jackremarked carelessly. "I thought last night in the storm that the gypsywho came to our ranch had surely put her curse on me. You know sheannounced that something would happen to me that would force me todepend on other people, and as I had to depend on Carlos to show me theway home to the caravan, perhaps the spell is past."

  Olive, sitting next Jack, gave a shudder. She had never confessed howmuch she had thought of the woman's evil words to her, but Frieda, whowas playing with the stones Jack had brought back from the gold mine,made a quick turn in the conversation.

  "Jean," she announced indignantly, "you told me you'd give me the goldJim and Jack brought from the mine with them, and now they haven'tbrought any, because Ralph Merrit says these rocks are no better thanother pebbles. I really did think they might find some gold, though Isaid I knew they wouldn't," she ended mournfully.

  Jean laughed. "Same here, baby. I confess I thought maybe they wouldcome home with a grand discovery and we would all be as rich as creamforever afterwards. Did you have any such idea in your head, Jack?"

  Jack blushed. "Not really," she conceded; "but of course as soon as onehears anything about a gold mine, one goes quite crazy. Remember how weused to plan, when we were little girls, to run away and find the 'Potof Gold at the End of the Rainbow' as soon as we grew up?"

  Jean and Frieda nodded, but the entire party was soon busy with theirplans for resuming their trip in the early morning. Jim asked RalphMerrit to go along to the Yellowstone Park with them. The young man hadbeen through the western reserve once before, and since his experiencewith Jack, Jim thought it might be just as well to have another man todivide responsibilities for the remainder of the trip.

  By nine o'clock the next day the caravaners had moved away from thequiet oasis in the desert, their tent had been folded up and the horsesreluctantly driven from the fresh grass. The little place had become buta memory to its dwellers by the wayside.