The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold Part 16

By this time Olive and Donald had gone on ahead. Ruth and Jim, with Carlos between them, had turned toward the hotel, the strangers had departed, and Mr. Drummond and Frieda were waiting, not too patiently, a little distance off.

Mrs. Harmon took her daughter's other arm and the three women started onward, but it was soon plain, even to Elizabeth, that she could not go on. With a petulant sigh she dropped on the ground. "Go and leave me, please, everybody," she insisted. "I sha'n't mind waiting alone, and I don't care for any breakfast."

Mrs. Harmon signaled to Jack. "Run along, dear, and ask Don to hurry,"

she murmured quietly, but Elizabeth reached up and caught hold of Jack's skirt. "If anybody's to stay with me, let it be you, Jack," she pleaded.

"I have something I want so much to say to you alone. It's most important, and you'll be awfully sorry if you don't listen."

"What can you have to say to Miss Ralston, Elizabeth?" Mrs. Harmon inquired nervously.

"Oh, it is a secret between father and me," Beth returned mysteriously.

"He wants me to ask Jack something and not to let anyone else know just yet. I had a long telegram from him last night, and now is a good time to ask it."

Reluctantly Jacqueline sat down near Beth, for she did not wish to hear a secret at this hour of the morning, and she did feel faint and hungry for her breakfast. Mrs. Harmon moved off, taking Mr. Drummond and Frieda along with her. The Honorable Peter did not look any too pleased at what he considered the sacrifice of Jack.

As soon as they were out of hearing, Beth flung her arms about her friend. "I am so sorry I said that about you and Mr. Drummond, Jack, dear," she apologized. "I didn't mean a thing by it, and mother says it may be very useful to you ranch girls some day to have such a friend as Mr. Drummond; he may be able to do a lot for you."

"All right, Beth," Jack answered, not as affectionately as usual. "But don't talk about Mr. Drummond's being _useful_ to us. I should hate to have a friend for any such horrid reason."

Beth's delicate arm clung to Jack with such pathetic appeal that she was soon softened. "What was it you wanted to tell me?" she asked a second later.

"I want you to do the most wonderful and beautiful thing for me, Jack,"

Elizabeth answered pa.s.sionately, "and what you do will prove whether you are a friend of mine and want me near you, or whether you have been deceiving me all this time. You know you promised me you would do anything I wished on this trip, if I would walk more and try not to be cross, and I have tried to do as you said. Promise me, promise me, you will grant my request, won't you? It will make me so happy!" Elizabeth's cheeks burned with the strength of her desire.

"What in the world are you talking about?" Jack queried, feeling her heart beat uncomfortably.

"Well, father wishes me to persuade you to sell him part of your ranch,"

Elizabeth explained eagerly. "You see I wrote him that I never had a real girl friend in my life until now, but I believed you cared for me.

He says if you do, you will let him have some of your land, so that he can build a little house for me. He wants just a special part of the ranch; I don't understand just what part, but I know it would not make any difference to you, for it is somewhere in the neighborhood of your creek. Then father wrote that if you would do this for me, I could invite you to visit me in New York next winter and he would pay all your expenses. Oh, wouldn't it be too heavenly!" Elizabeth had taken her arms from about Jack's neck and was clasping her hands together until the veins showed through her white skin. But Jack was as white as her companion, for she knew how difficult it would be to refuse Elizabeth's request and not bitterly wound her feelings, yet the answer must be made.

"I am so sorry, dear," Jack replied, "but I can't sell your father any part of our ranch. The ranch does not belong to me alone and, as I am not of age, Jim Colter is our guardian; and he would never consent to our giving up a part of our place. Don't you see, we need it all to raise our cattle, and the creek is particularly valuable. I can't understand why your father is so anxious to buy the Rainbow Ranch. He has written to Jim and made him an offer for the whole place, yet he can buy other land near us without any trouble, for Wyoming is rich in land." Jack was talking as fast as possible, trying not to see the storm of tears pouring down Elizabeth's cheeks.

"Then you positively _won't_ sell the land, Jack?" Elizabeth interrupted. "I might have known you didn't really care for me and wouldn't wish me to live near you for even a part of the year," she protested bitterly. "And please don't preach anymore, for I can see very plainly now that you are not the kind of a girl who can be relied on to keep her word. I would rather you would not stay here with me. I can manage in some way to get down the hill. I certainly shall not let you touch me."

The two girls were seated near the edge of a rocky embankment which dropped down into terraced ledges of stone twenty, then thirty, then forty feet below. On the other side, toward the right, the hill sloped far more gradually and a road had been cut leading to the hotel.

Elizabeth was so angry that she got on her feet before Jack fully realized what she was doing. Then, as Jack made a detaining clutch at her, she lurched away toward the left near the jagged precipice. All about the neighborhood of the Falls, where the ground was uncertain, signs were set up bearing the word "dangerous." Jack saw in a moment of horror that Elizabeth was tottering toward one of these places. Whether she screamed or not she did not know. But Elizabeth was crying and could not see the sign, and if she heard, she was not strong enough to stop her course instantly. As Jack ran toward her the loose earth crumbled beneath Elizabeth's feet and she slid half over the precipice. But since self-preservation is strong in all of us, she caught with desperate hands at some low shrubs above her head and hung with only half her body over the cliff. "Jack!" she called just once, and was silent, putting all her strength in her clinging hands.

It is said that the drowning have a vision of all that has happened in their past, as the water closes over them for the last time, but Jacqueline Ralston had a vision of all the peril ahead of her as she saw her friend's danger, and realized what she must do to try to save her.

Also she knew in this moment that this was her supreme chance to prove she would do anything in her power for a friend.

Jack understood that she could not walk out on the ledge of loose earth, which had already failed to support Elizabeth's light weight, and so pull the girl back to safety. By some method she must reach up to her from below. Down on her hands and knees, testing cautiously every foot of the way, Jack crawled on until she found a side of the cliff that she was able to climb down. Then, almost like a cat, she crept along, her feet on incredibly small protuberances in the rocks and her hands clutching at anything she could find for support. Finally she reached a small platform in the rocks not more than a foot square, but directly below Elizabeth and within reach of her.

"Be quiet, Beth, and as I push, pull upward with all your might," was all she trusted herself to say, and Elizabeth was beyond answering.

Now Jacqueline Ralston was to prove how a lifetime spent out of doors may give one a cool head, a gallant courage and muscles of steel. Taking firm hold of Elizabeth just below the girl's knees, she pushed her up, up, inch by inch; Elizabeth stretching out one hand at a time to grasp the shrubs growing in the more solid ground. At last, with Jack's strong hands below her feet and one more shove, Elizabeth dragged herself out of danger and lay half fainting on the solid earth.

Then came Jack's peril. All this time while every thought and effort were directed toward her friend's rescue, she had not looked down at the wicked precipice beneath the narrow ledge of rock where she held her footing. But the instant she let go of Elizabeth's body and lost the slight support it had given her, she also lost the steadying influence that she must fight to save another weaker than herself, and glanced downward. Then whether she grew dizzy and lost her balance or whether she slipped back in an effort to climb, it was impossible to know, but backward she fell past a straight cliff, landing in a crumpled ma.s.s on a ledge of the rainbow colored stones twenty feet below. There was no movement and no sound, not even a noise when her body struck.

"Jack!" Elizabeth called faintly a moment later, "Jack!" But no one answered, and the silence was more awful than any sound. Only a great golden eagle swooped over the open gorge as though trying to fathom the tragedy beneath.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SUSPENSE AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS

Peter Drummond, returning for the two girls with Donald, found Jack.

Elizabeth, who had not dared stir, could only point dumbly to the overhanging abyss, without voice to express her terror.

Donald got his sister back to their hotel, and upstairs in the room with her mother, without any member of the caravan party knowing of their return.

In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time men came with rope ladders to where Peter watched and waited, and one of them brought Jack's body up, putting it gently down on the gra.s.s. Some one else explained that a famous doctor who was a guest at the hotel would be with them in a few minutes.

So Mr. Drummond, alone of all her friends, knelt with the strange men trying to find a spark of life in the unconscious form and still, cold face of the girl who had been the embodiment of grace and vitality less than a half hour before.

Jim, Ruth, the three other girls and Carlos were having their breakfast in the dining room, when the head waiter came and told Jim that Mr.

Drummond wished to speak to him for a moment alone on business.

No one was in the least uneasy about Jack's failure to return. As it was natural to suppose it would take some time to see Elizabeth escorted home in safety, they had decided not to wait for her. Besides, no one ever thought that anything could happen to Jack; she seemed one of the persons in the world best fitted to care for herself and to help look after other people. Here was the old story once more repeating itself: when the beloved one was in grave danger, as Jack was during the night of her enforced stay in the wilderness, on the trip to Miner's Folly, she had turned up serene and unhurt; now when trouble was the farthest thing from their imagination, she was being brought back to them and no one knew whether she were alive or dead.

One sight of Peter's haggard face told Jim that something had happened, but he supposed Elizabeth Harmon to be the victim. Peter was wise enough not to delay in letting him know the truth. There is no easy way to break bad news, for the shock must always come in the end, so it is best to make the suspense as short as possible. Besides, Mr. Drummond knew that the physician was even now having Jack carried home to the hotel and the little procession might arrive at any moment.

The girls had thought nothing of Jim's disappearance, from the table, but Ruth had not liked the expression on the face of the man who called him away. Suddenly she was seized with a premonition of disaster.

Excusing herself, with the explanation that she wanted something in her room, she slipped out after Jim so quietly that neither he nor Mr.

Drummond saw or heard her approach until Peter's story was told. And then it was not Ruth, but Jim Colter who broke down. The big, strong man staggered, and such a queer sound came from between his white lips that Ruth laid a shaking hand on him and Mr. Drummond caught him by the arm.

"Remember the girls, Jim," Ruth said almost sternly. "This is the time to think of _them_, not of our own feelings. Mr. Drummond, I must go back to them first. Will you see that everything is----"

Ruth could not go on, but Peter understood. He was to see that all necessary arrangements were made to receive the doctor, who was still to find out if there was any chance of restoring Jack to consciousness.

By the time Ruth returned to the dining room the news of the accident had somehow spread among most of the guests at breakfast. Only the ranch girls were entirely unconscious. Jean was teasing Frieda and Olive was laughing at them, when Ruth put her hand on Jean's shoulder. "Come out of the room with me as quickly and quietly as possible," she whispered.

"It's Jack, isn't it?" Olive asked with the calmness that so often comes in the first moment of sorrow, and Ruth silently bowed her head.

For an hour Ruth and the girls waited in their room. Ruth and Olive had asked to see Jack, but were not allowed to stay with her. Now and then Mr. Drummond, or Donald Harmon, or Jim would come in to them for a few moments, but would soon slip out again promising to return when there was news. Jean and Frieda cried in each other's arms until they were blind and sick, but neither Olive nor Ruth shed a tear, so differently do people bear trouble. It seemed that half a lifetime must have pa.s.sed when the door was suddenly flung open and Jim Colter walked into the room and dropped into a chair. The big, weather-beaten man was crying like a child and shaking as though he were in a chill. Frieda ran to him and climbed into his lap, putting her arms about his neck and burying her face on his shoulder. Olive and Jean opened their mouths to speak, but no words came from their dry lips. The hope that had been sustaining them vanished at the sight of Jim's broken appearance. Only Ruth understood.

"Tell us at once, Jim. It isn't fair to make us wait," she said quietly, guessing that his tears were the tears of relief. "She will live?"

Jim nodded. "Jack opened her eyes a minute ago and said, 'h.e.l.lo, Jim,'"

he answered brokenly. "The doctor says she is pretty badly hurt, but she will pull through."

Then Ruth, hardly knowing what she was doing, leaned over and kissed Jim on his forehead under the line of his black hair, and above the level of his deeply blue Irish eyes. Quite unexpectedly she and Olive now began to cry for the first time, while Jean and Frieda and Jim were radiant with relief.

Ten days later the family from the Rainbow Ranch, accompanied by Mr.

Drummond, left the Yellowstone Park for a small town on its borders.

Jack was able to be moved, and they had rented a little furnished house on the outskirts of the near-by village, hoping that the quiet and change of scenery might benefit her. She had broken her leg by her fall over the precipice, but something else more serious appeared to be the matter with her, something that the doctor did not exactly understand.