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The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold
CHAPTER I
THE GYPSY CARAVAN
"A HUNDRED dollars a month – it's a fortune!" Jean Bruce exclaimed gayly, pirouetting about on her tip-toes in front of a huge Japanese umbrella fastened upright in the ground in the middle of the orchard at the Rainbow Ranch.
Jacqueline Ralston gazed half convinced at the sheet of paper she held in her hand. She was sitting in Turkish fashion on the grass just outside the umbrella and, as her Mexican hat had been flung aside, the spring sun shone directly down on the bright bronze of her hair and warmed to a richer rose the brilliant color in her cheeks. The past few months had wrought little change in her, save that the lifting of the clouds from about her home had left her more radiant and full of purpose than ever before.
"I don't know whether it is an opportunity or not," she answered dreamily. "What do you think, dears?" she inquired of a young woman who was watching the steam pour forth from a brass teakettle, and of a quiet, dark-haired girl who sat near by contentedly embroidering a square of linen.
Olive hesitated for a moment, looking toward their chaperon, but Ruth was too busy with the teakettle – which had chosen that moment to boil over – to have time to reply. "I know a hundred dollars a month does sound like a great deal of money," Olive agreed slowly, "but I wonder what the people are like who wish to rent our ranch. And where can we go if we give up our house to them?"
Jack shook her head uncertainly, but Jean flung out both arms in an imploring gesture, and a beseeching expression softened her merry brown eyes. "Where could we go? Why, haven't we the whole round world to choose from?" she demanded pleadingly. "And don't the very breezes call us to follow them in search of adventure? Oh, I can feel the spring Wanderlust in my blood this very minute. Cousin Ruth, Jack, Olive, please agree with me or I can't bear it. Surely you must see that this letter from Mrs. Post's friends, who want Rainbow Lodge for the summer, is just heaven sent. We were dying to take a trip and now we can go everywhere – or just somewhere, I don't care where, because we have never been anywhere in our lives." And Jean paused only because she was out of breath and not because of the laughter that greeted her peculiar form of eloquence.
The three ranch girls and their chaperon, Ruth Drew, were having an impromptu tea party all to themselves in their miniature orchard on a lovely May day. Their fruit trees were not yet large enough for shade. Indeed, at the present time they looked like glorified bouquets set on tall, slender stalks, their branches were so small, so fragrant and so covered with delicate fairylike blossoms. The cherry and plum trees were in full bloom and the pink buds on the apple trees were slowly uncurling, while on every side the level prairie fields were carpeted with new grass that rippled softly under the low winds like the surface of a quiet sea.
"Girls, I don't want to be a wet blanket and I am afraid you will think I am a discouraging person," Ruth interposed, passing around her teacups, "but I don't believe we could do much traveling on a hundred dollars a month. I am awfully sorry, Jean, to disappoint you, but you must remember that railroad journeys are terribly expensive and we would have to board somewhere when we were not on trains."
"All right, Ruth," Jack assented, looking half relieved and half disappointed, as she folded up her letter. "I'll write to Mr. and Mrs. Harmon to-night and refuse their offer for the 'Lodge.'"
Jean sighed as though she had no further joy in living and Ruth shook her head. "No, Jack, don't write your letter quite yet," she advised. "Let's talk things over again before we finally decide. But I do wish Frieda would come with the cookies; it seems so hateful to have tea without her. I can't imagine what has kept her so long."
Tearing across the yard that divided the Lodge from the ranch orchard came a round, chubby girl, with her blond pigtails flying straight out behind her and her cheeks a bright red from excitement. She had a big dish of gingercakes in her hands, but as she ran she scattered them behind her like little "Hop o' My Thumb" did his poor crumbs of bread.
"Oh, do come to the house quick! The most loveliest thing has happened!" she cried fervently. "A band of gypsies was traveling across the plains and they have stopped right at our house, and say that if we will give them some food and water they will tell all our fortunes. There is a man and a girl and an old woman and the cunningest baby!"
Frieda flung her small self on Jean, and without another word the two girls rushed off toward the house, while Ruth and Jack and Olive gathered up the despised tea things and followed them more slowly, munching the long desired cookies.
Drawn up near the back porch at Rainbow Lodge was a rickety old canvas-top wagon pulled by two ancient and sadly dilapidated horses, and seated in state at a table not far away were Frieda's band of gypsies being generously fed by Aunt Ellen.
Ruth and Olive walked toward their unexpected visitors, but Jack in her usual impetuous fashion ran up to the horses and began to take off their harness. "Uncle Zack, please come here at once; these poor horses are nearly dead," she called quickly. "Some one will have to help me. I am afraid I can't look after them both, for they can scarcely stand up." But Uncle Zack, the old colored servant of the ranch house, was not within sound of Jack's voice and the girls were too much interested in the gypsies to heed her.
The old horses had great sagging places under their hips; the muscles beneath their worn coats quivered and jerked with fatigue; their eyes were bloodshot and their breath came in long, quivering sighs.
Jacqueline Ralston was a ranch girl who had been brought up to love horses since she was a tiny baby, and she cared for them so intensely that nothing stirred her like the sight of them ill used. Now, heedless of all else, she softly patted and talked to the two horses, lifting off a part of their ragged harness; then suddenly turning, discovered their gypsy driver calmly eating a comfortable dinner. Jack's eyes flashed and the hot blood surged to her cheeks.
"Come see to your horses," she ordered sharply. "What do you mean by resting and eating while your horses suffer? Even a tenderfoot knows better than to be so stupid and good for nothing. I thought a gypsy had more sense." The young girl turned away her flushed face as she finished speaking, for a lump was rising in her throat, and she had seen the gypsy man get up from the table and start over toward her with his guitar swung jauntily over his shoulder and a supercilious smile on his lips.
"Don't worry about my horses, young lady," he remarked indifferently. "If they were worth anything I would look after them better, but they are worn-out old brutes and won't be fit for use much longer." Without any excuse the man gave the nearer horse a brutal kick that made it stagger with pain, and struck the other with the palm of his hand.
"By the way," he remarked, "I'm not a gypsy, as you suppose, though I happen to be married to one and running this particular outfit."
Jack saw everything spin around for half a second – she was so angry with the man for his cruelty – but she managed to speak with dignity. "If you do another unkind thing to your horses I shall ask our overseer, Jim Colter, to make you leave our ranch," she declared firmly. "Of course I see, now you are nearer, that you are not a gypsy." Jack frowned, puzzled by the tramp's unusual appearance. His hair was light brown, his eyes blue and his features refined and delicate, although his expression was crafty and his mouth weak and selfish. Oddly enough, in spite of his unkempt clothing, it was plain he had been born a gentleman.
Abruptly changing his careless manner the man took off his hat to Jack. "I am sorry to have offended you," he remarked politely. "I ought to know better. Is Jim Colter the overseer of your ranch? I have heard of him often, but in all the years I have spent in this country I have never met him. I came west to locate a gold mine, but instead of my finding one these gypsy women found me starving in the desert and took care of me. So I married the girl and we travel around in their wagon; it's easier than walking. I have been prospecting for gold in this region lately. Would you let me have a look over your ranch before I move on? You may be grazing your cattle above a gold mine this minute – it's what the old man did who once owned Cripple Creek."
The man's eyes glowed with the peculiar fanatical glow of the gold-seeker and Jack felt a thrill of excitement as she watched him, but she shook her head sensibly. And at this moment Jim Colter appeared strolling