The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge

by Margaret Vandercook

  CHAPTER III.

  FRIEDA AND THE OTHER GIRL.

  THE apparition drew near enough for Frieda to see that it was a strangerwith straight black hair. She was barefoot and wore a short, raggedskirt, a bright red jacket, and a red scarf twisted around her throat.In her startled glance at the girl, Frieda beheld a pair of immenseblack eyes, set in a thin, pointed face, with cheeks flushed crimson,perhaps from the swiftness of her flight. Her breath came in shortgasps. Frieda thought of a fawn she had once seen pursued by somehunters, with its great soft eyes transformed into staring pools ofterror and its soft sides quivering as though its heart were breaking inits final effort to evade its pursuers.

  "Oh, what is it?" Frieda cried, with quick sympathy.

  The girl looked at her hopelessly and ran on. But Frieda now understood.An old Indian woman armed with a stick, trotted out of the screen of thetrees. She was running more slowly but her face was terrifying. Hersmall black eyes were red with anger and she waved a long arm at thegirl.

  FRIEDA FLUNG HERSELF VALIANTLY IN THE PATH OF THE INDIANWOMAN.]

  Frieda wanted to help, but what could she do? "Jean! Jack!" she calledagain. She could see that the hunted girl had no chance of escaping. Shewas nearly dropping with exhaustion. There was no place for her to hide,for the plain stretched on, covered only with grass and low sage brush.

  Frieda flung herself valiantly in the path of the Indian woman. She wasused to the Indians. Ever since she could remember she had been makingtrips to their villages, and a number of half-breed Indian boys hadworked on their ranch. But the girl had never seen one of them sofuriously angry as this old squaw. She was frightened and at the sametime wanted to laugh. The woman was so fat and in such a temper, "thatshe shook when she ran, like a bowlful of jelly," Frieda thought toherself.

  The squaw did not lift her beady, black eyes until she was within a fewfeet of Frieda.

  "Ugh," she grunted. "Git out."

  She tried to push Frieda away with her stick, but Frieda stretchedout both arms and danced up and down in front of the old woman, untilshe did not know which way to turn.

  Old Laska had not run all this distance and gotten out of breath to bestopped by a pale-face chit of a child. She struck Frieda with herstaff. Frieda gave a sudden, sharp cry and looked quickly around. Shesaw that the Indian girl had fallen only a short distance beyond themand was vainly struggling to get on her feet again. Frieda shut hereyes; in another moment she knew that she would hear cruel blows beingrained down on the defenseless girl by the furious old woman.

  At this moment, a golden brown head, wearing a soft, round Mexican hat,appeared above an opening in the gorge. "Frieda, what's the matter?Didn't we hear you call?" Jack's voice rang out unexpectedly. She jumpedlightly from the rocks to the ground and ran toward her sister, guessingat once that the Indian woman had frightened Frieda.

  "Stop," Jack ordered imperiously.

  The woman hesitated. Something in Jack's commanding tone impressed herand at the same instant Jean crawled slowly into sight above theravine, swinging a string of trout over her shoulder.

  The Giant's Canyon seemed suddenly alive with girls.

  Jean gazed at the scene in bewilderment. Jack's hands were claspedbehind her and her head was thrown back in a fashion she had when shewas angry. Frieda was in tears and between the two sisters stood a fatsquaw.

  Jack and Jean looked so ready to do battle at a moment's notice, thatthe Indian's manner changed.

  "I want not to hurt the little Missie," she mumbled. "I try to catch myown girl. She run away from her good home. She ver' bad." The oldwoman's head with its straight black hair, plaited in small braids,bobbed fiercely up and down and she shook her stick threateningly aheadof her.

  During the whole scene Jack and Jean had had their backs turned to thehunted girl. Jack was blocking the way of the Indian woman. Only Friedahad been able to see and through her tears she had discovered that thegirl, who had been lying helpless on the level ground only a few secondsbefore, had now vanished completely.

  Frieda smiled at Jack's and Jean's puzzled expressions. "Indian girl!What did the old woman mean?" The two girls looked about. There was noone in sight. Evidently the squaw had not intended to hurt Frieda andJack and Jean were anxious to get rid of her. The next instant theIndian waddled on, though she, too, had lost sight of the fragile figureshe was pursuing.

  Frieda walked over to the fire and stirred it into a blaze without aword. She winked mysteriously at Jean and Jack, but neither of them hadthe faintest idea of what she meant.

  "Let's fry the fish, before we go down into the cave," Frieda whispered."I don't want the Indian to come along this way and find out where itis."

  Jean and Jack knew that Frieda wished to keep her playhouse a secretfrom all the world, so they thought nothing of her odd manner.

  Frieda was bending over the glowing ashes, humming softly, with hercheeks rosy and her two long blonde plaits fairly trembling withexcitement when she noticed the Indian woman coming back toward them.She was alone. Evidently she had gone on for half a mile or more beforeshe decided it was useless to hunt any longer.

  Frieda never looked up. The woman sidled up to Jean and Jack with awheedling expression on her broad, stupid face.

  Jack and Jean paid no attention to her. They were making a pile of shinyfish scales into a silver hill at their feet, as it was their part toclean the trout, while Frieda did the cooking.

  The Indian eyed the two girls doubtfully. She firmly believed that oneof them had helped the truant to escape, yet they had not stirred frombefore her eyes, in the time when the runaway girl threw her off thescent.

  "You know where my girl is, you hide her from me," the woman saidaccusingly.

  Jean glanced at her in a bored fashion. "Will you please go away?" shedemanded. "We are busy. We do not want to talk to you. I told you thatwe had never seen any Indian girl."

  Frieda did not move, but her rosy cheeks burned a deeper red from theheat of the flames.

  The squaw waddled slowly out of sight. What did it matter if she hadnot caught Olilie? The girl would soon have to return to the hut. Shecould not live long alone out on the plains and when she came back sheshould be taught her place. Olilie was only a squaw in spite of thenonsense she had learned at the white people's school. She should do thework and be the slave of the man chief, like all Indian girls had fromthe beginning.

  "Jean, Jack," Frieda hissed softly. She came over toward her cousin andsister with the fish still sizzling and popping in her frying pan.

  "Oh, do be careful, Frieda," Jean begged. Some of the hot fat sputteredout of the pan into Jean's lap and she slid backwards off the rock whereshe was seated.

  But Jack saw that something unusual was the matter with Frieda.

  "What in the world has happened to you, child? Your eyes are as big assaucers!" she exclaimed.

  Frieda set down her pan and though the Indian woman was now well out ofsight, she whispered a few words that made both girls jump to theirfeet.

  "Then there was an Indian girl all the time?" Jean murmured.

  Frieda nodded. "We must find her," she argued quietly. "She slipped overthe side of the gorge not far from here, when no one was looking at herexcept me. She can't be very far away for she was too tired to have gonemuch further."

  "All right, Frieda," Jack agreed. "We will look for the Indian princessas soon as we have had our lunch. We must eat the fish first, it is sobrown and delicious. Really we will have more strength to search if wehave some food," Jack pleaded, seeing Frieda's injured expression.

  "She will get away, Jack," Frieda answered. "Then she may be lost on theplains and starve and nobody will ever find her. She was so pretty andso frightened that I am sure you would have been interested if you hadonly seen her."

  Jack heaved a deep sigh. "Come along, Jean," she insisted. "Frieda wantsus to look for the will-o-the-wisp, so look we must."

  Frieda was not tempestuous like Jack and Jean, but, just the same, likea grea
t many other gentle people, she always had her way. "LittleChinook," Jim used to call her, because "Chinook" is the Indian name fora soft, west wind, that blows so quietly, so persistently, that itcarries everything before it. It even wafts all one's troubles away.

  Jack, Jean and Frieda crawled down into the great canyon, among the giantrocks, poking their noses into every opening, where they thought itpossible that anybody could be concealed. There was no sign of any one,though Frieda called and called, assuring the runaway that the Indianwoman had gone back home.

  "I am afraid she must have fallen and gotten hurt somehow, Jack," Friedasuggested, when the three girls had explored for half an hour.

  Jean turned resolutely upon the two sisters. "I am very sorry, FriedaRalston," she announced firmly, "but I decline to look for that tiresomegirl another minute. I will be fed. I don't see for the life of me, whyyou are so worried over the fate of an unknown Indian maiden, when yourown devoted cousin is perishing before your eyes."

  Frieda's cave was soon spread with the luncheon dishes and the girls satdown Turkish fashion, with their long-delayed feast in front of them.

  Frieda's face was half buried in a ham sandwich when Jean gave a suddenexclamation of surprise. "Look, girls, there must have been anearthquake or something around here. There is a hole in the rocks backof Frieda's cave, nearly as large as this one. Funny we never noticed itthis morning!"

  "Oh, I forgot to tell you," Frieda remarked indifferently. "I wasbanging away there, trying to make my pantry larger, when a huge stonefell out and rolled into the gorge. Lo and behold, there was anothercavern! I found some queer Indian relics in it. Come see."

  Frieda led the way over to the new pit and dropped down on her knees infront of it, with Jack and Jean on either side of her. "I was afraid togo inside until you came," she said, "but it is quite empty,--look!"

  Frieda's breath gave out. She stared and stared, clutching at her cousinand her sister. The three girls were spellbound!

  Gazing at them from out the black darkness, was what Frieda had fearedat the first moment of her discovery of the mysterious cavity, a pair ofburning, glowing eyes. They might belong to some wild animal, thoughthey were not fierce, only timid and pleading.

  The ranch girls were not cowards, but not one of them wished to enterthe obscurity of that strange hiding place.

  The figure stirred. The girls were now more used to the darkness.

  "Why it's the Indian girl!" Frieda cried. "Do come out, please. We won'thurt you and the Indian woman has been gone a long time."

  But the girl seemed to be afraid to move. Frieda crawled fearlessly intothe hole and gave her little, white hand into the girl's thin, dark one.

  As the Indian maid came out into the bright, invigorating air, she triedto stand up, but she swayed in the wind, like a scarlet poppy that istrying to oppose its frail strength to the blast of a storm.

  Before Jack and Jean could get to her and in spite of Frieda's efforts,the girl took a step forward, staggered and fell at their feet.

  As they picked her up, they discovered that she was flushed with fever.But while Jean washed her face with cool water and Jack held her in herarms, she opened her mournful black eyes. "I am sorry to have troubledyou," she said, without a trace of an Indian accent. "I have run awayand I am tired. If you will please give me some water and let me stayhere for a few minutes I am sure I will be all right."

  But she was not all right, even though the ranch girls persuaded her toeat something, as well as to drink a cup of hot tea. She did not seem tobe able to move, but sat perfectly still with her lovely dark headresting between her slender hands. She did not try to explain to themwhy she had run away from home or when she expected to return.

  Jack glanced anxiously upward. They had solemnly promised Jim to be backat the ranch house before dark and the ranch girls could tell the timeof day from the position of the sun in the sky. This was one of thethings they knew instead of French or drawing. Unless they left thecanyon pretty soon, Jack knew they would never get home in time; yet whatcould they do with Frieda's Indian girl? They could not leave her in thegorge alone, and yet she did not seem to have the strength or the desireto go.

  Jack once had seen a copy of a wonderful picture of Ishmael in thedesert, whom Abraham had cast out with his mother, Hagar. Hagar had goneto find some fuel and the child is alone. Around him is a great, greyplain, with nothing else alive on it. There was something in this Indiangirl's position, her fragile grace, and dreadful loneliness, thatrecalled this picture to Jacqueline Ralston's mind. She put her armgently over the other girl's shoulder.

  The Indian maid looked up. Perhaps it was the difference in herappearance and in Jacqueline's that made her eyes fill with tears.Jack's proud, high-bred face was softened to pity. Her grey eyes weretender and the usual proud curve to her lips was changed to anexpression that she seldom showed to any one but Frieda or Jean sinceher father's death.

  "We must go back to our home now," Jack explained kindly, "but we can'tleave you here alone. Tell us why you ran away? Don't you think youcould return; or is there anything we could do for you?"

  The girl shook her head. She was as tall as Jean, but so thin that shemight be only an overgrown child. She seemed very young to Jacqueline;almost as young as Frieda and as much in need of some one to take careof her.

  The three ranch girls were gazing intently at the stranger.

  She flung her hands up over her face again. "I can't go back, I can't,"she insisted. "You are to go away. I am not afraid. Only let me stay inthis ravine, until I can find some place that is further away, where noone can find me. I shall not be hungry, I can hunt and fish. Only to-dayI am tired." She shook, as though she were having a chill.

  Jacqueline dropped down on the ground by her side. Frieda and Jean weretrying not to cry.

  "You poor little thing, you know we can't leave you here," Jackdeclared. "Won't you? Can't you?" Jack looked appealingly at Jean andFrieda. She was the oldest of the ranch girls, but she never decidedanything without their advice. Both of them nodded. "Don't you think youcould come home to the ranch with us, until you feel better and can tellus what troubles you? You are ill now and worn out. Why you might evendie if you stayed here alone."

  Jack did not wait for an answer. She almost lifted the Indian girl toher feet and brought her out of Frieda's cave. She helped her upon herown pony, and getting up behind Frieda, she led Hotspur and his newrider to the beloved Rainbow Ranch house, whose doors opened to admitnot three girls, but four.