We yearned beyond the sky-line, where the strange roads go down."
the other girl repeated with a slight note of self-satisfaction. One so often feels this in remembering what other people have forgotten.
The four girls were daughters of Jim Colter of the Rainbow Ranch. His first wife had died, and he had married Jacqueline Ralston Kent, a former Ranch Girl much younger than himself, and was returning to the ranch with his bride after the honeymoon. The oldest of the girls was about fifteen years of age, the next fourteen, then twelve and eight.
"We have pursued a strange road. We seem to have descended into the heart of the world. Yet we were scarcely stifled at the ranch!" the third girl exclaimed, with a half whimsical, half wistful smile.
"I feel as Lina does, that we should reach home as soon as possible. We left a little after daylight and had we not taken this road down into the canyon would have been there an hour ago. Still it has been a wonderful experience! I did not know there was a canyon in this part of the country that we had not already explored!"
Lina Colter turned.
"Are you tired, Eda? If you wish to ride I can lead both our ponies."
The youngest of the four new Ranch Girls shook her head.
Named in honor of Frieda Ralston, who had been the youngest of another group of Ranch Girls some years before, Frieda Colter—more often called Eda—looked and was as unlike in character to the other Frieda as it was possible to imagine.
Slender and small, she had straight dark hair, deeply tanned skin, with a bright crimson in her cheeks and lips. Her eyes instead of being black, as one might have expected from her other coloring, were a light blue such as one sees in old china.