The Ranch Girls and Their Heart's Desire

by Margaret Vandercook

The marriage between Jean Bruce, the cousin of Frieda and Jacqueline Ralston and one of the four original Ranch girls, and Ralph Merritt, the young engineer of the Rainbow mine, had only taken place after a long and frequently interrupted friendship, since between them there were many differences of opinion, of taste and of ideals.

Frankly as a young girl Jean always had cared greatly for wealth, for social position and for fashionable people, a viewpoint which had not altered with the years, as Jean freely announced.

True that her husband had made a reputation for himself as an expert mining engineer and at different times in a small way had shared in the profits of the enterprises which his skill and ability had made valuable to the owners. Yet never at any time had Ralph Merritt acquired a large fortune for himself and his family. Notwithstanding his many fine traits of character he suffered from one weakness. In his effort to gratify and please his wife now and then he had speculated with Jean's private fortune and with his own, and although never confessing the fact, his speculations more often than not had been unsuccessful.

In returning to the old Rainbow ranch to spend a few months, Jean and Ralph had been glad to say that the opportunity to be reunited for a short time with their old friends and former associations was not to be resisted. However, there was another motive, if they preferred not to speak of it. At the time of Jacqueline Kent's homecoming from England to the ranch after the death of her husband, Jean and Ralph were passing through a period of financial stress so that the visit to the big house with their two little girls would be a relief as well as a pleasure. There was a chance ahead, in which Ralph Merritt thoroughly believed, sure to put him on his feet again. Like most other patriotic Americans, at the outbreak of the war in Europe he had volunteered for service overseas and been captain in a mining corps in France. Returning home, if he were rich in experience, he was poor in worldly goods. There was nothing unusual in this, but unfortunately Jean and Ralph were not willing to begin over again by living simply and economically until Ralph could make new business connections. And the fault was actually more Jean's than her husband's, although she was not aware of the fact. Nevertheless, among the four Ranch girls, Jean, who loved money more than any one of them, was the only one without it. Naturally the war and the high taxes it entailed had decreased the value of the English estate which Jacqueline Ralston Kent had inherited from her husband, yet the estate was still large enough for Jack and her son to be entirely comfortable apart from her own private fortune, due to her share of the output of the Rainbow mine, which had been wisely and conservatively invested. Moreover, Jack's own tastes were simple and she wished to bring up her son in a simple fashion.

Captain MacDonnell possessed only a small estate of his own, but Olive had inherited wealth from the grandmother who had appeared so mysteriously in her life during the year spent by "The Ranch Girls at Boarding School." Moreover, Captain MacDonnell and Olive apparently cared only for each other, for Captain MacDonnell's art, and the effort to forget his injury in the war in his new work and life. The truth was that a large part of her fortune Olive had devoted to the establishment and upkeep of an Indian school not far from the neighborhood of the Rainbow ranch. She and her husband preferred to live out of doors in a tent in the western country whenever the weather made it possible, partly because of Captain MacDonnell's health and also that he might constantly study the western types and scenes which he was painting to the exclusion of all other subjects.

Frieda and her husband, Professor Henry Tilford Russell, were not rich; in fact, Professor Russell, having resigned his professorship at the University of Chicago, was at present making no income. Yet his parents were wealthy and adored Frieda and her little girl, and moreover, Professor Russell was at this time engaging in scientific experiments which might bring him fame and fortune or else achieve no result of importance. An expert chemist who had made several valuable discoveries during the war, Professor Russell believed that he had earned a year's holiday at the ranch and the opportunity to indulge in one or two of his private hobbies. So Jim Colter had offered him one of his small unused ranch houses in a comparatively isolated spot where the Professor could conduct his experiments with danger only to himself.

Frieda worried over this possibility, but in the main allowed her Professor husband to have his way, having found out that without his work he was restless and miserable. There was a new Frieda in her relation to her husband following their disagreement and reconciliation told in "The Ranch Girls and Their Great Adventure," and the birth of their little girl. Now Frieda seemed to care only for her husband and child, and had become an almost too punctilious married woman and housekeeper in that she wished everyone else to conform to her ideas.

Money problems therefore did not at this time trouble Frieda, whose interest was concentrated in her little girl's health and in her husband's success, not for any possible wealth it might bring them, but that he might enjoy the honors Frieda felt so sure he deserved. In the meantime she had her own income and knew that at any moment Henry's mother and father were more than anxious to supply any of their wishes or needs.

So it was a little cruel that Jean, who cared so much for money, was the only one of the Ranch girls to endure not alone the pinch of a present poverty but a painful uncertainty with regard to the future. In fact, during the weeks of the reunion of the Rainbow Ranch Girls, Jean Merritt had been under a good deal more of a strain than the others dreamed, for, except for her few general remarks to Olive and Frieda, she had made no mention of her anxieties.

Ralph Merritt had accompanied his wife and little girls to the ranch and remained with them a few days. Afterwards he had gone away, announcing that he had important business which must be looked into, but that he might come back at any time. There was nothing exceptional in this, as Ralph's interests had always required that he move about from place to place, seeing a number of men who oftentimes wished him to look at a mine before agreeing to undertake the engineering work in connection with it. At present among the interests that called Ralph away was the discovery of a gold mine concerning which his advice was desired.