"But I never agreed to allow you to run the ranch into debt, Jack, and that is what would happen if you have to pay for feed for a thousand new head of cattle this winter."
In silence the man and girl continued to walk up and down the porch of the Rainbow lodge.
"Want me to give up trying to manage the ranch, Jim? Now you are better, I suppose I am only a nuisance."
"I want you to keep on if the work interests you and if you are willing to listen to my advice now and then. You have some ideas for running things that are considerably better than mine, but I have had a good deal longer experience."
"All right, Jim, I am sorry," and Jack slipped her hand through her companion's arm. "Good gracious, what a hard-headed person I am and always have been, Jim Colter. I wonder if that is why life seems to find it necessary to give me so many knocks?"
"Has it given you more than most people, Jack? Are you more disappointed over that wretched election than you have been willing to confess? If you like, go ahead and buy your cattle then. I only don't want you to lose money, because the ranch belongs to you girls and I suppose I always shall feel more or less responsible. If it were mine——"
"I have no desire to lose the family money," said Jack, "and I am properly penitent. I even no longer desire one thousand new cattle purchased for the Rainbow ranch."
"But what do you desire then, Jacqueline Kent? Suppose just for an experiment you tell me your greatest desire. We were speaking on the subject at dinner to-night. Jean of course felt that she had received hers in Ralph's return. Frieda announced that she was in a fair way to be fully satisfied now Peace was growing strong and well and Professor Russell had succeeded in his latest scientific experiment, and also I am obliged to state that Frieda added the negative fact that she was particularly pleased that you had failed in your recent political enterprise."
Jack laughed. "How exactly like Frieda! It is the things she has that she is grateful for and the mistakes I am not permitted to make because of her excellent advice. But don't worry over me, Jim, at present my greatest desire is to walk up and down the lodge porch with you and see the sky and the prairie beneath the stars and feel the damp sweetness of the wind with the little eddies of snow. What is your heart's desire, Jim Colter?"
"To be always with you, Jack, I suppose," Jim Colter answered as unexpectedly to himself as to the girl beside him. His voice did not hold the light raillery of hers. "Queer ambition, isn't it, for a man old enough to be your father, who has been your father after a poor fashion! I don't know, Jack, I have not meant to tell you this, but I always have told you pretty much everything that was in my mind, and after I say this I want you to forget it. I care for you differently from the old days, Jack. Of course I appreciate the differences between us more than any living human being can appreciate them, the distance from the earth to the stars is small in comparison. And I want you to care for me always, Jack, in the old friendly, daughterly fashion."