In advance were the four daughters of Jim Colter, whom he described as the four new Rainbow Ranch girls and whose names were also Jacqueline, Jean, Olive, and Frieda, although called Lina, Jeannette, Olivia, and Eda, to distinguish them from the original "Ranch Girls of the Rainbow Lodge." The three visitors with the maids were following.
An instant Jimmie considered whether it might not be a good idea to allow Jeannette Colter to observe his present elevation. She was the one of the seven girls he most disliked. A few months his elder, she boasted that she could ride and run and climb equally well with the new English boy visitor. She could learn to shoot equally well if her father offered her an equal opportunity.
The truth was that if Jimmie considered he disliked Jeannette, she cordially hated him. Before Jimmie's coming she had been her father's constant companion, riding with him about the ranch as Jacqueline Ralston had done in the years past. But three times of late had her father left her at home with her sisters, saying that he wanted to ride alone with Jimmie in order better to make his acquaintance.
Now Jimmie felt a reasonable pride in the fact that Jeannette would not be able to occupy such a position as his present one without assistance.
"Hello," he called down. The other girls waved and returned his greeting, but Jeannette Colter laughed.
"Up a tree, aren't you, in more ways than one, Jimmie Kent! I am sorry you cannot leave the front yard for a week," which was not kind or truthful in Jeannette, who was especially pleased by Jimmie's captivity since it restored her to her father's uninterrupted companionship.
At the close of the day, having finished his solitary dinner—his mother was dining at the big house—Jimmie came out on the veranda of the lodge and went to bed in the big porch hammock where he often spent the night.
Several hours later, half awakened by the return of his mother and Jim Colter from the family dinner party, but too drowsy to speak, nevertheless Jimmie overheard his mother announce in a tone of relief:
"Well, Jim, thank goodness I have been able to make up my mind at last! Indecision, you know, always has annoyed me more than anything else in the world. So it is to be the Rainbow ranch and my own country for as many years as I can arrange it. And may they be as many years as you need me, Jim."
His friend's reply made Jimmie Kent smile and settle himself more comfortably in his hammock bed. The reply gave one a pleasant sense of permanency.