Now riding with Jacqueline Ralston over their great thousand-acre Wyoming ranch to seek for cattle or horses that had gone astray was apt to be fairly strenuous, and no one unaccustomed to riding should ever have thought of attempting it. Yet Olive had done the same thing dozens of times in the years when she had first came to live at Rainbow Ranch, and on starting out this morning had no idea of growing tired before her friend did.
The first part of their trip was easy enough, for although Jack cantered along fairly rapidly she made no detours, only keeping a careful lookout in all possible directions. For she had no thought of finding the lost mares and their young colts anywhere within the immediate neighborhood of that part of the ranch which was apt to be ridden over oftener than the more distant fields. And Carlos had been asked to make the few necessary excursions whenever a rise in the landscape or a group of trees or rocks made a possible hiding place.
But a short time before midday the three riders came to a distant part of Rainbow Creek, where the character of the ranch land changed and where there were frequent hummocks and sand hills and great boulders split into natural caves and canyons. This part of the creek had no connection with the Rainbow Mine but was sometimes used in an emergency as a drinking place for the stock, although the stock was not supposed to wander here without guidance, as there were many ravines and dangerous places where especially the young cattle or colts were apt to be injured.
Here the riding under Jacqueline's guidance became more difficult and fatiguing. For not only did she leave the ordinary beaten trail, but she made her horse pick his way along what appeared an utterly impossible track over rocks, in the deep loose sand, now following a partly dry creek bed and occasionally splashing through water so deep that it reached almost to her riding boots. For another hour Olive followed, not realizing her own exhaustion, but wondering why her breath should be coming in such short gasps and why her back should ache in such an unaccountable fashion.
Curiously enough it was Carlos who first discovered Olive's predicament. For the past ten minutes he had been riding as close by her side as was possible under the conditions, not speaking a single word, but examining her closely with his small, burning black eyes. And when Olive, without being conscious of it, turned a shade whiter, even then he did not speak to her but instead rode silently forward until he was opposite Jack.
"All women have not the strength of men!" he began sullenly. The girl stared at him in amazement, not guessing what he meant.
Then Carlos grew angry and his words came faster than usual. "If you think more of lost animals than of her whom you call friend, it is well that you should go on until she falls. Have I not often heard and now see with my own eyes that there are squaws who care nothing for their own sex."
Half rising in her saddle Jacqueline Ralston lifted her riding whip, and almost before realizing what she was doing she had struck the Indian boy sharply across his lean shoulders.
"You are not to speak of American women as squaws, Carlos. How often have Mr. Colter and I told you that you were never to do it? And, moreover, you are to understand that I will not endure your impertinence. What has happened to put you in so evil a mood?" Jack asked more quietly now, sorry for her own loss of temper. For she realized in a small measure just how keenly an Indian feels the degradation of a blow from an enemy, unless he is able to return it with increased vengeance. And Jack had no illusion about Carlos' attitude toward her. He had turned a kind of ashy white under his bronze skin and his body had quivered once and then become perfectly tense, not from the force of the blow, which had not cut deeply, but from his own passion.
However, before either the boy or Jack could speak again, Olive had ridden up between them, grieved and frightened over her friend's action and wondering what could have occurred between them in so short a time.