"Where is Jack, Olive?" Ruth inquired at once, frowning and glancing toward an open window. "It is so hot I am afraid we are going to have a storm and I have been reproaching myself all day for letting you girls start out on such a wild goose chase this morning. Why on earth did Jack not send the men after the stock?"
Jean looked up from her work. "Oh, don't worry about Jack, she has been doing this kind of thing ever since she could walk or ride and she began both at about the same time. I believe Jack did send one of the cowboys off in one direction while she and Olive and Carlos took the other. But you know most of the men have gone with Jim and Frank to a round-up a good many miles off. I wonder if they will be back in time for dinner?"
During this speech the door of the living room had slowly opened and Frieda in a white muslin frock with a big book under her arm had quietly entered. Her cheeks were flushed and her expression so uncommonly serious, that remembering Jack's story of her younger sister's devotion to the Professor, Olive smiled.
However, Frieda's first remark was an odd one.
"I am sorry if you have left Jack and Carlos together, Olive," she began, puckering her white brow. "I don't believe any one in this family realizes how Carlos hates Jack. I think if he could he would like to do her an injury. You see she tries to boss him and he perfectly loathes having any one dare interfere with him. Then Carlos is so lazy and Jack has no use for any one who is lazy, except me. I wish she would come home. If I had not promised Mr. Russell to go on reading to him I should go out and look for her."
Frieda walked over to the front window and the next moment Ruth had joined her. They both stood staring ahead of them hoping for a sight of the familiar brown figure on horseback. For Jack usually rode up to the house with such a splendid rush toward the end that even under ordinary circumstances a vision of her was worth while.
"Don't be tiresome, Baby, and frighten Ruth," Jean expostulated.
Olive said nothing, but slipped out of the room and hall into the garden. It would not be worth while to trouble the others with the story of the difficulty between Jack and Carlos that morning. Nevertheless it was not pleasant to recall the expression on the Indian boy's face during their ride home, nor his long silence. Of course he rarely spoke to other persons, but ordinarily he engaged in long confidences with her, talking of the birds, wild flowers, any outside thing which he saw and loved.
Surely in ten or fifteen minutes more the two wayfarers must return. In the meantime Olive would not go back to join the others as it would not be wise to communicate her own nervousness to them. So for the next quarter of an hour she walked up and down outside the Lodge, making several trips to the stables to see if the stable men had any suggestions to make and to inquire what they thought concerning the possibility of a storm. For there was little use in trying to argue the truth away. The atmospheric conditions were strange and depressing. Unless the wind changed, driving the single black cloud in an opposite direction, something out of the common was sure to occur. If only Frank Kent or Jim Colter or even the cowboys belonging to the ranch were at home, in order that they might go out and look up the wanderers!
Finally Olive sent the two men who took care of the private stables to reconnoiter. Then on her way back to the Lodge she found Jean hurrying in the direction of the Ranch house.