"I want to find Ralph Merrit and ask his advice as soon as possible," Jean explained. "It is so late now he is sure to have quit work at the mine. Ruth is convinced that we are going to have a cyclone and is nearly frantic over Jack and Jim and Frank, all away from home. Yet I hate having Ralph start out alone—he does not understand what the weather out here means so well as the rest of us, even if he has been here a good many years now. But I must confess I wish that Frieda had not made that uncomfortable speech about Carlos' disliking Jack so much. I am afraid it is true. Oh, Olive, what a pity it is that you happened to leave them!"
This was the only word of reproach that any member of the Rainbow ranch family made to Olive Van Mater during all the excitement and distress that came afterwards. And of course Jean did not mean her words to carry a sting—they were only an obvious exclamation.
Nevertheless Olive did not require outside censure to make her suffer as keen remorse as was possible to her sensitive and devoted nature. For she knew herself to be far more responsible for the day's catastrophe than any one would ever dream.
Only the edge of the sand storm swept the neighborhood of the Rainbow Lodge. Half a mile from the house it veered in its unaccountable way, carrying its destructive force straight across the adjoining ranch, wrecking half a dozen valuable buildings and killing a large number of cattle. Yet it came sufficiently near the Lodge for everybody inside the house to understand what was happening, even if Jim Colter and Frank Kent and a dozen of the cowboys had not ridden home furiously only five or ten minutes before, having raced the wind storm across the prairies and come off victorious. Both looked fairly worn out, as they came clanking into the living room, still in their riding clothes and boots and covered with a fine coating of yellow sand.
"Jehoshaphat, but it is good to be indoors!" Jim exclaimed at once, putting his arm about his wife and gazing around him. "It is a good thing Frank isn't a tenderfoot, even if he is an Englishman. For if that sand storm had struck us—well, I am not going to put on airs. I have been a ranchman now for a good many years, but I never feel very hopeful that anybody such a gale hits is going to come out alive." Then perhaps in answer to the thought in the mind of every person in the room Jim ended abruptly: "Where's Jack? Hasn't she manners enough to say 'howdy' to two fellows who have nearly ridden themselves to death?"
Following his speech, Jim was not immediately aware of the peculiar strained silence in the room, although Frank knew instantly that something had occurred in which Jack had a part. Under the western tan of the past few weeks his face whitened. But he set his teeth and straightened his broad shoulders. For his was a strength of will and of character worthy to match with Jack and capable of longer endurance.
For a moment no one seemed to dare to answer Jim's question. And then it was not Ruth or any one of the three Ranch girls who replied, but Henry Russell, who had hobbled into the living room on his crutches, forgetting his terror and dislike of girls in his effort to offer his friendly sympathy, and incidentally, though he himself was not aware of it, to keep the lovely blond doll of his first acquaintance from making herself more miserable than necessary.
"I, I am afraid Mrs. Colter and—and the others are feeling a little uneasy about Miss Ralston," he murmured. "She went out this morning with the Indian boy, Carlos, to ride over the ranch and she has not come in just yet. I have told them that she certainly must have taken refuge with a neighbor or else that the storm has not come within her vicinity. They tell me that these western siroccos are very freakish."
But neither Jim Colter nor Frank had heard anything except the first part of their visitor's speech.
Afterwards Jim paid no attention to any one in the room except to lean over and kiss Ruth. "We will find her in a little while, don't worry. Jack is always getting into scrapes and being grown up seems to make little difference," he remarked grimly as he marched off.