Jim flushed a little angrily. "No. I don't want to see her, at least not particularly. Why should I?" Jim demanded awkwardly. "That is,—"
Ruth was standing at the living-room door with her arms full of mysterious packages. She laughed and came into the room, glad that Jim looked as awkward as she felt on the day of her first horseback ride with him.
When Ruth was putting down her packages Jack winked solemnly at Jim, and in return for his irritated glance at her, she slipped quietly out of the room.
All the way down the hall Jack was smiling to herself. "Wouldn't it be too funny if old Jim should fall in love with Cousin Ruth?" she thought. "Goodness knows why he is so touchy about her! She has been awfully nice to him, since he taught her to ride horseback, but the friendlier she is, the queerer he behaves.
'Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west,
Of all the wide world, his steed is the best,'"
Jack quoted, apropos of nothing, as she joined the other girls in Ruth's bedroom.
Olive, Jean and Frieda were working industriously. Over in the corner there was a little mound that looked like a pile of snow but was only the strings of popcorn for the Christmas tree. Jean was fashioning an immense silver star. Olive and Frieda were filling boxes of white paper, decorated with the initials, "R. G.," with homemade taffy candy and chocolate fudge. The ranch girls had not invited their neighbors to their Christmas eve party, but the cowboys who worked on their ranch were coming up to the Lodge to wish them good luck.
Jack dropped down on the floor and deliberately began devouring the fudge from a big China dish. "Don't work too hard, Olive," Jack insisted, reaching up to pop a piece of candy into Olive's mouth. "Remember you are not very strong yet."
Olive only laughed. She was a little paler than when she first came to the ranch in the early autumn, but her eyes were serene and untroubled and she looked far less timid and shy. Since finding her mother's picture in the possession of old Laska, Olive felt that she was more like the other girls and the thought that old Laska had any real claim on her, no longer worried her.
"This isn't very hard work, Jack," Olive replied gaily. "And there is still a lot for us to do to be ready for to-night. Just think, this will be the first real Christmas tree I have ever seen!"