"Don't you wish we could spend this whole day out of doors, Jean?" Frieda suggested. "I forgot to say anything about it to Jack, but you know how we have talked about riding over to the Giant's Cañon to have our lunch. Aunt Ellen can pack our saddle bags, and we can join Jack at the rancho."
After a ten minutes' walk, Jacqueline Ralston touched the brim of her broad sombrero hat with a military salute and brought her heels sharply together, when a tall figure came down the path toward her from the rancho with his hands deep in his old leather trousers. She was near the mess-house, where the men who worked the ranch had their quarters. The girls called it "Jim's rancho," to distinguish it from their own home half a mile away.
Jim Colter returned Jack's salute gravely. He was a handsome man of about thirty, with black hair and skin almost as swarthy as a Mexican's. The queer thing about his appearance was that his eyes were as blue and as gentle as a baby's, except when he was angry and then there was no harder man in Wyoming to deal with than the overseer of Rainbow Ranch. Jack would not have dared to let him know how rude Dan Norton had been to her.
Jim was a man of mystery. He came from goodness knows where; no one knew anything of his past. One day, many years before, he rode up to the ranch house nearly dead from fatigue and hunger. Mr. Ralston took him in and he never went away again. But he would not say one word about himself and no one dared to ask him many questions, because his blue eyes would suddenly grow black and angry and he would look as though he were recalling something he wanted to forget.
Jim was devoted to Jack and Jean, but Frieda was his special favorite. She was only two years old when he came to live at Rainbow Ranch, but he taught her to ride and to swim, when other babies were only just learning to walk. He and Mr. Ralston used to ride all over the great ranch, with Frieda tucked up in front of Jim's saddle and Jack perched behind her father's when both little girls were almost babies. By the time she was fourteen, Jacqueline Ralston, who was her father's shadow, knew the trick of lassoing. There was not a cowboy on the ranch who could ride faster, shoot straighter, or understood more about the business of caring for the cattle and the sheep than she did, and since Mr. Ralston's death, Jim had always consulted Jack about each new business venture.
Jack made her report of yesterday's expedition, but without a word of her meeting with Dan. Jim said nothing about the fright Jack had given them, but Jack found herself blushing and feeling like a little girl, instead of the head of a thousand acre ranch as he looked at her.
"It really wasn't my fault I was out late, yesterday, Jim," Jack apologized. "But we girls have decided to turn over a new leaf. We have made up our minds to stay at home and study, until we are regular blue stockings."
Jim laughed and at this moment glanced up the road. Jean and Frieda were riding calmly toward them. Jean was leading Hotspur and the three girls' saddle bags were packed as though they were pioneers traveling across the Deadwood trail to the gold regions of California.
Jim chuckled. "Looks like a party of bluestockings from Boston, Jack, coming this way, 'specially that there fishing tackle Jean's carrying. Where was you expecting to spend to-day?" he drawled in a funny Western fashion.
Frieda tucked a small bunch of violets in the buttonhole of Jim's khaki shirt. She wore a blue riding suit and a big Mexican hat like Jack's and her face looked very young and babyish under it. "We are going to the Giant's Cañon, Jim," she said apologetically. "It's such a dream of a day, but Jack doesn't know. We have brought her sketch book and Jean's along and I have my history, so we can get our lessons outdoors and then we can make a fire and have lunch in my own little cave in the rocks."