"We won't, Aunt Sallie," Jacqueline returned gently. "And I hope you won't think we are ungrateful to you. We saw lots of real Indian girls at the village yesterday, perhaps Miss Post will have one of them as her maid. I'll ask Olive to recommend one."
Jack walked quietly away from the group on the veranda, holding Frieda by the hand while Jean murmured more apologies to Aunt Sallie, being as careful as possible not to look that lady in the face. Miss Bruce hardly wished Mrs. Simpson to see how her brown eyes were dancing with pleasure and pride, but when Aunt Sallie had gone away, Jean made no effort to conceal her satisfaction from Laura Post and Dan Norton.
Jacqueline marched straight in to find Olive. She was not in her room. She was not in the maids' room, nor in the big kitchen. Hong Su, Mrs. Simpson's Chinese cook, explained that the 'Lil Mlissie' had gone out in the back yard.
To one side and behind the Simpson ranch house was a large kitchen garden, at only a short distance from the house itself.
Jack and Frieda could not find Olive at once. There was nothing to hide her and she could not have gone down to the stables that were some distance away, yet she was nowhere in sight.
Half an acre of Indian corn was ripening and yellowing in the sun. It rustled and its long dried leaves crackled and swayed, and they soon saw the Indian girl walking through it with her head bent and tears falling fast. Straightway Jacqueline thought of the Song of Hiawatha and the Indian legend of the corn. Poor little Olive was the Minnehaha, after her laughter had been stilled! Frieda ran straight to her friend and threw her arms around her. "Oh, Olive, it isn't true," she cried. "You are to come home with us to Rainbow Lodge."
But Olive shook her head. She could not understand.
Jacqueline took the girl's slender, brown hand. "Olive," she asked gently, "do you think you could be happy if you came to live with us at the ranch? I am dreadfully cross sometimes and you may not like me, but Frieda and Jean are dears. We are only girls like you and perhaps we may make mistakes, but you won't mind, if we all do our best together."
Jacqueline was frightened at the expression of the Indian girl's face. "You want me to live with you like one of you?" she gasped. "Oh, it can't, it can't be true."
"But it can be true, Olilie," Jack answered lightly, using the girl's pretty Indian name. "And there is nothing so remarkable in our wanting to have you. Suppose when mother and father came out here to Wyoming from the East, something had happened to them and they had left me somewhere for a stranger to find me. Then the same thing might have happened to me that has happened to you, and I am sure you would have come along and rescued me if you could."