"Then you don't think I am an Indian girl?" Olive questioned eagerly.
Jack hesitated. "I don't know, Olive, I'm sure," she returned. "Of course I was only talking. Come, let's pack up our things, I think we will go home to-morrow."
"But if Laska and Josef come back for me?" Olive pleaded, unable to believe in her wonderful good fortune.
Jacqueline's face sobered. She was thinking of what Jim Colter would say when he learned of their adoption of Olive. She knew that Jim was troubled about something; had the ranch girls any right to offer a home to any one when their own future was so uncertain?
But Jack's lips closed firmly. "Never mind, Olive," she answered. "We won't worry over things until they happen, when they do we will face them the best we can."
Rainbow Lodge had never looked more dear and homelike than it did when the four ranch girls arrived before its open front door. Jim had sent one of the cowboys to drive them home and Jack wondered why he had not come himself. But she forgot to ask what had kept him, when she saw Aunt Ellen's smiling face and smelt the odor of ginger cookies coming from the kitchen back of her.
"Isn't it great to be at home, children?" Jack exclaimed triumphantly. But Frieda had flown to look after her chickens and Jean was shaking hands with old Zack, who was building the frames over her violet beds.
"This bandage is cutting my arm off, Olive," Jack went on, noticing Olive's wistful face as Jack said the word "home." "Won't you come in and fix it for me, please? I am going to make you and Jean and Frieda wait on me all I can, now we are away from Aunt Sallie's. Of course I had to pretend my arm didn't hurt over there, because I knew that that abominable Laura Post and Dan Norton would say 'serves her right,' every time I had a twinge of pain."
Jack was talking nonsense to keep Olive from thinking and as the two girls passed under the arch of the door, Jack kissed her lightly. "Good luck to Ranch Girl Number Four. May you live long and prosper at Rainbow Lodge," she whispered.