Away off in the distance, the girls soon saw a great swirling cloud of grey dust, rising over the yellow plain. They could distinguish an enormous mass of moving objects and hear a far hollow roaring and bellowing of men and animals. To the left, across a diagonal trail, Jack saw a dark line of wagons at some distance from the round-up. She knew they were the mess-wagons and carriages of the ranchmen, who came over to superintend the branding of their cattle. If the ranchmen happened to live near the scene of the round-up their wives and families sometimes drove over to spend a few hours, but the women were careful not to go near the frightened animals and returned home before night.
The two girls moved slowly along this trail.
Jack's eyes were dancing and her cheeks were glowing with excitement. She dearly loved this typical western scene and its noise and savagery did not frighten her. It was a part of the business of the cattlemen to which she had always been accustomed. She was sorry of course that the poor animals had to be burned with the brands of their owners, but since the cattle ranged together through vast tracts of land, she knew of no other way by which one ranchman could distinguish his cattle from another's. Jack had been careful never to witness the branding, but she had often seen the cowboys driving the herds across the plains.
But Olive did not feel so cheerful. The distant noise and the surging crowd alarmed her. She wished that she and Jack were safe at home.
Coming at full speed down the trail toward them, the two girls spied two cowboys wearing the full cowboy regalia, leather suits with fringed trousers and immense sombrero hats, tied under their chins.
"Great Scott!" cried a familiar voice. "Here come Jack Ralston and her Indian girl! What a place for a couple of girls to be alone!"
Jack's ears burned. She recognized Dan's tones but was not so much abashed by meeting him, as she was by Frank Kent's astonished face. The young English fellow's surprise was unmistakable.
"May I stay with you until your escort joins you, Miss Ralston?" Frank asked immediately. "The men about here are pretty rough and if you should happen to get too near the cattle it might be dangerous. I am told they sometimes break out and start a stampede."
Jack kept her face turned away while Frank was speaking. She was actually ashamed to return his friendly gaze. Frank had entirely separated himself from Dan Norton, who was grinning scornfully at Olive and Jack.
"Please don't worry about us, Mr. Kent," Jack said quietly. "We won't get into danger. I don't exactly like to tell you, but we rode over to the round-up by ourselves. You understand that we didn't mean to go near the men or the cattle, but I thought we might find some one we knew near the mess-wagons."