Ralph patted Ruth's hand reassuringly. "Of course I won't go if you would like me to stay," he answered cheerfully. "And you mustn't be alarmed. I'll watch the fire to keep it from going out, and when your friends return, I'll roost in a tree, like 'Monsieur Chantecler,' and wake you first thing in the morning."
Ruth smiled, and Olive, who had come out of the tent with Jean, looked less forlorn; but Jean, although she was devoutly glad they were not to be left alone, could not cheer up. She walked apart from the others, not wishing them to guess how uneasy she felt about Jack. Of course nothing was going to happen, but she wished she had not accused Jack of being selfish the day before.
Ralph Merrit came over and stood silently at Jean's side for a moment. He felt twice her age and was actually eight years older.
"I did not know you would mind my shot this afternoon," he began stiffly in the fashion in which a man usually apologizes. "If you had been brought up in a city and were unused to hunting I might have understood your feeling. As it was I——"
Jean's cheeks flushed in the somber twilight. Already the first drops of rain were falling. Ruth was calling them inside the tent.
"I hope I have not been rude," she said. "I ought to have explained to you that I can never bear to see anything killed. My cousin, Jack Ralston, and the overseer of our ranch, Jim Colter, both think I am awfully silly because I never go hunting with them even when they are after wild game, though I can shoot pretty well. But when a bird or animal is full of motion and maybe joy, why, to see it stiff and cold all of a sudden and to know you can never make it alive again——" Jean's voice broke off abruptly. She did not care to show emotion to a stranger.
"I understand," Ralph answered slowly. "I believe I would like to have my sister feel that way. I know you have not asked it of me, and we may never meet again, but so long as I live I shall never kill anything unless I positively need it for food, or am trying to protect some one."
For several hours Ruth, the girls and their guest huddled inside their tent waiting for the storm to pass and the wanderers to return. The rain beat in until their waterproof cloaks were hung over the slits and openings, and then, in spite of the coldness of the night outside, the air in the tent grew close and heavy. Ruth did her best to keep up a conversation with Ralph, but Jean and Olive sat on a pile of sofa cushions with their arms about each other, waiting, listening for some sound that would tell them the wayfarers were almost home. Frieda had fallen asleep in a weary lump on a cot, with a tear of sheer lonesomeness for Jack not yet dry on her pink cheek.
Suddenly the girls jumped to their feet and Frieda rolled off the cot. From afar off they heard Jim's familiar whistle and long, cheerful call. Ralph Merrit rushed out to pile the fire with the pine cones and logs they had been keeping dry inside the tent. Jean and Olive lit the extra candles they had been saving all evening. The rain having almost ceased, Ruth flung a mackintosh about her and ran forth to follow the sound of Jim's voice.
"Home at last!" thought Jim Colter happily, his worry and uncertainty slipping from him as he caught the distant gleam of the camp-fire. For many miles after leaving the mine he had hurried on, expecting each moment to overtake Jack and Carlos. Then fearing they might have lost their way, he turned aside at every doubtful place along the trail, searching and calling their names until he was hoarse. Not only was he torn with anxiety at the loss of his fellow-truants, but uneasy about Ruth and the girls alone in a tent in a fierce summer tempest. Now his journey was almost over, he believed Jack and Carlos had traveled fast and were safe within their own shelter. The vision of Ruth's pretty figure battling toward him through the wind seemed a good omen.