"Oh, nothing but a cool offer to buy Rainbow Ranch off our hands at any reasonable figure we choose to sell it for. He says he has gotten so interested in the ranch, and thinks it such a fine place for his daughter and son, that he would be willing to pay what our neighbors might think a fancy sum for the place."
For just a half second Ruth's heart stood still, or felt as though it had. She saw Rainbow Ranch, which had been saved for them once by Frieda's discovery, slipping away again, the girls scattered, herself back in the old Vermont village away from this wonderful western life, and Jim—she wondered what would become of Jim.
Then Ruth came to her senses. "Well, Mr. Jim, I don't see anything so dreadful in Mr. Harmon's offer. I don't wonder he is in love with our ranch, but we don't have to sell it to him because he wants it, do we? Jack would never think of it."
"It isn't all just what Jack wishes, Miss Ruth," Jim answered sadly. "It is because living on the ranch with you and the girls means more than everything else in the world to me, that it kind of sinks into me that we oughtn't to turn Mr. Harmon's offer down without thinking and talking it over. The ranch don't pay such an awful lot these days—just barely enough to keep things going; and maybe the girls ought to have advantages like schools and traveling. You know better than I do, Ruth. Won't you try and help me think this thing out and decide what is best for them?"
For a moment Ruth was silent, knowing in her heart why Jim took Mr. Harmon's offer so seriously. All his own hopes and plans depended on his refusing it. If he were no longer the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch he would have nothing to offer the woman he loved, not even a bare support. The money he had saved for himself in the past years would not keep them six months. Therefore, since Jim Colter's sense of honor was stronger than any selfish desire, he feared that his own wish to turn down Mr. Harmon's offer without wasting a moment's consideration on it was simply because it would serve his own purpose and not because it was best for the ranch girls.
"I don't believe it will be best for the girls to sell the ranch, I don't honestly," Ruth replied. And then under her breath, "I promise you I am not thinking of us."
What Ruth meant by her use of the word "us" Jim did not know. Of course she too might lose her occupation if the girls gave up the ranch. But whatever she meant the word sounded pretty good to him.
"Of course it would do no harm to talk over the proposition from Mr. Harmon with the girls," Ruth added indifferently; "but I am as sure as I ever was of anything in the world just how they will feel about it. Don't let's speak of it now, though, Mr. Jim. Mr. Harmon can't expect you to reply to his letter at once, and we don't want any business to interfere with our first days in wonderland. Was there anything else in Mr. Harmon's letter that annoyed you?"
"Yes—no," Jim answered shortly. "At least Harmon wrote that he had some private business with the fellow who came junketing around in a gypsy cart to our ranch one day, and he presumed I wouldn't mind the man's staying on the place. Can't imagine what Harmon can want of a tramp like 'Gypsy Joe.' He never would have written me about him, I suppose, if he hadn't known the boys at the ranch would tell me as soon as one of them could get up the energy to write." Jim again relapsed into silence. The moon went behind a cloud and the island was hardly visible ahead. Ruth decided that the evening had been a disappointing one. She wondered why the thought of this half-gypsy, half-gentleman tramp should give Jim the blues. She had relieved his mind of the idea that it was his duty for the girls' sake to sell them out of house and home.
"Let's row back to shore, Mr. Jim," Ruth said coldly, in the aloof manner she still knew how to use when things did not please her. "I am getting tired and sleepy, and I don't want the girls to worry about me."