By and by he put Ruth down on the porch of the rancho and went away to his tent for the night. In the morning he had gone from Rainbow Ranch to attend to other business.
CHAPTER XXIV
FAREWELL TO THE RAINBOW RANCH
THE coming of late September to the neighborhood of the ranch brought with it a storm and heavy downpour of rain.
"The very clouds themselves weep at the thought of our departure from the Rainbow Ranch," Jean exclaimed dramatically, pressing her piquant nose against the rain-splashed window of the living room in the Lodge and gazing out over the mist-dimmed fields.
"Does anybody know where Ruth is?" Jack inquired from a big sofa near the fire, looking about their beloved sitting room with an expression of unfailing affection. "She must be nearly worn out with packing and getting us ready to start to New York to-morrow. I do wish she would rest for a few minutes these days."
"Ruth has gone for a ride in the rain alone, Jack," Olive explained, stooping over her friend and arranging her pillows. "She said she thought it would do her more good than anything, and she will stop by the post box at the gate and bring us the last mail. Yes, Frieda, dear, I will help you in a minute, but please don't crowd any more treasures into that box or you will have everything smashed to bits."
For a moment Frieda ceased her occupation of jamming odd-shaped pieces of Indian pottery into a packing trunk filled with blankets, shawls, beadwork, dolls, Indian carvings, everything known to Indian manufacture, and surveyed the older girls reproachfully. "Olive, I thought you and Jean said that the one thing that would give you pleasure and keep us from just dying of homesickness would be to fix up an Indian sitting room at that horrid old boarding school we are going to in New York," she protested.
Riches, like everything else in this world, brings its responsibilities. The ranch girls and Ruth Drew were to leave the Rainbow Ranch soon after daylight next morning for the long trip across the country which was to land them in New York City. Now that the gold supply of Rainbow Creek was increasing day by day until no one could guess how vast the amount would be, Jim Colter had decided it would be best for the girls to leave the ranch. Jack was to see a famous surgeon, hoping that he would be able to restore her to health, for she had not improved to any extent and was still unable to walk or to sit up for any length of time. The other girls were to be placed in a fashionable boarding school near a village on the Hudson River, not far from New York City, and Jack was to join them when she got well. No one ever said "if" Jack got well; it was always "when," and she always talked of herself in this way, for her courage was yet undaunted.
Frank Kent was to act as escort to the travelers, as he was returning soon to his home in England, and Ralph Merrit was to be left as one of the engineers in charge of the Rainbow Mine. Jim Colter had not been at the ranch except once and then only for a few days since the night of his ride with Ruth.