Olive, Jean and Frieda were working industriously. Over in the corner there was a little mound that looked like a pile of snow but was only the strings of popcorn for the Christmas tree. Jean was fashioning an immense silver star. Olive and Frieda were filling boxes of white paper, decorated with the initials, "R. G.," with homemade taffy candy and chocolate fudge. The ranch girls had not invited their neighbors to their Christmas eve party, but the cowboys who worked on their ranch were coming up to the Lodge to wish them good luck. Jack dropped down on the floor and deliberately began devouring the fudge from a big China dish. "Don't work too hard, Olive," Jack insisted, reaching up to pop a piece of candy into Olive's mouth. "Remember you are not very strong yet." Olive only laughed. She was a little paler than when she first came to the ranch in the early autumn, but her eyes were serene and untroubled and she looked far less timid and shy. Since finding her mother's picture in the possession of old Laska, Olive felt that she was more like the other girls and the thought that old Laska had any real claim on her, no longer worried her. "This isn't very hard work, Jack," Olive replied gaily. "And there is still a lot for us to do to be ready for to-night. Just think, this will be the first real Christmas tree I have ever seen!" "Well, we won't have so much work to do, Olive, if Jack eats all the candy," Jean remarked severely. "And Jack, perhaps if you would help Frieda and Olive, instead of talking so much, they wouldn't have such a lot to do." Jack flung a cotton snowball at Jean. "Bear with me, sweet coz," she pleaded cheerfully. "I don't know just why, girls, but I feel so kind of happy to-day, that I suppose I am silly. I believe all the clouds have passed over our benighted heads and the Rainbow Arch of Promise is just over the Lodge." Jean pointed scornfully to the winter landscape outside the window. "It looks rather like we might have a rainbow after the summer shower: don't you think so, Olive?" she inquired. But she bent over and crowned Jack with a wreath of silver tinsel and went on with her work, smiling as though she had more faith in Jack's prediction than she cared to confess. "Ah, Jean," Jack went on, "don't you know there is a legend that somewhere there is a wonderful land where all the rainbows that have ever been or ever will be, drift to and fro, like beautiful colored flowers? Perhaps one of these rainbows will find us to-night in spite of the weather." Jack's face softened at her own pretty fancy. All day the girls worked and whispered and laughed. Ruth and Jean and Jack decorated the great Christmas tree. The gifts were piled up under the tree, for nothing was to be allowed to mar the perfect whiteness of its decorations. Only Ruth's presents were to be given just before supper time. She insisted that this was absolutely necessary, or else they would lose half their value.