The Ranch Girls at Rainbow LodgeVandercook, Margaret
General
The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge
Vandercook, Margaret
Ranch life -- Juvenile fiction; Western stories; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
"Oh, if somebody would only come to help us," Frieda thought
despairingly. She saw that Josef had picked Olilie up in his arms. She
felt like Sister Anne in the dreadful story of Bluebeard. If she could
see a little cloud of dust arising somewhere down the long road that led
through the trees from the far trail of the plains, she knew that help
would come to them! If only she could catch sight of one of the cowboys
returning to the ranch!
Frieda did spy a little dust along the trail on the upper side of the
creek. She seized a white scarf from the table near by and waved it
frantically out the window. "Help! Help! Jim! Jack! Somebody come quick!
We need you!" she cried.
The Indian boy and woman waited, puzzled and alarmed by the noise that
Frieda was making.
Frieda saw a rider catch sight of her signal, plunge down the trail and
through the muddy creek, straight to the ranch house door. She knew that
it was some one whom she had never seen before in her life, but it did
not make the least difference to her.
"Won't you come in here?" she begged. "The door is open. There are some
Indians trying to steal a girl away--" Frieda drew her blonde head back
inside the window, just in time to see the stranger stalk into their
room.
"Put the girl down," he commanded Josef in a tone of authority. Nothing
loath, the Indian boy returned Olilie to her chair. The newcomer then
spoke to the surly Indian woman. "You and your son leave this ranch at
once. It was fortunate that I learned that you were coming here this
morning. I rode over just in time."
The young man had brown hair and eyes. His face was quite pale. He did
not look in the least strong, but there was something in his quiet
manner that showed he was accustomed to being obeyed.
"We come back to get my girl, when she well," the Indian woman
threatened, as the door closed behind her.
There was an awkward silence when the Indians had gone. The young fellow
immediately lost his grown-up manner and seemed very uncertain and shy.
He colored and held his new cowboy hat in his hands.
"I am awfully glad I turned up in time to help you drive those people
out of the house," he declared. "I happened to hear that they were
coming over to your ranch to take the Indian girl away from you to-day.
If there had been anybody to send over to tell you, I wouldn't have come
myself," he ended. "Will you please tell the older Miss Ralston this. I
won't intrude on you any longer. Good-bye."
Jean laughed and held out her hand. "Please don't go quite yet," she
said. "At least stay until we thank you. I know who you are and Jack
will be just as grateful to you as Frieda and I are. You must not think
she is always so unfriendly. Aren't you Frank Kent, the English fellow
who is the guest of the Nortons? Jack told us about you But you see the
Nortons are--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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