The Ranch Girls and Their Great Adventure.

by Margaret Vandercook.

CHAPTER I

KENT HOUSE

THE deep-rutted English lane was bordered with high box hedges. On one side was a sloping park with trees a century old and on the other side a wide field filled with meadow gra.s.s and scarlet poppies. It was in July.

"In all the world there is nothing so peaceful as this English country, is there? It is like another world when one first gets away from the turmoil of New York."

The girl who said this was undoubtedly an American, both in her manner and appearance, although her dark hair and eyes and her deep-toned olive skin were almost Spanish in coloring.

Her companion--in spite of the fact that her costume was a typical English walking one, a mixed brown tweed skirt, Norfolk jacket and high boots,--was equally an American. She smiled before replying.

"I don't know that I agree with you, Olive. Of course that is what people from home always say. Jim Colter declares he is half asleep the entire time he is in England. But that is because Americans, particularly my beloved westerners, don't understand England and the English. Things are not always peaceful just because they are quiet. We think so because we are noisy. Frank says there was never more unrest."

But at this Lady Kent, who a number of years ago was Jacqueline Ralston and one of the four Ranch girls at Rainbow Lodge, slipped her arm through her friend's, Olive Van Mater's.

"But, Olive dear, for goodness sake don't let us talk politics the day after your arrival. It is so English. Sometimes I feel scarcely fitted to play the part of an English 'Lady,' now that Frank has come into the t.i.tle of 'Lord' and is a member of Parliament. I often long for a ride with Jim over my own prairies to search for lost cattle." Lady Kent laughed.

"Once a Ranch girl, always a Ranch girl, so far as I'm concerned, Olive; and yet I'm farther away from the old place than any of you. But, tell me, what made you decide to come abroad so suddenly without even writing? I have had letters from everybody at home except that lazy Frieda, and yet not one with a suggestion of your trip in it. Tell me about every member of my family--Ruth and Jim and their babies and Jean and Ralph and Frieda and her Professor. Funny, I never can think of Frieda really being married. You see, although it has been nearly four years, I have never seen her since we went over for the great event."

Jack ceased talking for a moment, for she was still "Jack" to her own family and the friends who knew her intimately. Olive never had talked so much as the other Ranch girls, but now it occurred to Jack that she was asking a great many questions, without allowing an opportunity for them to be answered.

Olive turned, apparently to glance through the opening in the hedge at the splendid ma.s.s of colour in the field.

"Suppose we sit down a while, Jack," she suggested. "Remember, I haven't had the English habit of walking for a long time. You told me Frank's train would not get in from London for another hour."

In spite of the fact that her tone was as casual as she knew how to make it, her companion understood at once.

"You have come to tell me bad news, haven't you? and I never dreamed of it until this instant. You have been brave, Olive."

In spite of her nervousness over having so suddenly guessed the reason for her friend's unexpected visit, Jack quietly looked about for a comfortable resting place, remembering that Olive had just had a long trip and was never so strong as the other Ranch girls.

A few yards farther on a gate led into Kent Park.

Lady Kent opened this and a moment or two later the two friends were seated under one of the great oak trees for which the Kent estate was famous--the estate now presided over by Jacqueline Ralston and the Frank Kent, whom we once knew as a guest at a neighboring ranch to the Ralstons' in Wyoming, but who were now Lord and Lady Kent of the county of Kent, England.

"Don't be frightened, Jack; my news isn't so bad as you may think. At least I don't know just how bad it is," and Olive smiled and then frowned the next moment. "The truth of the matter is that Frieda Ralston Russell has left her Professor. I was out in Wyoming having a peaceful visit at Rainbow Ranch when I received a mysterious telegram from Frieda telling me to come to her at once in New York city--not in Chicago, where she was supposed to be safe with her Professor husband. Of course I went at once to her. In New York I found a yellow-haired and not so miserable Frieda, who calmly told me she had decided that marriage was a failure. I could not find out her special reasons for thinking so, but perhaps she will tell you more herself, Jack. She is coming to you on the next steamer, only she preferred my first breaking the news to you and Frank."

Jack whistled, after a boyish fashion of her youth, which was not becoming to her present age and position.

"And you came, Olive dear, all the way across the ocean by yourself, just because my spoiled small sister wished to save herself the trouble of a confession? You are an angel, Olive. And I am afraid it is Frieda's selfishness--her remaining such a completely spoiled young person--that may be the answer to her present behavior. But I thought her husband spoiled her more even than her own family had in the past. Besides, I can't imagine the Professor doing anything wicked, can you, Olive? Oh dear, Frank and I always opposed Frieda's marriage. Professor Russell did seem too old and serious for her."

Just as she had always done whenever it was possible as a girl, Lady Kent at this moment took off her hat and flung it on the ground beside her. It was of brown cloth with a small green and brown feather to match her walking outfit; nevertheless she looked far handsomer without it.

Jack was no longer a girl. A good many years had pa.s.sed since her marriage to Frank Kent, which was to occur soon after the close of the last Ranch girls' book, known as "The Ranch Girls At Home Again." Also in the final chapter, when the family had lately moved into their new home, built on the ranch not far from the old Rainbow Lodge, where the Ranch girls had first lived, their cousin Jean Bruce's engagement had been announced to Ralph Merritt, an old friend and the Rainbow Mine engineer. Then, as a great surprise to her family, Frieda Ralston, the youngest of the Ranch girls, at that time only eighteen, had insisted upon her own engagement to Professor Charles Henry Russell, a Professor of dead languages at the University of Chicago and more than ten years her senior.

"Oh, well, what is an old maid worth in a family if she is not to be made useful?" Olive answered. "But, of course, Jack, you understand I don't require a great deal of persuasion to come to you, and besides I was afraid if I did not come ahead, Frieda would not come at all. You are the only person who has any influence over her. If she goes back to the ranch, Ruth and Jean will only make such a fuss over her that she will become more and more convinced she has been badly treated. Jim, you know, never has approved of any of his Ranch girls being married, although he misses none of us as he does you."

Jack rose. "I hope you are rested, Olive, as we must walk on if we are to arrive in time to meet Frank. Oh, dear, what a business marriage is!

I suppose we could not expect all the Ranch girls to be successfully married, although it is odd for it to be Frieda who is in trouble. As for you, Olive, don't congratulate yourself too soon on being an old maid; you'll probably yield some day. I do wonder what has happened to little Frieda? Perhaps things are worse than we imagine."

Olive shook her head.

She was recalling an extremely pretty Frieda sitting up in bed at midnight at the hour of her arrival in New York city, with a blue silk dressing gown over her nightgown and a box of chocolates open on the table beside her, which she must have been eating before going to bed.

It was true Frieda had cried a good deal when making her confession, and had insisted that she never intended to speak to her husband again. Why, Olive could not find out. She gathered that Frieda thought her husband unsympathetic and that their temperaments were too unlike for them ever, ever to understand each other. But the details of her love tragedy Frieda had declared she could tell only to her sister Jack.

Now, as Olive studied her companion's face, she believed that Frieda had decided wisely. When they were the four Ranch girls, Jack, Jean, Olive and Frieda, they had always relied upon Jacqueline Ralston's judgment.

Now, as a woman, she seemed even finer than she had been as a girl.

Well, fortunately Jack's marriage seemed to have turned out ideally happy, although there were reasons why it might not. Jack had never been fond of society or a conventional life, had hated the indoors and the management of even so small and casual an establishment as they had at Rainbow Lodge before the coming of Ruth as governess to take the responsibility out of Jack's hands. Now Jack was not only mistress of a great home, but must play "Lady Bountiful" to an entire village, as well as to the people on the Kent estate, and she was really the most democratic person in the world.

They were entering the adjoining village of Granchester now and Lady Kent had actually forgotten to put on her hat. Yet all the people they met along the little narrow streets bowed to her, as if she were not unpopular. Several times Jack stopped to inquire about sick babies and old ladies in the most approved fashion. However, Olive remembered that she had been great friends with all the cowboys on her own ranch and the adjoining ones in the old days, and was interested in their families, when they chanced to have them, which was not often. Nevertheless this new life of her friend's did seem extraordinarily different from her old life.

Only once since Jack's marriage had Olive visited her and then only for a few weeks, when her mother-in-law was alive and Frank's sisters had not yet married. Therefore she had never really seen Frank and Jack alone.

As they came to the little railroad station, covered with roses and surrounded by flower beds, Jack hastily put on her hat.

"Gracious! why didn't you tell me to do that before, Olive?" she asked "I must have looked ridiculous. Frank would have been discouraged if he had seen me. After all, you see, Olive, Frank is an Englishman and fond of the proprieties. At least I don't think he minds so much himself, but he does not enjoy having the country people talk about me, especially now that we have come into the t.i.tle."

"But they don't criticize you, do they?" Olive demanded with a good deal of feeling.

However, Lady Kent only laughed, "Not more than I deserve." And then forgetting what she had just said, she took off her hat for the second time to wave it boyishly at the approaching train.

The next moment Frank Kent jumped out on the platform. He had changed much more than his wife. Olive saw that he took his new position and his responsibilities seriously, for he had only come into the t.i.tle two years before. He looked far more like what one feels to be the typical Englishman, as he had an air of distinction and of firmness. Indeed, Olive thought he had almost a hardness in the lower part of his face which had not been there as a younger man. But he greeted her with the same old cordiality and friendliness.

"You and I seem often to meet Frank at railroad stations, Olive," Jack remarked. "Remember when he last came to Wyoming before we were married and we went together to meet him?"

Frank appeared so uncertain that Jack laughed.

"Husbands haven't very good memories for the sentimental past."

The next instant Frank protested.

"Of course I remember and how badly you treated me, Jack, so that Olive had to come to my rescue." And then: "Did you drive over? Where is the trap?"

Lady Kent shook her head. "No; Olive and I wanted a walk and it is much better for you. If you don't look out we shall both be growing as portly as a dowager duke and d.u.c.h.ess."

Jack was a few steps ahead so that both her friend and husband looked at her admiringly, Olive appreciating, however, that Frank would have preferred his own wish to be carried out in this matter.

But it had always been a pleasure to see Jacqueline Ralston out-of-doors and it was no less so now. Although she now had two babies she had managed to keep as slender and erect as a girl--a most unusual characteristic in a woman.

Jack was walking on ahead so freely and so unconscious of her own speed that the others had to hurry to catch up with her.