Читать книгу The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge - Vandercook Margaret - Страница 4

WHEN Olilie, the Indian girl, came back to consciousness, after being put to bed at the ranch house, three days had passed. She lay between broad sheets smelling of violets and whiter than anything she had ever seen, except the new snow on the prairies.

Over in the corner of a big empty room sat a strange little girl. She was sewing on some small doll clothes and humming softly to herself. Two braids like plaited silk of the corn hung over her face. Olilie did not recall ever having seen her before and had not the faintest idea how she happened to be in this wonderful place, instead of the dirty hut of Laska the Indian woman and her son Josef.

Some one else tiptoed softly into the chamber. Olilie half closed her eyes. She remembered this other face faintly, but where and when had she seen it?

"Hasn't she spoken yet?" a voice asked in a disappointed tone. "I am so sorry, but I simply have to ride over the range with Jim this morning. Some of the cattle keep disappearing. If our patient wants to talk, please don't let her tell you everything before I get back. She must be kept pretty quiet."

Just for a second, Olilie felt that a face bent over hers. But she gave no sign of being awake, although she now knew where she was and how she happened to be there. It had flashed across her memory – her flight, her hiding and the meeting with the ranch girls. She understood that she had been ill but was going to get well again. The hot, uncomfortable feeling had left her head, she had no pain, only she was very weak and she did not think that she could bear to go away from this beautiful place. If only she could have been ill a little longer!

Olilie's wistful, black eyes were wide open, when the bedroom door unclosed the second time. She caught a glimpse of a tall, dark figure and a wave of terror swept over her. Already had Laska come to take her home?

But the woman walked quietly up to the bed, took one of Olilie's thin hands and gazed at it earnestly, turning it over in her own brown palm. She shook her head, smoothed up the covers and nodded to Olilie not to try to talk.

"This girl has been brought up among white people, hasn't she, Frieda?" Aunt Ellen inquired softly.

The blonde plaits moved slightly.

"I am sure I don't know," came a faint voice from between them. "We know nothing about her, except what Jack told you. She did not talk like an Indian, so I suppose she has been to school. Her mother, from whom she was running away, was a full-blooded Indian but she don't look a bit like her." Frieda lowered her voice still further. "Has the Indian woman been here to inquire for her daughter? Jack was afraid she would find out who we were and come over here."

Aunt Ellen gave her head a warning shake and said something to Frieda that the sick girl on the bed could not hear. But Frieda jumped up and her bits of doll dresses scattered about on the floor. "When will Jack and Jim come back?" she demanded quickly. "If we had only known before they went away!"

"Known what?" Olilie asked, as naturally as though she had been taking part in the conversation all the time. "I am quite well now, thank you. If you don't mind, I should like to get out of bed."

Frieda's face turned quite red and her blue eyes were round with surprise. She ran to Olilie and threw her arms around her. "You are well now, aren't you?" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad. Just wait until I run and find Jean. She won't like it unless I tell her at once."

"Child," Aunt Ellen queried, as soon as Frieda went away, "is the Arapaho woman who makes baskets and strings beads at the end of the Wind Creek valley your mother and is the lad Josef her son?"

Olilie nodded. "I think so," she replied. "At least I know of no other woman who is my mother. I have lived with her always."

"But you are not a full-blooded Indian girl," Aunt Ellen argued, "although your hair is so black and straight and your skin is dark. Look," Aunt Ellen picked up the girl's hand again. "See, your finger nails are pink and that is not the case with the red or brown-skinned people." Aunt Ellen opened the girl's gown, and where her skin was untouched by the sun and wind, it was a beautiful olive color.

Aunt Ellen lifted her up, wrapped her in a blue dressing gown and sat her in Frieda's vacant chair. "It's a hard time ahead of you, child," she murmured to herself. "Mixed blood don't never bring happiness, when one of 'em runs dark."

Jean's and Frieda's faces both wore strange expressions when they came back to their guest. But Olilie did not know them well enough to guess that anything unusual was the matter.

She stretched out both hands humbly and took one of Jean's and one of Frieda's in her own. "Won't you let me thank you for keeping me here and let me tell you why I ran away?" she asked gratefully.

Jean shook her head nervously, her brown eyes fastened on the tight-closed door, against which Aunt Ellen stood like a body-guard. "No, please don't try to tell us anything now," Jean begged. "I am sure you are not strong enough. And Jack, she is the oldest of us, she would like you to wait until she comes back this afternoon."

The ranch house was built on one floor. A long hall led straight through the centre of it. There were four bedrooms beside the living-room and Aunt Ellen's room, which opened off the kitchen. Aunt Ellen and her husband, Zack, slept on the place and the old man helped Frieda and Jean with their violet beds. To-day he had ridden over to the nearest village to see about the building of the new greenhouses.

A tramp of heavy feet echoed out in the passageway. Jean kept on talking, as though she wished to drown the sound. The Indian girl did not seem to be disturbed. She was too happy and too weak to care much what was going on outside her room.

"Don't you think I might tell you my name at least?" she begged. "It is Olilie, an Indian name. I don't know just what it means. I – "

There were no locks on the doors inside the big hospitable ranch house. What need was there of locking people either out or in, in this great open western land?

Yet Aunt Ellen kept her hand on the doorknob. "You are not to come in here," she insisted fiercely. "I told you to leave our ranch."

The door burst rudely open. The squat ugly figure of Laska appeared inside the room, followed by a young Indian boy, who looked sheepish and ashamed.

"Ugh," grunted the old squaw. "Did you think we no find you? Come, git up. You go with me." She pushed aside Frieda and Jean, who were trying to guard the sick girl.

Olilie's face was so white that no one could have thought her an Indian. She could not speak, she only clutched at the arms of her chair as though nothing could part her from it.

Jean stamped her foot angrily. "Go out of this house at once," she ordered angrily. "How dare you thrust your way in here? Your daughter is too ill for you to move her. Besides, we are going to keep her here until we find out whether you were cruel to her and why she won't live with you."

"No, no, I shall not live with her again," Olilie burst out passionately. "I do not mind the work or the blows, but I will not be a squaw woman. I will not light the pipe, clean the gun, hew the wood and fetch the water for her son. At the school they have taught me that a girl is a boy's equal. I will not, because I am a girl, be a slave. Please, please go." The Indian girl looked not at her mother, but at Josef, the Indian boy. He kept his head down and mumbled something that only Laska and Olilie could understand.

Laska pointed toward the girl. Then her eyes held her son. "Take her to the tepee of her own people," she commanded. "I know the laws of the white race are many and strange, but they take not the child from her mother, while she is yet young."

Josef went toward Olilie, but Jean's body covered her and he did not dare to thrust the white girl aside.

Frieda flung herself half way out the open window. In front of the ranch was a grove of cottonwood trees, to one side ran a long, winding creek. There was no one in sight, even their watch dog had followed Jack and Jim across the range.

Jean was trying bribery and corruption. She had slipped her hand in her pocket and brought out two bright silver dollars. She held one up before the boy, the other before old Laska. "I will give you these if you will leave the girl with us for a few days longer," she suggested.

The Indian boy did not lift his hand. He was gazing at the figure of his sister in the chair. "I no take her, she sick," he said. "I no want her to work for me. It is Laska who make her. She not like other Indian girl. She different somehow. She read books. She talk like teachers at school."

Laska seized the boy by the arm and shook him roughly. "You no talk foolish," she declared. "You bring girl home. We take not white money. Always you try to make the Indian sell big things for little."

"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 – "

"Yes, I understand," Frank Kent answered quickly. "At least I have been told what the trouble is between you, but I hope it may be a mistake. I can't believe Mr. Norton and Dan – " Frank stopped. Jean's and Frieda's cheeks were crimson. He realized that he had no right to talk about their private affairs. Aunt Ellen was looking at him suspiciously.

Frank Kent bowed. "I think I had better go," he announced. Just as he started out of the room, Jacqueline Ralston marched into it. Every bit of color left her face and she stared at him in blank astonishment.