CHAPTER XXI

"MY WAY'S FOR LOVE"

For Ruth and Jim Colter had spent a wonderful day together while Jack and Frank Kent were making their great discovery. They were finding another of the world's great treasures which is not gold. Side by side they had ridden slowly over the ranch with its waving fields of ripened grass and its horses, sheep and cattle, sleek and fat and well content with the earth's bounty. They had counted the herds and inspected the sheep corrals, ordering new ones to be built before the coming of winter; they had discussed whether Ruth alone would be able to take Jack to New York to see the famous surgeon recommended by Peter Drummond, and they had decided that Mr. Harmon must be given an answer in regard to his purchase of a portion of Rainbow Ranch within the next few days. His lease on the Lodge would end in a short time and already he seemed very restless and was insisting that urgent business called him back to New York.

Ruth was now able to ride horseback almost as well as the other ranch girls, although she could never be quite so fearless, since her training had come later in life. But to-day she and her companion laughingly recalled her famous arrival at Wolfville not a year before and her terrible ten-mile ride home to Rainbow Lodge. Ruth remembered then--though she did not speak of it--how Jim's strength had upheld and comforted her and brought her safely to her new home.

At noon, hungry and happy, Jim and Ruth had eaten their luncheon seated opposite each other on the grass with two napkins spread between them, drinking their cold coffee out of bottles, like a couple of school children on a picnic.

Now it was almost sunset and the man and woman were riding slowly home. Their backs were to the far-off line of hills, and beyond them the level prairies seemed to stretch on and on until they dipped and melted away at the uttermost rim of the earth. Above, the clouds floated, tinted like soap bubbles against a skyey background of pale rose and blue, for the sun was sinking without a display of gaudy colors upon the horizon, that marked this waning season of the year.

Ruth was gazing at the sunset, wondering if Jack were not a little better, when a low laugh from her companion surprised her and jarred on her peaceful mood. She turned on him reproachfully, but found nothing in Jim Colter's expression that spoke of laughter. His strong bronze face was so serious and his lips so grave that the girl with him was suddenly still and frightened. For many weeks she had thought this moment might be approaching, and yet, now it had come, she was wholly unprepared.

"I was only thinking of how young you look in that riding habit, Miss Ruth," Jim said simply. "I laughed because I remembered I thought you would be an old maid of fifty when you first came out to the ranch. Sometimes it seems years since the day you arrived, and then again only a few weeks. Are you sure you like living on a ranch now? You know you plumb hated it when you first came to Wyoming," he said boyishly.

Ruth smiled and nodded, wondering if she were relieved or disappointed. One could always count on Jim's not doing or saying the thing expected of him. After all, the moment she anticipated was not at hand.

"Of course I dearly love living on the ranch, Mr. Jim. But why do you ask me?" she answered.

"Because I love you, Ruth," Jim returned as quietly as though he had not been trying to speak the three magic words for months. "And I am a ranchman and don't know anything else. I don't understand a whole lot about women, but I believe they ought to like the kind of life a man has to offer before they tie up with him. If you hadn't come to like living out here I never would have told you I loved you, though it had eaten my heart out to keep silent. But you do care for the life now, Ruth, and--do you think you can care for me?"

The two horses were walking slowly side by side, and Jim put out a big warm hand and closed it slowly over Ruth's small cold ones which still held her reins. "I am only an overseer, and haven't much money or education to offer you, and I know how much these things count, but I will do my best for you and I do come of good people, dear, and it wasn't their fault I never learned more----" Jim added at last, hesitating as though even this slight reference to his past was torn from him against his will.

The woman made no answer, and for a little while longer they rode on.

"Can't you tell me, Ruth?" Jim urged gently.

Ruth had not spoken, because she had not known what she wished to say. Before she came out west Ruth Drew thought she hated men and had made up her mind never to marry. Her brother was selfish and idle, her father had been close and mean, and Ruth knew so little of other men she thought them all alike, capable of ugly deeds that women never dreamed of. Yet somehow Jim seemed different. Ruth was twenty-eight, which is not old as women marry nowadays; but everything depends on the point of view, and for a long time Ruth had thought she was to be an old maid.

"I am very fond of you, Mr. Jim, but I don't know that I love you," she answered nervously, in a small voice as cold and aloof as in the early days of her acquaintance with Jim.

But this time Jim laughed. "Don't be afraid of yourself, Ruth, dear," he pleaded, "and don't go back to Vermont to think how you felt when you lived there. I don't want you to be fond of me. You are fond of our old dog, Shep. I want you to love me, Ruth, well enough to go through thick and thin with me, to believe in me and fight for me to the last drop. We are not little people, dear, and I don't want little loving. Love is the biggest thing about us and I want all there is in it from you."

If Jim had leaned over at this moment and put his arm about Ruth, taking her answer for granted he would have saved her and himself much sorrow, for Ruth had one of those uncomfortable New England consciences which would not let her accept the gift of happiness without days of questioning and unrest.

Ruth turned toward her lover, with her eyes full of uncertain tears. "Really I don't know whether I love you in the big way, Mr. Jim," she faltered. "Will you let me wait a little while to find out?"

Poor Ruth--she knew that when she was weary she wanted Jim Colter's strength to rest upon, that when she was sorrowful she wanted his sympathy to comfort her, and that when she was happy she wished him to be the sharer in her joys; yet she did not understand that this trinity of simple emotions meant the big human mystery of love.

"Of course you may have all the time you need, Ruth," Jim replied, not showing his disappointment. "You may have all my life if it takes you that long to find out. But it would be easier for us both if you decide this week. 'Tain't fair for a man to expect a woman to say her yes or no right off at the first asking. He has had all the time beforehand to decide that he wants her to be his wife, but she ain't supposed to think of him as a husband until he has said the word. At least, that is the kind of woman you are, Ruth, and there are plenty like you. I suppose, though, there are some that do a little previous deciding before the male has got right down to the point." Jim was patting Ruth's hands softly, his eyes full of a new content and his face of strength and dignity. Not having a New England conscience he did not feel it necessary to worry, because he could see Ruth cared, and he was willing to wait for the rest.

They were not talking, so the sound of two voices startled them. Through a small clump of evergreen trees, not far from the trail along which they were riding, the smoke of a camp-fire rose in slow circles. A young woman was seated on the ground nursing a baby, and a man and old gypsy woman were scolding at each other.

"It's that fellow, Joe Dawson. I have been having an eye open for him all day," Jim announced curtly, with the sudden sternness in his face and manner that made him feared even by the people who knew him most intimately. "I have been wanting to tell him to clear off this ranch. No matter what business Harmon has with him, he sha'n't stay about here, now you and the girls have come home."

Jim was riding over toward the gypsies, but Joe had seen him and come forward.

"Good evening," he remarked. "Pleasant evening for a ride."

Jim frowned and wasted no words.

"Glad I came across you, Dawson," he returned. "I want you to get off this ranch. I'll give you two days if it takes that much time, but no longer. I told you I wasn't going to have you hanging about here in the early part of the summer, but I presume you have been doing some work for Mr. Harmon, though I never heard of your doing any honest work in your life."

"Oh, no, I haven't reformed to the extent of some people," Gypsy Joe remarked sarcastically. "At least I haven't yet taken to playing the part of 'gardeen' to a parcel of young girls. But look here, John, I can get ugly same as other folks, and it ain't any the less true for being an old saying, 'you had better let sleeping dogs lie.' I can wake up and bite; and I've an idea where it would hurt you the most."

Ruth was walking her horse up and down not far away, trying not to hear what the two men were saying, but they were so angry that their voices carried for some distance on the quiet evening air.

"Get off the Rainbow Ranch, Joe Dawson, or you will be put off," Jim replied roughly, and turned and rode back to Ruth.

The man laughed insolently. "Not if I don't choose to leave, John Carter," he halloed. "You've made the mistake of your life in not making friends with me again, for I can get even with you in more ways than one, and I don't know but that I'll try."

These were the words Ruth thought she heard, but she gave them little heed beyond wondering idly why the impudent tramp called Jim by the wrong name.

These events in the lives of Ruth Drew and Jim Colter took place on the same day that Jack and Frank Kent had their experience by the waters of Rainbow Creek. They had been at home several hours when Frank Kent appeared to disclose the startling news of the discovery of gold deposits on the ranch. It was not until then that Jim Colter guessed why Mr. Harmon had wished to purchase all or a portion of the Rainbow Ranch before its owners could find out the secret of their hidden wealth, and for this same reason had kept the first discoverer of the gold, "Gypsy Joe," lurking about the ranch all summer and had refused to give up the Lodge to the Ralston girls and let them come home when they wished.