CHAPTER XXII.
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT.
A ROUGH voice aroused Olive. She sprang up in terror and stood pressedclose against the piled up freight in the car. It was an odd-lookingfigure she made, as though she had stepped out of a world severalhundred years younger than the present one. The coarse man who watchedher dimly felt it.
The girl's shoes were ragged and hardly covered her slender feet, herskirt was torn and old. Over her shoulders hung a strange fur garment,shapeless, save that a hole had been cut in the center for her head. Herbeautiful black hair was braided and one long plait hung over eachshoulder; her head was uncovered and her delicate face, with its pointedchin, was deathly pale. She was trembling. Dark shadows encircled hergreat black eyes and there was a look not of defiance but of pleading inthem.
So picturesque a passenger had never before stolen a ride on a modernfreight train. She belonged to the days of the pioneer settlers in thenew land of America.
"How did you come here?" the man demanded gruffly.
Olive's voice shook. She had thought it would be easy to tell her story,if she could only get away from the Indians, but this fierce manfrightened her more than any one of them could have done. What must shesay? Where could she begin with the tale of her misfortunes.
"I stole in, when the train stopped a while ago, I don't just knowwhen," Olive answered vaguely. She could not tell how long she had beenasleep.
"Then you'll git out the next time it stops, young Missie," the trainmanannounced harshly. "I'd put you off right now, but we are already behindtime, because of a rascally Indian boy a piece up the road. Better stayhid and not let our engineer catch sight of you, or he'd make it goodand hot for you. Maybe he would turn you over to the police."
Olive could not realize it, but her appearance had already touched herdiscoverer. She crouched in her corner again and bowed her head in herslim brown hands, as she had the day when the ranch girls brought herout of Frieda's cave. She did not try to defend herself.
The trainman climbed up on a box and sat whittling a stick and watchingOlive out of a pair of shrewd Irish blue eyes. He was not a fierce man.He had a wife and five tow-headed children, living in one of the littleframe shacks along the line of the railroad. The man was clever enoughto see that Olive was not an ordinary thief or impostor.
"Are you sick, girl?" the man inquired, surprised by Olive's silence.
The girl shook her head. "Oh, no, I am not sick, thank you," Oliveanswered gently, "but I am very tired. I ran away from an Indianencampment before dawn to-day. Would you mind telling me where thistrain is going?"
Little by little Olive told the whole history of her strange life to theIrishman, who sat on the box in the freight car and never ceased hiswhittling for a moment.
"By St. Peter!" he muttered, when Olive finished replying to his lastquestion. "This girl tells a story that might have come out of a poetryor a history book. The funny thing is, her story must be true! Oh,well," he announced to himself, not to Olive, "there is one thingcertain. Nobody can ever make up in their heads such all-fired queerthings as happen every day."
But the man had not answered Olive's question as to where this train wasgoing. She had not the courage to ask him again.
By and by Olive saw little houses along the road and knew that theirtrain was nearing a small, western town. She got up and touched theIrishman timidly on the arm. "May I get off at the station myself,please?" she begged. "You won't have to put me off."
The man shook his head severely. "No, you are not going to get offyourself," he returned gruffly, "and I ain't going to put you offeither. If you can keep on making yourself small, and you are a prettythin kind of a girl, I am going to take you farther down the road withus. I have an idea this here freight train will run along somewhere nearWolfville in the course of the afternoon. You have had such bad luck inthe past, Missie, that maybe your luck has changed. Anyhow, when youbutted blindly into this freight car, you found a coach going in justabout the way you needed to travel. Don't worry your head any more aboutwhat you are to do. I'll put you off at Wolfville, and though it looks abit cloudy, as though it might mean to blow up a bit of snow, I expectyou'll manage to get back to the Ralston Ranch, somehow, before night."
Olive, satisfied that this kind-hearted stranger would look out for her,dozed on, half waking and half sleeping. Neither she nor her new friendknew how exhausted she was. She had passed through several weeks ofdreadful hardship, exposure and unhappiness, and now she felt too happyto think or care because her head ached dully, and her legs shook so shecould hardly stand on them. She would be home soon with Frieda and Jeanand Jack!
Several hours went by. The trainman left the car and attended to hisduties. But Olive had entire faith that he would not forget her.
At a little past five o'clock in the afternoon the freight train came toa stop near the little town of Wolfville, which was only a matter of tenmiles from Rainbow Ranch. The wind was blowing with a queer, ominousrattling sound and a few flakes of snow were falling.
Olive's new friend gazed at her a little queerly, as he lifted her outon the platform. There were no people in sight except the stationmaster, for it was almost dark and the stopping of a freight train wasof little interest.
"Sure you know how to get to your friends from here?" the Irishman askedOlive. She took time to nod and wave her hand, then ran swiftly awayfrom the station in the direction of Rainbow Ranch.
If Olive had gone into the town, someone would have driven her to theLodge, or else sent word to Jim Colter or the Ralston girls that she wasin safe-keeping for the night. A prairie snowstorm was approaching andfew people would have cared to trust themselves to a ten-mile drive atthis hour of the winter evening.
But Olive did not think of further danger. Ten miles seemed to her to beso near home that she could not bear a second's delay in trying to reachthere. For the first few miles she ran swiftly along, as she knew thetrail and it was not too dark to follow it. The stinging wind cut herface and at times the snow blinded her. But the distance was only ashort walk for a girl who had spent all her life out of doors in thegreat West. Yet Olive should have known what a snowstorm in Wyoming,with a heavy pall of gray clouds and a scudding blast, meant.
After a while, her feet in her worn shoes felt like wooden pegs stumpingon the frozen earth. Her hands had lost all feeling, although shemanaged to draw the rabbit-skin furs that Carlos had given her, over herhead and to keep her hands under them. The snow no longer fell in flakesbut in white sheets, lashed and driven by the force of the storm.
The trail across the plains to the Ralston Ranch was quickly hidden.Mountains of snow piled up in front of Olive, deep gullies appeared ather feet, where the land was usually as level as a table, and she had noidea in which direction she should try to travel. But she fought her wayon, thinking perhaps that another wanderer might overtake her, or thatshe might catch a glimpse of the lights of some ranch house. If shecould find an objective point ahead of her, she felt that she might getto it. But to move blindly in a circle of snow, brought no hope of anyrelief.
Yet Olive knew she must keep moving if she wished to live. She did notsuffer the same agony from the cold, that she had at first. The windblew her about, as though she had been a bit of paper. She staggered andfell in the snowdrifts, got up and pressed on wishing that even a wildanimal would scurry past her on the way to its retreat. But animals arealways wiser than human beings before the approach of a storm. Everyhead of cattle, every horse on the plains, every beast in the forest hadfound a rude shelter. Olive felt herself entirely alone in a savage,white world.
But in quiet natures like Olive's, there is a wonderful power ofresistance. She had endured so much, she had learned the fortitude thatcomes with misfortune.
She prayed silently through the hours she struggled. There were momentswhen she believed she spied the light of Rainbow Lodge gleaming on thecruel surface of the snow. She would fight her way to this place, onlyto discover that her own blind des
ire had led her astray.
Night came on, but there was little change from the twilight. The fewstars that broke through the clouds only made the way more blinding.
Olive's patience, Carlos' planning seemed to have been in vain.
Again Olive dreamed she saw some lights ahead of her. Her mind was nolonger clear. She could not remember why she was out alone in the snow.She cried for Jack, when she had the strength, but the tears froze onher face.
Olive reached out her arms toward her vision of the lights of RainbowLodge. She was either too blind or too utterly spent to see the snowbankin front of her, as suddenly it shut out her mirage of home. The girlgave a cry of despair with all the feeble strength that was left in herand tumbled headlong into the cold embrace of the snow. But the snow wasno longer cold. It was strangely warm and she was shut away from thecruel winds.
The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge Page 22