call no fairer
picture than the scene before her. Her eyes had looked out only on the
western lands since she could remember. "Well, Jim, don't you think it
would be a good scheme for us to look up this court record?" Jack
inquired more hopefully. "Mr. Norton couldn't say it was false."

"Look here, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim answered more gruffly than he had
ever spoken to her before. "Do you think that you are the only member of
Rainbow Ranch who has any business head? What have I been doing these
last few days but looking up that very record of the sale of Rainbow
Ranch to John Ralston, Esq.? But I have wasted my time. It wasn't any
use. The court record is gone, same as our own deed."

"But that isn't possible, Jim," Jack argued faintly, feeling the world
begin to spin round faster and faster, so she could hardly sit on her
horse. "I thought nobody ever dared touch anything that belonged to a
court of law."

"Jack," Jim demanded severely, "will you kindly remember that we are
living in the State of Wyoming and that we haven't been a State but a
powerful few years? When your father first came to Wyoming, this country
was pretty well filled up with wild beasts, wild Indians and some pretty
wild white men. There weren't but a few towns and they weren't slow
towns either. Things used to go on in them that a girl don't need to
know about. One of the tricks the bad men used to play was to change the
county seat over night, just for their own convenience. A band of men
would ride up to the courthouse, gather up the court records, the law
books and anything else that came in handy, and carry them off to a new
town. Next morning when folks woke up, they would find the county seat
moved and maybe a new judge and a new sheriff. In one of these here
little midnight excursions, they must have carried off the court records
which showed your father bought our old ranch fair and true. The book
must have been lost, for the record has disappeared, same as our own
title to the place. You can kind of see that old man Norton has got us
in a tight place, can't you, Jack?" Jim ended gloomily.

"We don't have to tell Jean and Frieda yet, do we, Jim?" Jack pleaded
wistfully. "It won't do any good to make them miserable so long as we
can keep the news from them."

Jim shook his head. "No sense in your bearing the whole burden alone,
Jack. You ain't much older than Jean, you know. Besides, maybe little
Frieda will be the very one of us to