w the fresh morning air was fragrant with their
perfume. Of course the flowers had not yet had time to pay for the
expense of planting them, but Frieda was eagerly calculating how many
bunches she would have to send to the nearest town, when Jean joined
her.

"Don't you wish we could spend this whole day out of doors, Jean?"
Frieda suggested. "I forgot to say anything about it to Jack, but you
know how we have talked about riding over to the Giant's Canyon to have
our lunch. Aunt Ellen can pack our saddle bags, and we can join Jack at
the rancho."

After a ten minutes' walk, Jacqueline Ralston touched the brim of her
broad sombrero hat with a military salute and brought her heels sharply
together, when a tall figure came down the path toward her from the
rancho with his hands deep in his old leather trousers. She was near the
mess-house, where the men who worked the ranch had their quarters. The
girls called it "Jim's rancho," to distinguish it from their own home
half a mile away.

Jim Colter returned Jack's salute gravely. He was a handsome man of
about thirty, with black hair and skin almost as swarthy as a Mexican's.
The queer thing about his appearance was that his eyes were as blue and
as gentle as a baby's, except when he was angry and then there was no
harder man in Wyoming to deal with than the overseer of Rainbow Ranch.
Jack would not have dared to let him know how rude Dan Norton had been
to her.

Jim was a man of mystery. He came from goodness knows where; no one knew
anything of his past. One day, many years before, he rode up to the
ranch house nearly dead from fatigue and hunger. Mr. Ralston took him in
and he never went away again. But he would not say one word about
himself and no one dared to ask him many questions, because his blue
eyes would suddenly grow black and angry and he would look as though he
were recalling something he wanted to forget.

Jim was devoted to Jack and Jean, but Frieda was his special favorite.
She was only two years old when he came to live at Rainbow Ranch, but he
taught her to ride and to swim, when other babies were only just
learning to walk. He and Mr. Ralston used to ride all over the great
ranch, with Frieda tucked up in front of Jim's saddle and Jack perched
behind her father's when both little girls were almost babies. By the
time she was fourteen, Jacqueline Ralston, who was her father's shadow,
knew the trick of lassoing. There was not a cowboy on the ranch wh