"Have you heaps of letters, Jack? Do please hurry and give them to us." Jean Bruce called out, walking away from the two young men with whom she had been recently talking. One of them was Ralph Merritt, the engineer in charge of the Rainbow mine, and the other a visitor from one of the neighboring ranches. For as Jack had always insisted, wherever Jean was to be found there also was a masculine admirer, even in a wilderness.
Over her shoulder Jack carried a small leather mail bag, which she now opened; but before drawing forth her letters she leaned over and glanced anxiously into the face of the small baby snuggled in Ruth's arms.
"Nothing has happened to Jimmikins since I have been away? He has not cut a tooth or anything, has he, Ruth?" she queried. And as the others laughed, the baby being at the present hour only about seven weeks old, Jack drew forth more than a dozen letters and began passing them around to the different members of her family.
"Here, Jean, of course there are more for you than for any of the rest of us, and in so many handwritings that it looks as if you kept a correspondence school for young men. And, Frieda, I am sorry I had to discover this was from Tom. But the youth does send you so many boxes of candy, I can't help recognizing the address. Ruth, won't you ask everybody please to wait here a moment for I have something really important to tell you." Then Jack's radiant face grew graver.
"I have at last had a long letter from Olive," she explained. "And a week after her grandmother's death the will was read." The girl glanced about her. Ralph Merrit and their visitor had walked off several yards, so that only the few persons interested were standing near.
"Of course old Madame Van Mater has made the curious will that we might have expected. For it seems that she has given Olive one more year to make up her mind whether or not she will marry Donald Harmon. If she does, of course they will then inherit the greater portion of the estate with only a few legacies to be paid outside. But if she does not decide to marry him--and here is the strange thing--at the end of the year another will is to be read, which will divide the property differently. And no one knows just how, for this second will is sealed and in the possession of her executors. So Olive may finally be left penniless or she may receive everything, or else Donald may suffer the same fate. It is a queer and interesting state of things, isn't it?" Jack concluded.