CHAPTER XLIV—THE MESSAGE FOUND.
The three girls, tired indeed from the long day with its varied adventures, had found themselves weary enough to sleep in the wide bed to which Winona had referred, and even Babs had forgotten to lie awake and listen for moccasined feet to creep stealthily toward her beside as she had been so sure that she should.
The fact was that the Papagoes seemed very kindly folk, no longer thought of them as Indians, but rather as simple, trusting, child-like friends.
It was just before dawn when Virginia awoke with a start. She wondered what had awakened her, and then as the sunlight streamed in through the high opening that served as a window, she suddenly thought of something. The message! Now that it was daylight, she might be better able to decipher it. She could not understand why she was so curious concerning it, since it could have no direct bearing upon her interests or those of her friends.
Nevertheless, she was eager, and, so very quietly, not to awaken the sleeping girls, she rose and dressed. Then she slipped out to the main living-room. Winona was in the rear door-yard baking corn cakes in the stone oven, and, after greeting her, Virginia seated herself on the adobe step of the front porch to enjoy the warmth of the sun, for the morning was crisply cold. Then opening the brown paper, she studied it intently. On another paper she carefully rewrote the forms of the scrawled letters hoping that would enable her to recognize them more readily, and it did, for when she had three words copied, their meaning came to her as though by inspiration. Her heart gave a sudden leap and she could scarcely keep from crying aloud to the other girls, but she decided to translate the entire message, if she could, before awakening them, for, after all, the first three words did not give the needed information. She read them again and again. Surely they were: “Los Boregos estan—the sheep are—” but try as she might she could not read the longer and more difficult words that followed.
Margaret and Barbara soon sauntered out upon the porch, but, so absorbed was Virginia that she did not know of their near presence. Suddenly she sprang up saying aloud, “We’ll do it! We’ll do it at once.”
“Virginia Davis, you talking to yourself,” Margaret teased, “Uncle Tex does that, but we excuse him because he is so very old.”
“Don’t joke now, Megsy dear,” Virginia said seriously, “I believe that we have come upon a matter of great importance. This message may contain information, if we can get at it, that may not only restore to Mr. Wilson his stolen sheep, but may also save the life of our dear friend Tom.”
Then she showed them the three words she had copied and told them what she believed them to mean.
“But Virg, dear,” Margaret said, “although I sincerely hope that the message does refer to the lost Merinos, you know that we are now in the sheep country and those three words might refer to any herd, shouldn’t you say so?”
Virginia nodded. “You are right, Megsy. My eagerness to find Tom makes me grasp at straws. Nevertheless, I would never forgive myself if I found out, too late, that this message did really refer to Mr. Wilson’s lost sheep, and so, I will repeat what you heard me saying to myself a minute ago. We’ll do it and we’ll do it at once.”
“Suppose we have breakfast out here on the sunny porch,” Winona said, appearing in the doorway with a basket weave tray heaped with golden corn bread hot from the oven. “Margaret, will you bring the mugs that we used last night, and Barbara, perhaps you will help her, as each one is filled with steaming coffee.”
When the two girls had gone within, Winona turned to Virginia who stood intent again upon the message. Laying a slim, dark hand on the arm of her friend, she asked, “Have you found the meaning yet, Virginia?”
Virg glanced up, her cheeks flushed with excitement, then, taking the hand of the Indian maiden, she held it close as she said, “Winona, maybe, just maybe, this message may tell us where to find Tom, and oh, how I do want to find him.”
Tears sprang to her eyes as she added, “He is as dear to me as a brother, I think.”
“Tom will be found,” Winona said in a tone of quiet conviction.
Virginia looked up eagerly as she asked, “Winona, you say that as though you really knew.”
The Indian girl looked out toward the cliffs and in her eyes there was an expression as though she were seeing a vision. “I cannot tell how I know,” she said, then smiling directly into the eyes of her friend, she added, “But I know.”
The good breakfast was rather hurriedly eaten, for when the girls had heard what Virginia had decided to do, they were all as much excited about it as she.
“You don’t mean that we are really, truly, going to ride north to the Wilson Ranch,” Margaret exclaimed, and Barbara equally amazed, added, “But Virg, you said one had to cross the mountains that we see towering above the cliff, did you not?”
The western girl nodded. “Aren’t you afraid that we might take the wrong trail and be lost?” Babs continued.
“You will not be lost.” It was Winona who had spoken in that calm quieting voice of hers, “for Red Feather and I will accompany you, and too, perhaps Eagle Eyes would like to go. The lads know every trail on these snow-capped mountains and they are always glad to have an adventure, whatever its nature.”
An hour later, the four girls, with the two Indian boys in the lead, left the almost hidden entrance in the wall of the rock and started on the long hard ride toward the mountains far to the north.
Virginia had carefully fastened the bit of brown paper in a place of safety, and, as they rode along in single file, her eyes were often on the trail ahead of them, and her thoughts were with Tom. How happy they would all try to make him at the V. M. if only they could find him well and unharmed. She and Margaret would let him know that they cared for him like a brother and that they wished him to feel that their home was also his home.
With a sudden thought of what might have happened to him came to her, she closed her eyes and tried not to look at the suggested picture, for, all too well she knew how cruel rustlers could be when they wished to dispose of a herder who might some day be a witness against them.
“Isn’t it time to stop for lunch?” she heard Margaret asking, and, so intently had she been thinking, that her friend’s voice sounded far off.
“Yes, I believe it is high sun,” she replied as she glanced at the heavens.
“Oh, here is an adorable spot by this mountain brook,” Babs said as they alighted, but, though Virginia tried to listen to the chatter of her friends, her thoughts kept wandering away to Tom. Suddenly, glancing up, she found Winona’s calm gaze upon her and a peace crept into her heart. The Indian girl had said, “Tom will be found.”—But when and where?