The girls gathered about Betsy Clossen to gaze eagerly at the torn fragments of newspaper when that excited little maid burst into the ranch living room announcing that she really had found a clew.
“Where is it? I can’t see anything but plain print,” Babs chattered.
“How did you get back so soon?” Virg inquired. “You couldn’t possibly have climbed the mesa trail. You’ve only been gone ten minutes and that would have taken you half an hour.”
Betsy laughed. “I had an ally in another whirl-wind. I hadn’t gone far when I saw torn fragments of the same newspaper that had been caught on the cactus scudding toward me. Then a gust of wind blew sand in my eyes and I had to turn my back. I was afraid that I had lost the flying pieces, but luckily they had caught on a mesquite bush right at my feet. I pounced on them and on the very top I found written—”
Betsy was holding the pieces back of her and just to tease she asked, “Guess what!”
“Oh Betsy, how provoking you are, must we guess?” Babs pondered a moment then said, “Maybe it was something in the Romany tongue. That is what they call the gypsies’ language, isn’t it?”
But the would-be young detective shook her head and looked inquiringly at Margaret. “Oh, I never could guess, can you Virg?”
“Hm-m! Let me see. It might be a note scribbled by somebody on the Burning Acres, who was trying to send a message to tell that he is stranded and in need of aid.”
“I don’t think that is it.” Betsy brought the paper around and held it up that all might see. Then she pointed at some very fine writing on an upper margin. “If it were intended for someone else to read, it would be larger and clearer.”
“What does it say?” Margaret inquired. But Betsy could not tell. “Why, I thought you told us that you were sure that it is a clew to the whereabouts of the gypsy caravan or of the stolen yearlings.”
Betsy was about to defend her theory when Virginia, who had taken the paper to the window that she might better see the very fine writing, exclaimed: “It seems to be a memorandum of some kind. I can read several words, but altogether they make but little sense. They are ‘five miles beyond.’ I can’t make out beyond what, then comes ‘turn toward mountains,’ after that the pencil marks are blurred until the last sentence, which is, ‘likely to make a find there.’”
Betsy whirled toward Margaret, glowing, triumphant. “There now, Mistress Doubter, isn’t that a clew and a fine one?”
“Well,” the other maid replied rather reluctantly. “It might be, and yet again it might be merely a paper that some mining prospector was reading when a whirl-wind came along. What you read, Virg, would be just about what a miner would jot down, don’t you think?”
The Western girl nodded. “Yes, dear, I believe so. Wait until I get the magnifying glass and perhaps the blurred part will be clearer.”
While Virg had gone in search of it, Malcolm appeared calling, “Ready for breakfast girls?” Then seeing their excited expressions, he inquired: “What’s up?” Betsy’s words fairly tumbled out in her eagerness to be the one to relate the story of her find. The lad took the fragment and looked at it intently. “It wasn’t written by the type of prospector who usually climbs over these mountains with pick and shovel hunting for copper. In fact most of them can hardly write at all,” was the lad’s decision.
Virg at that moment appeared, and holding up the magnifying glass, she exclaimed, “Now perhaps we will find out the secret hidden in that blurred writing.”
Even Malcolm believed that Betsy might have found a clew and they all bent over the fragment of newspaper which Virginia had spread on a table near the window. After several moments of intent scrutiny, he told the girls what he believed was the meaning of the very fine and frequently blurred hand writing.
Betsy was elated.
“Whizzle,” she exclaimed excitedly, “it is a clew after all. A whale of a clew!”
“Brother, read it again and then tell us what you make of it,” Virginia urged.
So once more Malcolm placed the magnifying glass over the torn fragment of the newspaper and read the fine writing.
“Tenderfoot, O. K. Wheels N. G. in desert. Ought to have known better. Stuck for keeps, seems like. No ranches in sight. Don’t know what to do with—” The paper was torn there.
“Malcolm,” Virginia began anxiously, “do you suppose that the missing word might have been yearlings? Has some tenderfoot attempted to make away with our entire herd?”
The lad looked serious but after a thoughtful moment he shook his head. “I can’t believe it is possible. What paper is this, anyway?”
“A page from the Chicago Tribune,” Betsy told him. Then, eager to help solve the mystery, she hurried on to say: “Chicago is the place where your cattle were to be sold, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I planned shipping the yearlings in a few days. The empty cars are on the side track at Silver Creek station this very minute. As soon as Lucky and I had them loaded, we were to wire Douglas and the cars were to be picked up by the freight that night.”
“I know what Betsy thinks,” Virginia said. “She believes that some tenderfoot rustler tried to steal the cattle and ship them as his own. Would such a thing be possible, Malcolm?”
“Possible, but not probable,” was the answer.
“Then what do you make of it?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t,” was the smilingly given reply. “But I do know that we will all starve and that Sing Long will be on the rampage if we don’t go out and eat the fine breakfast he has prepared for us.”
“Whizzle! I have been so interested and excited that I had actually forgotten that I am almost starved,” Betsy declared as they entered the big sunny kitchen, at one end of which was a table that could seat twelve without crowding, for, on the desert, one never knew when a passing cowboy, or a group of them, might stop at meal time.
When the first pangs of hunger had been satisfied, Virginia said: “Now brother, tell us your theory.”
“I’d like to hear Betsy’s first.” Malcolm was much amused by the small, bright-eyed girl who took such an unusual interest (for one feminine) in the solving of mysteries.
They all turned to listen and so Betsy began. “Well, of course I know very little about the ways of the desert, but I should think that Virginia’s suggestion, a little while ago, might be the right one. But since you doubt it, Malcolm, I’m beginning to think that the something the writer didn’t know what to do with, might not be the stolen yearlings after all.”
The lad nodded. Then glancing at Margaret, he asked, “Who else has a theory?” Flushing prettily as she always did when her guardian addressed her, the quiet Megsy replied, “I don’t believe that I have one, but I just know that you have, Malcolm. Won’t you tell it to us?”
“I may be wrong,” the lad began, “but, from the wording of the memorandum, I believe a boy has written it, and surely a tenderfoot, else he would not have tried to cross the desert in a prairie schooner, if that’s what he has. Maybe he’s here for his health. Many a lad finds his lungs in danger after years of hard study, and they come out here to rough it and get strong again. Anyway, that’s my guess. I don’t believe that the writer of this note has ever even heard of our lost yearlings.”
“Hark!” Virginia cried, springing up and running to the door. “What’s all the commotion outside?”
There was indeed a most unusual commotion not far away, but, from the kitchen window nothing could be seen but the sandy door-yard, the chicken corral, the outhouses and farther down the slope and near the dry creek, the adobe cabin of the Mahoys.
Malcolm, at once on the alert, caught his sombrero from its place near the back door. He leaped from the porch without taking time to descend the steps, and, before the astounded girls could speak, he was racing for the corral that was down in the valley-like hollow near the towering red windmill.
“Girls!” Virg had listened but a moment when she whirled, her cheeks burning, her eyes glowing, “Don’t you know what it means, that bellowing of cattle and shouting of men?”
“It sounds like a round-up to me,” Barbara ventured.
“It is! It surely is! Oh, if only someone has found the lost yearlings.” The four girls were running so fast that Virg had not breath to finish her sentence. A second later they reached the top of the trail and in the depression below them, they saw something which filled their heart with rejoicing.
“The yearlings! Oh how happy Malcolm will be,” Margaret cried. “Virg, you too, how glad you must be!”
“How do you suppose it happened?” Betsy was tremendously interested, this being the first time she had witnessed the driving in of a restless herd of cattle.
“Slim found them,” Virg said. “See Megsy, how cleverly he herds them toward the open gate of the corral. There’s one that is trying to make a break.”
“Goodness that wild one has turned. It’s charging right at that cowboy. Slim, did you call him?” Betsy had her hand on her heart and her eyes expressed terror, but Virginia laughed. “That’s nothing unusual. Watch what happens.”
It was quite evident that the young cowboy, Slim, had his eye on the angry young steer that had stopped to paw the ground and snort in a most threatening manner. The boy drew rein and coiled his rope. Lucky and Malcolm were also in the saddle and they were trying to quiet the remainder of the herd and drive them into the corral. Slim backed his horse, all the time swinging his rope and keeping a watchful eye on the snorting young steer.
“Whizzle,” Betsy clutched Virginia’s arm and held tight. “I wish Slim would look where he is going. He may back his horse right over that cliff and into the dry creek.”
“Don’t worry, dear. Slim knows every step his horse is taking even though he isn’t looking. If I didn’t know how that cowboy of ours can ride, I too, might be worried. There, now watch!”
Angered beyond endurance by the whistling of the rope as it swung round and round the head of Slim, the enraged creature which knew in some way that this cowboy was depriving him of the freedom of the range, made a sudden lunge, his head bent to bowl over whatever it first struck.
Betsy screamed, but the lowing of the restless cattle drowned her cry. “He’ll be thrown! Why doesn’t Slim do something?”
“He is waiting his time,” Virg said quietly. “See how his pony leaped to one side. They’re well trained, those wiry bronchos.”
Malcolm and Lucky, having driven the remainder of the herd into the corral, had closed and barred the gate. Malcolm, however, stood there ready to swing it open if the rebellious steer should be headed that way, while Lucky rode out to assist Slim if his services were needed, but they were not, for once again the young steer plunged, the rope sung through the air, and catching the forefeet of the animal, sent it with a thud to the ground.
The loop of Lucky’s rope caught about its neck. Then, when Slim’s rope had loosened, the creature scrambled to its feet, and, half stunned, permitted itself to be led and driven into the corral. Then the gates were again closed.
“Now tell us, where did you find them?” Malcolm asked Slim.
The good looking young cowboy removed his sombrero, wiped his hot brow with his red bandana handkerchief and then burst into unexpected laughter.
“Well, Malcolm,” he chuckled, “Ah reckon that thar dod-busted steer that’s been so plumb rampagious this mornin’ was at the bottom of the whole thing.”
“Then you don’t think that gypsies tried to steal them?” It was the first time that Betsy had addressed Slim.
He had not noticed the young stranger. Virginia, noting his expression of surprise exclaimed, “Betsy, this is Slim our prize broncho buster and sure shot roper.”
The young cowboy laughed disparagingly. “Don’t take no stock in all a-that, Miss Betsy,” he said.
“Oh, I know it without being told,” was the young girl’s eager response. “Didn’t I see you rope that wild steer with my very own eyes.”
Malcolm, anxious to know where the cattle had been found turned the subject back to the point where it had digressed.
“No, sir, ’twant gypsies nor yet again cattle thieves that let the yearlings out of their pen. ’Twas that wild one himself.”
“But, Slim, that doesn’t seem probable or possible for the fence was not broken and the cattle cannot open the gate,” Malcolm was saying when Betsy who had turned to glance at the corral in which the restless herd was pacing back and forth, uttered a cry of warning.
“Look! Quick! Slim is right! That wild steer is pushing the bar.”
With a variety of expletives the cowboys leaped forward and were in time to prevent a second escape of the herd.
For sometime after that, they were engaged in making the fastening of the gate more secure. The girls remained as interested spectators. When Malcolm at last straightened up, he turned to them and said with his pleasant smile, “And so, Mistress Betsy, we are doomed to disappoint you, for there really isn’t any mystery to unravel after all.”
But Slim had again removed his sombrero and he was thoughtfully rubbing his glossy brown hair. Suddenly he turned toward the little stranger.
“Ah say, Miss Betsy, what was that thar you asked me in the beginning. ’Pears to me like ’twas suthin’ namin’ gypsies.”
“Yes, it was.” Then eagerly, hopefully. “Mr. Slim, you didn’t see anything of them while you were hunting for the cattle, did you?”
“Wall now, I reckon mebbe I did and yet agin mebbe, I didn’t. Ah’m not tolerably sartin’, but I saw suthin’ mighty perplexin’.”
Then inquiringly to Malcolm. “You-all don’ figger that any copper diggers ’d be loony enuf to cross the desert in a wagon, do you?”
“No, indeed. I’m as good as certain that they wouldn’t,” Malcolm began, when Betsy hopped up and down and clapped her hands as she interrupted. “Oh! Oh! tell us quick, Mr. Slim, did you see the wagon? We’ve been hunting for it everywhere.”
The cowboy was so plainly puzzled that Virginia told him the story of the gypsy caravan as Davie had told it to Malcolm and Lucky.
“Wall, all as I saw was tracks headin’, seemed like toward Puffed Snake Water Hole. But Ah was driving the herd in jest then an’ couldn’t leave to do no investigatin’.”
“Good! I’m glad they were heading away from V. M. Ranch, whoever they are.” Malcolm said then added: “Boys, I think we’d better all three drive this herd in to the station. It’s going to take some skillful handling to get them aboard the cars. It’s nine now and I expected to get them loaded by this time.” Then anxiously, “Slim, you’ve had a hard time of it this past twenty-four hours. You ought to get some sleep before we start.”
“Caint spare the time, Malcolm. Ah reckon thar’ll be enough for sleep when this here herd is boxed up in the car. Ah reckon thar will.”
Lucky had been silently watching the restlessly lowing heard. “Malcolm,” he said, “we’d better start, ’pears like. That wild one’s got to wear a drag to keep it from boltin’, an’ that’ll make it plumb slow goin’ for the rest.”
“Right you are,” the young master of V. M. replied. “We certainly don’t want to take any chances on a stampede today, since the cars are scheduled to be picked up by the through freighter tonight at seven.” Then, turning to his sister, he added, “Virg, will you girls pack us some grub and we’ll start as soon as we can get the herd in shape.”
“Indeed we will.” Then catching the hands of two of her friends and nodding to the third, away she ran toward the ranch house.
“Oh, I just adore all this,” Betsy exclaimed an hour later when the girls, having packed the saddle bags with good things until they bulged, stood out on the front veranda watching the three cowboys as they drove the still restless herd up over the mesa.
“That poor wild steer will wish he had been less obstreperous,” the quiet Margaret said. “He can hardly take a step without stumbling over that long pole that drags between his front legs.”
“I like him,” Babs surprised the others by remarking. “I like his spirit. Somehow a desire for freedom seems to belong to the desert and his surely is unquenchable, but next week he will be—”
“Oh, do let’s forget that part of it.” Virginia spoke with unusual seriousness. “I hate it.” Then noting the expressions of inquiry, she explained. “I don’t understand in the least what makes me feel so queerly about it. Nevertheless, I do. I don’t believe that we have any right to take that wonderful thing, Life, from any creature to which it has been given. We may find sometime that we have been doing something grievously wrong. But there,” she added in a gayer tone, “since I am the part owner of a business that raises live stock for the sole purpose of taking life, it hardly behooves me to moralize about it.”
“Does Malcolm know that you feel that way?” Margaret asked.
Virg shook her head. Then slipping her hand in that of her friend, Megsy, said earnestly, “I agree with you. I’d heaps rather raise beets to sell.”
A merry laugh greeted this remark, and then Betsy, who was never long content with just conversing exclaimed. “Virg, let’s do something interesting right after lunch.”
Virginia smiled. “I was going to suggest that we all take a siesta.” Then she laughed at the dismay pictured in the face which a moment before had been so eager.
But the youngest was not to be daunted. Whirling toward Barbara, she wheedled. “Babsie, you don’t want to sleep, do you? Let Megsy and Virg siesticate if they wish, but suppose you and I go for a ride.”
“I’ll make a bargain with you, Betsy.” It was Virg who was speaking. “If you’ll be as quiet as a little mouse and let us, who wish to, nap until three, we’ll all go for a ride anywhere you choose.”
“Oh, will you, honest injun, cross your heart!” The would-be little detective seemed more eager than before and the reason was that she wanted to get Virginia to promise to do something without telling her what it was.
The unsuspecting older girl nodded, then as the bell was ringing they all went in to lunch. Betsy lingered back of Virg and beckoning Babs she whispered something in her ear. “Oh, Virg won’t do that,” Barbara told her.
“But she’ll have to. You yourself heard her promise to ride this afternoon in any direction that I wish and I’m just wild to go there.”