"You wouldn't talk like that if Mr. Hammond should be hurt," said
Grace admonishingly.
"Of course he won't be!" returned Bess. "What nonsense!"
But perhaps Rhoda did not feel so much assurance. At least she warned them all to say nothing about the raid by the Mexicans when they arrived at Rose Ranch.
"Mother will probably not ask where daddy has gone; and what she doesn't know will not alarm her," Rhoda explained.
All the bands of horses for the home corrals had been driven away before the lumbering chuck wagons started from the encampment. Rhoda and her friends soon were out of sight of the slower-moving mule teams.
They did not ride straight for Rose Ranch; but, having come out of the valley, they skirted the hills on the lookout for game. Rhoda and Walter both carried rifles now, and Nan was eager to get a shot at something besides a tin can.
The herd of horses had gone down into the valley, of course; therefore more timid creatures ventured out of the hills on to the plain. It was not an hour after high-noon when Rhoda descried through her glasses a group of grazing animals some distance ahead.
"Goodness! what are they?" demanded Bess, when her attention had been called to them. "Chickens?"
"The idea!"
"They don't look any bigger than chickens," said Bess, with confidence.