“What do you see, Virg? Hieroglyphics that you find hard to decipher?”
“Well, it is something puzzling,” the western girl declared. “I believe that Tom first signed another name to this letter, and then, remembering that his real name was to be kept a secret, known only to himself, he has carefully erased it, but even so there is a faint lining of letters perceptible. How I do wish that we could make them out, although, perhaps we ought not to pry into Tom’s secret if he does not wish to share it with us.”
“May I look at the signature?” Megsy asked. Virginia gave her the letter, and Margaret taking the sheet of paper held it up to the sun.
After gazing at it intently for several seconds, she uttered a squeal of excited delight. “Virginia,” she announced, “I am just sure that I can make out the capital letter beginning the last name. See! It’s a W, isn’t it? There can be no mistake as to that.”
Virginia also looked and although none of the others could be recognized, she too, was convinced that the last name began the letter her friend had mentioned.
Suddenly Margaret turned toward her, with eyes that glowed.
“Virginia Davis,” she exclaimed excitedly, “has it ever entered your thought even remotely that our Tom might be Peyton Wente, the lost brother of Babs?”
“Why no, dear. It never had,” Virginia replied. “Do you suppose that it might be possible? And yet, if it were true, we wouldn’t want to tell Babs that the brother whom she so adores is a fugitive from justice.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Margaret reluctantly admitted. Then, after a thoughtful moment, she added, “but I would like to know for our own sake, wouldn’t you, Virg?”
“Yes, I would,” the western girl agreed. “The more I know of Tom the more I am convinced that he belongs to a refined family, and I also believe there is a mistake about the mysterious something for which he is an outlaw from Texas.”