“Isn’t that the most wonderful news?” Margaret cried. “Oh Virg! I can hardly believe it possible that I am to see my beloved roommate this very day.”
“It is hard to believe but it must be true,” her friend laughingly replied; then she called to the little boy who was starting away on his Pinto. “Wait, I am going to give you something.”
The something was a big shiny silver dollar. The boy’s eyes were almost as big and bright when he clasped it in his small grimy hand. “Is it all fo’ me Miss Virginia?” he asked, and, when assured that it was he ejaculated, “Gee Whilikers!” Then, quite forgetting his manners, he started the pony on a mad race for home but whirled around to shout, “Thank you, Miss Virginia!” from up on the mesa trail.
“If I only knew that all is well at the Wilson Ranch,” Virginia said, “I would be so happy about Barbara’s coming. Of course I am glad, as it is, to have her visit us, but it does seem as though I can’t be really merry again until I know what has happened to Tom.”
“I understand just how you feel, dear,” Margaret replied as the two girls, having returned their horses to the corral, started walking arm in arm toward the house.
At dinner that noon Virginia asked Lucky if he would drive them to The Junction in their car, which Malcolm called the “Rollabout,” to meet the 2:10 train. The kindly cow-boy assured them that he would do so. At 1 o’clock the two girls were in the big touring car with Lucky at the wheel, and at 2 o’clock were waiting at the Junction for the coming of the train.
“Maybe some word about Tom will arrive from Malcolm while we are here,” Virginia said, as she and Margaret sat on the bench in front of the long, low building which was station, postoffice, general store and home of the Wells family.
There were no other buildings in sight, only desert and mountains with here and there, near the creek bed, a clump of cottonwood trees where a silver thread of water trickled from the rocks.
Suddenly Virginia sprang up and listened to the clicking of the instrument within. “A telegram,” she said. “But Mr. Wells isn’t here so how are we to know what it is?”
“There he is, down the track,” Margaret told her, and Virginia, running forward, eagerly called, “Oho, Mr. Wells, isn’t a telegram coming in?”