Babs was eagerly listening. “Oh, was that little Red Feather, Megsy, that you wrote me about? I’m just wild to see him.”
Virginia assented. “I wonder what he wanted,” she said, then, as a sudden thought came to her, she caught Margaret’s hand as she exclaimed, “Megsy, if Tom manages to escape from the rustlers, I do believe that he would go to the Indian village to hide. A stranger never could find the entrance in the wall of rocks unless he just happened to stumble upon it.”
“I do hope you are right,” Margaret replied. “I hope our Tom is safe with the Papagoes.”
“Girls,” the mystified Barbara exclaimed, “who are you talking about? Has anything happened to the outlaw Tom about whom you wrote me?” Virginia, remembering that she was hostess, and that her anxiety must not occupy her thought to the exclusion of the comfort of the newly arrived guest, then exclaimed, “Margaret will tell you all about it while you unpack. I am sure you will want to wash and rest a while before supper. You two are to room together just as you did at school. Meanwhile, I will hie me to the kitchen and assist Uncle Tex in preparing an early repast, for I am sure that you are still hungry after so long a journey.”
When the two eastern friends had entered Margaret’s pleasant room Virginia did not go at once to the kitchen. Instead she took her brother’s powerful glasses and looked long up the mesa trail, hoping to see the little Indian boy reappearing, but he did not come. At last, with a sigh, she turned toward the kitchen and her heart was heavy. “I wonder what message Winona has for me,” she thought. “It must be important or she would not have sent twice.”
CHAPTER XLI—A HOPE RENEWED.
That evening as the three girls sat in front of the wide hearth on which a mesquite root was cheerily burning, they talked quietly together of all that had happened.
“Have you heard lately from your brother, Peyton?” Margaret asked.
Babs shook her head and there were sudden tears in her pretty blue eyes as she replied, “Oh, girls, I try to forget my great disappointment, but of course I must tell you about it. The cards that were sent to me from China, bearing only the initials P. W., were not from my darling brother after all. I had actually forgotten that I had an acquaintance with those same initials. Who do you suppose Megsy, that the cards were from?”
“Patty Warren, perhaps,” Margaret surmised. “Long ago I thought of her, merely because of the initials, but I supposed that she was still in school with you. Had she gone to China?”