Slick Cy took off his hat. “How came the pore things here, Miss Virginia?” he asked.
“The little lad has told me the whole sad story,” that girl replied, “and I will tell it to you when the brave little mother is cared for. Cy, can you carry her to the car?”
For answer the young giant of a cow-boy stooped and lifted the frail woman, who moaned but did not open her eyes.
Soon they were all in the car, which Virginia drove slowly and skillfully toward the V. M. Ranch.
CHAPTER XV—THE STRANDED FAMILY.
Back of the big, rambling V. M. ranch house there was a comfortable small adobe which had been occupied at one time by the foreman and family, but now that Malcolm was his own foreman, the house was vacant, and it was into this that Virginia bade Cy carry the little woman.
Then Virginia held out her hand as she said sincerely: “Thank you Cy, for having helped us again. Isn’t it strange that twice, when we have needed someone, you have just happened to pass by.”
The cow-boy flushed as he replied, shuffling from one foot to the other. “Yo’ all have done mo’ for me than ah can be doin’ fo’ you-all. Ah’m glad ah meet up wi’-you-all.” Then he turned and bolted. No other word would adequately describe his manner of disappearance.
“That boy is a diamond in the rough, isn’t he?” Margaret said as she stood in the open-door and watched the tall lank cow-boy swing into his saddle and ride away toward the Slater Ranch.
Virginia, having for years helped care for an invalid mother, soon had the little woman roused from her stupor and taking warm broth for nourishment. Margaret, in the meantime, fed the three solemn eyed children who ate ravenously, like little wild creatures that were nearly starved.