“Poor girl,” Virginia said, “I, too, have a dear brother and so I know just how lonely and sad Babs is. We must try to cheer her up, Megsy, when she visits us.”
CHAPTER XIX—THE SECRET CODE.
The next morning the two girls were up with the sun. “I feel as though something unusual is going to happen today,” Virginia said as she poured the coffee and smiled over at Margaret.
“So do I,” that maiden replied as she turned the toast when it was just the right crispy brown. “I keep thinking and thinking of poor Babs. Here it is only the first of January and she can’t come to visit us until the middle of June.”
“You will be surprised, Megsy, how quickly the time will pass,” Virginia declared and then they talked of Peyton, wondering what had become of him.
“If he is a happy-go-lucky, tender-hearted, easily led sort of a boy,” Virg said, “I am afraid that, being angered by his father, he may do many things that he might regret, perhaps when it is too late.”
“It is the not really knowing that makes it so hard for Babs,” Margaret said. “If she knew even the worst, she could face it more bravely.”
There was a sudden exclamation from the western girl who had chanced to glance out of the wide window and over the sandy stretch of desert that was glistening in the early sunshine.
“A horse and rider are coming at top speed,” she said. “How I do hope that Malcolm is returning.”
The girls went out on the veranda and stood arm in arm awaiting the coming of, they knew not whom. As the rider neared, Virginia, looking through her glasses exclaimed: “Oh, it is only Pasqual, a small Mexican boy whose father is one of the Slater Range riders. Perhaps he is on his way to the Junction. If so, he will turn at Dry Creek and ride up the mesa trail.”