Virginia’s eyes glowed, and again taking the Indian girl’s hand, she exclaimed, “Oh, Winona, I am so glad that you stopped to tell me. We were eager to know if Tom really found your village. It is so hidden that the entrance is hard to find.”
When the farewells had been said and the two visitors had ridden away, Margaret went to the old writing desk, declaring that she was going to pen Babs a letter that would make the boarding school life seem dull and monotonous. Scarcely was the epistle finished and sealed, when Lucky called to say that he was riding to the Junction and would take the mail.
“Be sure to bring us back some letters,” Virginia called merrily as the cow-boy, waving his sombrero, rode away.
CHAPTER XXXIII—A SAND STORM.
“March winds surely are blowing,” Margaret sang out, as she and Virginia were hurled along at a merry pace from the “hen corral,” the small fenced-in enclosure whither the girls had been to gather eggs.
When they reached the shelter of the kitchen, Virginia declared, “It’s great fun to race with the wind back of one, but I wouldn’t care to go far across the desert facing this gale. I suppose that it will blow now for days and days. It usually does in March. Sometimes it hurls the sand against our windows in terrific gusts and woe to the horseman who is caught out in a such a storm.”
“What happens? Is he buried alive?” Margaret asked.
“No, not often that. Sometimes he turns and rides with the wind until it has abated. Let’s get the darning basket, shall we? This is such a cozy time to sit by the fire and mend. I always enjoy it most when there is a storm outside, don’t you?”
Fifteen minutes later the two girls were comfortably curled up in easy chairs in front of the wide grate on which a mesquite root was cheerfully burning. Margaret, dropping her darning into her lap sat watching the flames.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Virginia teased. Margaret looked up with a little laugh. “Virg,” she said, “my thoughts had gone way back to the first chapter. I was thinking how I had rebelled when you wrote that I would have to leave boarding school and come out here to live on the desert. I was so sure that I was leaving happiness behind me and that I would be miserable ever after, but instead—” she paused.