Virg shook her head. “I don’t believe that we could persuade my brother to go,” she replied.
“I’m going to try,” was Margaret’s quiet response.
CHAPTER XXIV
AND THE REASON FOR IT
The girls entered the ranch house living room and stood looking about.
“How queer not to hear a sound,” Margaret said. “Why does it seem so much more still than usual do you suppose?”
“Perhaps because we do not hear the shouting of the Mahoy children,” Virg replied. “They are usually at play in the door yard at this hour. Let’s go over to their home and ask Mrs. Mahoy where everyone is.”
With a heart filled with an unaccountable foreboding, Virg led the way to the small adobe back of the big ranch house and nearer the dry creek.
As they approached they saw the four small children seated on the porch step huddled together. The oldest girl was softly crying, the two younger ones looked frightened, as though something had happened which they could not understand, and Patsy, though his lips were quivering, seemed to be trying not to cry.
Virginia leaped forward, and kneeling put her arms about the sobbing girl, then, looking at the boy, she said, “Patsy, lad, what has happened? Is your mother—”
She said no more, for the door opened and the little Irish woman appeared. She had on her hat and carried a bundle. The kneeling girl sprang to her feet. “Mrs. Mahoy,” she said with a new alarm in her heart, “where are you going? Has anything happened in the mine?”