She then told the other three girls all that Uncle Tex knew of her brother’s sudden departure two nights before.
Megsy smiled and nodded toward the little stranger-to-the-desert, for, with a brow supposedly wrinkled in deep thought, she sat gazing across the shining stretch of sand toward the mountains.
“What do you make of it, Mistress Detective?” Babs asked merrily.
“I don’t,” was the frank answer. “Virg, what do you?”
“Well,” the oldest girl replied, “since Lucky rode in, after nightfall, in such haste and told brother that he was sure he had hit the trail, I conclude that there had been a—”
“Oh, do you think it was a holdup, or something like that?” This from the eager Betsy.
“No, I don’t. I think a mountain lion may have been killing the young calves and that Lucky and Slim have been trying to trail it.”
“How disappointing! I’m not at all interested in solving a mystery which has only a mountain lion in the leading part.”
Babs teased. “I’ll say you aren’t. You wouldn’t want to start on any clues that would lead you to a lion’s den.”
“Girls,” Virg suddenly exclaimed, “our guest of honor has forgotten to come. There he goes riding along the creek bottom, so we’ll have to drink the tea, for, if we don’t, it will soon be cold.”