Then they started on again riding single file. Betsy’s pony had taken the lead which delighted the young rider.
“It’s going to be a glorious day,” Margaret smiled back at Virg. “If it weren’t for the lost yearlings and the anxiety it means to you and Malcolm, I would be Oh, just ever so happy to think that we are home again.”
Virginia was pleased to hear her adopted sister call the desert “home.”
“Dear,” she said, “I am not going to worry over the loss nor will Malcolm. Being unhappy and making others unhappy never restores the thing that is lost. I mean to try to forget it as soon as we are sure that the herd cannot be recovered.”
For a moment they rode on in silence, then Megsy looked back again and smilingly nodded toward Betsy, who, quite forgetting that she intended to be afraid of Western horses, was leaning far over in her saddle and gazing at the sand that had been ribbed and scalloped by the wind during the night. Suddenly she stopped her pony to await the others. “Virg,” she asked eagerly, “are we near the place where Lucky first saw the wagon trail?”
Virginia had to confess that they were yet many miles from the edge of the Burning Acres where that trail had been seen. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Betsy,” she said, “but it would be impossible for us to ride that far unless we were prepared for a hard journey and were accompanied by Malcolm or Uncle Tex.”
They paused at the foot of the group of hills and Betsy shuddered as she said, “I don’t know why they seem so uncanny to me. Did anything ever happen here, Virg, anything spooky?”
“Why, nothing that I know about.” The Western girl laughed at the eager expression on the face of their youngest. “What, for instance?”
“Oh, some famous bandit might have been captured and bound to that giant yucca that stands all alone on the highest hill, and the masked men who had captured him might have stood down here and shot him, then silently ridden away while the vultures came with their weird cries to—”
Megsy put her hands over her ears. “Betsy,” she remonstrated, “you’re telling the story of that moving picture we saw at Vine Haven. My, but it was gruesome!”