"Old Rabbit Tail works. Charley, take a little trip with me to-morrow. Let's see if my idea works."
"I'd like to, Roger. I haven't been away from sight of this adobe hut but twice in a year. Once, the night we found you, and once, the night you and I—"
"I know, poor old girl! Well, let's have a little picnic trip of our own to-morrow. We'll take Peter and some grub—get a dawn start and be back by sundown."
"Oh, I'd love it!" cried Charley, looking like Felicia with the sudden flash of joy in her eyes. "I'll put up the best lunch ever. Come along, Roger, do! Elsa will take our heads off."
Roger invited Elsa to accompany them on the mysterious trip, but Elsa refused to go.
"Dick will be back any day now," she said, "and I'm going to be here when he comes."
Charley made no reply to this but Roger frankly shrugged his shoulders. "I feel as if I never wanted to see him again. I'll be here at dawn, Charley. You can meet me at the corral, can't you, so's not to rout the others out too early?"
Charley agreed and dawn was just unfolding over the desert when she tied the grub pack to Peter's saddle. She waited for some time, sitting on the rock, her back against the corral, before Roger came. He appeared at last, just as the first rays of the sun shot over the mountains.
"Sorry to be late," he said, "but my gasoline's given out and I had to cook breakfast by hand, as it were, over some chips. Whew, it's going to be one hot day."
"I don't care how hot it is," replied Charley, recklessly. "I feel as I were being taken to the county fair, and I was almost too excited to sleep. Come along! I know the trail well."