“You girls go on and take care of her. We will do all that is necessary to be done,” he made reply.
The Overland girls returned to Bindloss and the mountain girl, who was clinging to the hand of the old rancher, a deep pallor showing under the tan on her face. Emma slipped a hand into hers, and Judy turned a wan face to the little Overland girl, but the face wore a faint smile.
“It’s all fixed, Emma,” she said, nodding. “I’m Judy Bindloss now. Leastwise I’m goin’ to be as soon as my new Pap kin git the papers made out. I don’t see no reason fer doin’ that, do you?”
Miss Briggs, as a lawyer, tried to explain to her why it was very necessary, but the mountain girl shook her head.
“He’s my Pap. It seems like he always was and no papers can’t make him more so. Pap, let’s go home.”
The ponies were led along for some distance, to give them rest while the party were talking, and for the further purpose of giving the men back there opportunity to do their work and join the Overland Riders.
The party finally being complete, Pete led the way across the blackened landscape to the old cabin. Reaching there, they laid up for a rest, and after luncheon Judy told them the story of her father, Malcolm Hornby, so far as she knew it.
Certain recent occurrences had made her suspect that Hornby was in league with the rustlers, but the night before she brought warning to the Overland girls that Tom and Hippy were wounded, she heard a conversation between her father and Mexican Charlie in which her suspicion became a certainty. From that conversation she learned that much stock had been stolen from Bindloss, and that by making a “Q” out of the Circle O ranch brand and adding another “Q,” the marking conformed with Hornby’s brand, after which the stolen cattle were added to his own herd. He had, with the assistance of the mountain ruffians, carried on wholesale thievery in two great valleys for several years and made money. His reward had been reaped that day, and it had been coming for some time, because Mexican Charlie and he were rapidly nearing the breaking point just before the last attack on the Overland Riders, who were the indirect cause of breaking up the gang of mountain ruffians.
That there were others of the gang still at large the ranchmen knew, but Judy could give them no information on this point. It was decided, therefore, to ask the aid of the sheriff and his deputies, as well as that of other ranchers, to form a big party and comb the mountains for the other ruffians, who, now that the backbone of the band had been broken, could be driven more easily from that region, and perhaps some of them captured.
In the early afternoon the journey home was begun. Judy did not accompany them all the way, saying that she wished to stop at her former home and get some personal belongings, she promising to ride back to the Circle O ranch on the following morning. Judy wished to be alone that night, and the Overland girls, at least, understood.