“Look here, my man! How much do you want for satisfaction?” interjected Tom Gray.
“Wal, I reckon ’bout two bucks’ll satersfy me,” answered Skip, tenderly caressing the lump.
“Stacy, shell out! Give the man two dollars,” ordered Lieutenant Wingate. Stacy demurred, but there was no avoiding payment. He tried to borrow the money, but not one of the Overlanders would give him a cent, so Stacy Brown reluctantly parted with two silver dollars.
The letter was written by Grace at Bindloss’s dictation, and half an hour later Skip headed back towards the Diamond Bar ranch, not only with the letter and two silver dollars in his pocket, but with a request from Bindloss that Bill Crawley and his men join with the Circle O men in making a final drive on the rustlers.
It was early to bed that night at the Circle O, for all hands were worn out. On the following morning the girls had a long talk with Joe Bindloss. It was decided that the Overlanders should remain at the ranch while the ranchers drove out the last of the rustlers.
Judy came in in time for luncheon that day. The girls saw that she had been weeping, but made no comment. It was then that they broached the subject that had been discussed with Judy’s new “Pap.” Grace and Elfreda wished to take her back east with them and show her some of the world that she had so often dreamed of seeing.
At first Judy was obdurate, but the thought grew and Bindloss urged, so, before the departure of the Overlanders two weeks later, Judy had said “yes.”
The drive of the ranchers proved successful in ridding the Cosos of rustlers, though only one man was captured. The others had fled, following the disaster to Hornby and his immediate gang, and the drive of the ranchers.
The journey of the Overland party, following the recovery of Hippy and Sam from their wounds, lasted until mid-September when the great day in Judy’s life arrived. The Overland Riders had returned to the ranch to pick her up, and to arrange for returning Joe Bindloss’s ponies to him at the railroad station, and, after a day’s rest at the ranch-house, they set out for the east—and home. Judy wavered at the last moment, but finally rode away with her friends, waving her sombrero to the rugged old rancher, and trying to laugh through her tears. The world that Judy had so yearned for lay just before her, and after a winter with the Overland girls she was destined to return much benefited in every way, but with a fuller realization that her duty to herself and to her new “Pap” lay in the beautiful Valley of the Cosos.
There was still a large measure of adventure before Grace Harlowe and her young friends, and to which every member of the party was already looking forward for the coming season. The story of these adventures will be related in a following volume entitled, “Grace Harlowe’s Overland Riders Among the Border Guerrillas,” where, in the Guadalupe Mountains, they encounter experiences that make the story replete with interest that cannot fail to hold the undivided attention of the reader.