Virginia's Ranch Neighbors

“Oh Virg, are we really to arrive at your desert home this morning?” Betsy Clossen exclaimed the first moment that she opened her eyes on the fifth day after their departure fro...

Uncle Tex sat beside the girl whom he so loved and the three on the rear seat often sent smiling glances, one to another, as they noticed his pride in his “gal’s” skillful driving.

It was four in the afternoon and the girls, having had a long siesta after their lunch, had donned their muslin dresses (for the station master had arrived soon after noon with...

When the girls were seated about the fireplace, they turned eagerly to the narrator of the tale which had been interrupted by their moving from the kitchen to the living-room.

Malcolm, weary indeed with the long hard riding on the three days previous, did not waken, nor did Uncle Tex when, at a very early hour, the four girls stole out of the ranch ho...

The girls gathered about Betsy Clossen to gaze eagerly at the torn fragments of newspaper when that excited little maid burst into the ranch living room announcing that she real...

Directly after lunch, Virginia, Margaret and Barbara retired to their rooms for the customary afternoon nap which seemed to be as much a part of desert life as anything else in...

Single file the four mounted girls rode down the trail which led across the dry creek bottom for a time and then ascended the rather steep opposite bank. The fifth horse “Old St...

“Do you think old Stoic saw a bear?” Margaret asked as the girls, puzzled indeed, by the faithful creature’s strange and unexpected behavior sat in their saddles, two of them ga...

Half an hour later the girls saw Annette’s brother returning, leading the faithful old pack animal who had evidently forgotten his former fear and was plodding along with his us...

Malcolm swung from his tired horse and giving it a friendly slap, bade it go to the corral with its companions. Lucky and Slim, as he knew, would attend to its needs.

In the meantime when Benjy Wilson left the train at Red Riverton, he glanced about anxiously hoping that his brother Harry would be there to meet him. He had been the only passe...

As Benjy neared his ranch home he saw that a dim light was burning in his mother’s room. This confirmed his fears that the one he so loved was really ill. Urging his steed to a...

Mrs. Wilson sat in a big comfortable chair in front of the wide hearth on which a log that the boys had dragged down from the mountains, was cheerily burning. The frail woman sm...

A week after the arrival of Peyton’s letter, suggesting that his sister remain longer, another came with quite a different request. In it the lad assured them all of his great f...

Babs did this and they had advanced to the middle of the room when a breeze from somewhere swept through, blew out the tiny flame on the candle and closed the kitchen door with...

But the searchers were soon convinced that Betsy was not hiding to tease. Peyton lighted all of the heavy brass hanging lamps but they did little to illumine the long, dark room...

The next day the girls were awakened by the sun shining in at their open windows; young calves in the near corral were calling to their mothers and the hens in the chicken yard...

Betsy Clossen in her role of young detective watched for an opportunity to slip away from the others as she wished to think out some plan by which she might be able to discover...

The girls were seated about the table at one end of the big comfortable kitchen and, it being Margaret’s turn to play waitress, she was passing a dish of frijolies when they hea...

When Trujillo announced that he was indeed the lad portrayed in the painting, now grown, Betsy Clossen was overjoyed that she had unraveled the mystery as she had so desired. No...

Betsy Clossen had hardly slept a wink the night following her discovery of the real identity of the mysterious Trujillo. She kept thinking and thinking of a possible hiding plac...

A few days after the departure of Trujillo, Virginia remarked one morning at breakfast, “Barbara, I feel much as you did when you were with us at V. M., a great anxiety, which I...

“Perhaps because we do not hear the shouting of the Mahoy children,” Virg replied. “They are usually at play in the door yard at this hour. Let’s go over to their home and ask M...

As the girls neared the Second Peak their anxiety increased. They could see men hurrying about near the mine and they urged their horses to greater speed. However, one man, chan...

“Where, Oh where shall we take my brother for a complete rest?” Virginia had softly closed the door of Malcolm’s bedroom, having told that giant of a lad that he must sleep all...

“Oh Barbara, what a piggy-wig you are. Three indeed! Now, just to punish you, it’s Virg who shall have the three and you only one.” Betsy had poured the contents of the bag on t...

“I like Peyton’s suggestion that we go to California. I wish he had been able to stay longer and tell us more about what he saw when he was there. He might recall just the very...

Malcolm listened to the enthusiastic chatter of the two girls, who, having read Eleanor’s letter to him were each trying to outdo the other in thinking up arguments that might p...

Late that afternoon the two girls went out to feed the hens and then, as was often their custom, they climbed the trail to the mesa that they might watch the sunset. On their re...

The next morning before daylight Margaret was conscious that someone was stirring in the room next to hers. Becoming more fully awake, she rose, drew on her kimono and slippers...

So, after all, Mrs. Wallace had been wanting to see the girl and, with a panicky feeling in her heart, she hoped that nothing was seriously wrong. “What if someone were ill or—”...