A SAND STORM
“March winds surely are blowing,” Margaret sang out, as she and
Virginia were hurled along at a merry pace from the “hen corral,”
the small fenced-in enclosure whither the girls had been to gather
eggs.
When they reached the shelter of the kitchen, Virginia declared,
“It’s great fun to race with the wind back of one, but I wouldn’t
care to go far across the desert facing this gale. I suppose that it
will blow now for days and days. It usually does in March. Sometimes
it hurls the sand against our windows in terrific gusts and woe to
the horseman who is caught out in a such a storm.”
“What happens? Is he buried alive?” Margaret asked.
“No, not often that. Sometimes he turns and rides with the wind
until it has abated. Let’s get the darning basket, shall we? This is
such a cozy time to sit by the fire and mend. I always enjoy it most
when there is a storm outside, don’t you?”
Fifteen minutes later the two girls were comfortably curled up in
easy chairs in front of the wide grate on which a mesquite root was
cheerfully burning. Margaret, dropping her darning into her lap sat
watching the flames.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Virginia teased. Margaret looked up
with a little laugh. “Virg,” she said, “my thoughts had gone way
back to the first chapter. I was thinking how I had rebelled when
you wrote that I would have to leave boarding school and come out
here to live on the desert. I was so sure that I was leaving
happiness behind me and that I would be miserable ever after, but
instead—” she paused.
“Have you been unhappy, dear, and are you hiding it in your heart?”
Virginia asked anxiously.
“Unhappy?” Margaret lifted such a glowing face that Virginia felt
that her question was answered before the next words were uttered.
“I have never been so happy before in all my life. This is the first
real home that I ever had. Mother died when I was so very young, and
then father placed me in boarding school, and then he died. Of
course I was happy at Vine Haven and Babs was like a dear sister,
but Oh, Virginia, there’s nothing like a comfortable, love-filled
house for a home, is there? Of course I still love Babs, and now I
have you, and Malcolm for a brother.”
Margaret had returned her attention to the sock she was darning
which chanced to belong to the lad she had just mentioned, and she
smiled as she continued, “How nice Malcolm is. But isn’t he much
more serious than most boys of eighteen? Is it because he has had so
much responsibility since your father died?”
“Perhaps, and also because he is of a serious nature,” Virginia
replied, as she threaded a needle. “And yet there is lots of fun in
Buddy. You haven’t had an opportunity to become acquainted with him.
He has been so occupied since you came. If he does return to V. M.
Ranch tomorrow I do hope he plans staying at home for a while. He
has been away now for two weeks.”
“Whew-oo!” Margaret said with a shudder. “Virg, did you hear that
gust of wind? It’s blowing the sand, and how dark it is getting!”
Virginia glanced anxiously at the window. “I do hope Lucky will
reach here before nightfall,” she said. “However, he may remain all
night at the Junction. That would be the wise thing to do.”
“Hark!” Margaret exclaimed listening intently, “I’m sure I heard
someone calling just then. Did you?”
They both listened but heard only the rush of the wind and sand.
However, a moment later, there came a rapping on the back door and
both girls dropping their darning, hurried to see who the newcomer
might be.
As they had really expected, it was the cow-boy who had ridden to
the Junction for the mail.
“Lucky!” Virginia remonstrated, “you are covered with sand and your
face is almost bleeding. Why did you come out tonight? The mail was
not so important.”
“No, Miss Virginia, ’twant the mail that fetched me but the stock.
Slim ain’t here and I hadn’t tol’ Uncle Tex about the little sick
heifer as I’ve got down in the hospital. I knew it would be dead by
morning if I didn’t come home to tend to it.” As the long, lank
cow-boy talked, he was taking the mail from the pouch and placing it
on the kitchen table. At first he seemed puzzled, and then troubled
about something. He turned the mailbag upside down and shook it.
“What’s the matter, Lucky? Have you lost something?” Virg inquired.
“I’m afeared I have, Miss Virginia,” the cow-boy replied. “I know as
how I had five letters for V. M. Ranch, but now I don’t count but
four. One of ’em must have blowed away. I’m powerful sorry, Miss
Virginia. It was a longish one and it was from Red Riverton, I just
don’t see where that letter can be.”
The poor cow-boy was so distressed that Virginia assured him that
the missive was of no great importance and that probably it would be
found in the morning.
Then, returning to the living-room the girls drew their chairs close
to the center table where Virginia had lighted the lamp with its
cheerful crimson shade.
“Where did Lucky say the lost letter was from?” Margaret asked as
she slipped a gourd into the toe of one of Malcolm’s socks. “I had
never heard of the place before.”
“Oh, I imagine it is a letter from some neighboring rancher to my
brother,” Virginia remarked as she took up her darning. “Red
Riverton is in the northern part of the state, and—”
“Virg!” Margaret interrupted, “do you suppose that letter was from
our Tom? Or rather I should say, your Tom, as he never seems
conscious of my existence.”
Virginia’s eyes glowed and springing up she exclaimed, “I do believe
that you may be right. I’ll ask Uncle Tex the name of the nearest
postoffice to the Wilson Sheep Ranch.” Into the kitchen she skipped
returning with a woe-begone expression. “You are right, and, Oh
Megsy, isn’t it dreadful? We have lost the very first letter that
Tom ever wrote to us, for of course it must be blown far away. Just
listen to that wind. It is traveling sixty miles an hour or more and
by this time the letter will be far over the Mexican border. I am
just sure we never will find it.”
“It might have been caught on a thorny cactus,” Margaret said, but
neither of the girls had any real hope of finding the missive in
which they were so interested.
During the night the wind subsided and the next day dawned
gloriously still and sunny. The cow-boy, Lucky, arose before
daybreak and rode up to the mesa, searching everywhere for the lost
letter until the bell on the back porch of the ranch house called
him to breakfast.
When he entered the kitchen, he looked so troubled that Virginia
said with her friendly smile, “Don’t you worry about that letter. If
it doesn’t turn up, I know who sent it, and I will write and explain
that it was blown away in a sand storm.”
After breakfast the two girls tramped over every bit of sand between
the ranch house and the corrals; then they mounted their ponies and
rode over the trail toward the Junction, but not a gleam of white
did they see.
“How the sand has changed!” Margaret exclaimed. “It is lying in
billow-like waves. It isn’t smooth, the way it was yesterday.”
“That is how the three little sand hills were formed, I suppose,”
Virginia remarked. “Something must have been there, a giant cactus,
perhaps around which the sand first gathered, and then, being held,
other storms added to it until the mounds became quite sizable sand
hills standing all alone on the desert, but these little waves have
nothing to hold them and they will soon smooth out again.”
At noon they gave up the search and returned for lunch. As they
entered the house, Margaret suddenly exclaimed, “Why, Virginia, how
could that letter have blown away? Lucky took the mail out of the
pouch right here in the kitchen and before that the flap was buckled
down.”
“That’s so,” Virginia replied, “and yet he remembers having had it
and I have looked in the pouch several times.” Then, chancing to
glance out of the window, she laughingly added, “You’d better hide,
Margaret, for here comes your fierce warrior and he may be after
your curly scalp.”
Megsy took the teasing good naturedly and both girls went out on the
veranda to see what message little Red Feather had for them.
Far on the mesa they saw a gray line of horsemen whom they knew were
the Papagoes returning to their mountain encircled home. Probably
Winona had sent the Indian boy down to the V. M.
As the little fellow rode up, he reached under his red saddle
blanket and drew forth a long white envelope. This he handed to
Virginia with a slip of brown wrapping paper on which Winona had
written:
“Dear White Lily:
“Mrs. Wells sent this. Your cow-boy dropped it at the station. Your
friend, Winona.”
“Oh thank you, Red Feather!” Virginia exclaimed, when she had read
the message. “Tell Winona to come soon again and pay us a real
visit.”
The little Indian lad showed his white teeth in a wide smile but
whether he understood or not the girls could not tell.
When he was gone, Virginia dragged Margaret into the living-room and
whirled her about merrily. Then they sank down on the window seat
and Virginia tore open the long white envelope.