Margaret’s very own room in the ranch house was delightfully homey. Glass doors opened upon a wide veranda where a vine, which Virginia watered daily, was growing luxuriantly. Each spring it was covered with gay colored trumpet flowers. A flood of sunshine was pouring in at the open window facing the southwest and fell upon a small desk at which Margaret was writing a long letter to Babs. When it was finished the girl sat looking out across the desert that was a shining sandy waste as far as she could see, with here and there a scraggly mesquite bush or towering above it, a thorny cactus. Lonely, desolate, those were the words that Margaret had repeatedly used in describing her dread of the desert before she had really seen it, but now in her soul there was slowly awakening an appreciation of the peace, the bigness and the grandeur of it all. How Babs would love it. Margaret’s dreaming was suddenly interrupted by a most unearthly noise close to the house. Hurrying to the glass doors, the girl looked out and beheld three ungainly little creatures that resembled donkeys. Smilingly, she put her fingers in her ears when she saw that once again, all three had opened their mouths to bray in chorus. Margaret wondered why they seemed to be calling, and she was soon to learn, for she heard the living room door open and saw Virginia skip out on the veranda and feed a lump of sugar to each of the small mouse-colored creatures. Margaret stepped out. “What queer pets you have, Virginia,” she said merrily. “They are little wild burros,” the western girl told her. “They come often to beg for a lump of sugar, but their manner of serenading is not very musical. Have you finished your letter to Babs?” she added. “I have stayed away from your room for a long hour that you might not be interrupted.” “Yes, I have finished it. Shall I read it to you?” The two girls sat on the top step while Margaret read: “Dearest Babs, I’m so happy, so happy, you just can’t guess.” Then pausing, she glanced up brightly. “Won’t that be a pleasant surprise to Babs, for, of course, she will expect my first letter to tell that I am melting away in tears.” Then followed a description of the journey west, of the “play actin’,” as Uncle Tex called it, and of her joyous surprise when the middle-aged rancher and the housekeeper removed their disguises and were really a girl and a boy of about her own age.