“If you go, I’m going also,” Margaret repeated with emphasis, then putting her arms about her friend, she declared gaily: “It will be something exciting about which to write to dear old Babs.” Then she added with sweet seriousness. “I’d be heaps more worried and unhappy all alone here on the ranch, not knowing what might be happening to you than I would be were I with you. If you are to be eaten by a grizzly, then I wish to be devoured also.” Virginia laughed as she began to don her khaki riding habit. “What if the fierce outlaw that is supposed to be hiding somewhere in the Seven Peak Range should happen to visit the hut in the night?” she asked merrily. Not that she had any faith in the existence of the rumored outlaw, but she wished to persuade Margaret to remain at home. “Let him come if he wishes,” the eastern girl said. “If you aren’t skeered of him, neither am I.” This sounded very brave, but in her heart Margaret was hoping that they would meet neither a bear nor an outlaw. CHAPTER XXI TWO COURAGEOUS GIRLS Half an hour later the two girls were in the saddle, cantering toward the distant mountains. “Isn’t it good to be alive on a day like this?” Margaret exclaimed as she gazed over the wide desert that was gleaming white in the early afternoon sun. “Somehow, when everything is sparkling and seeming to rejoice, I just can’t be skeered of a bear or even an outlaw that may be lurking on Second Peak.” “I love the desert,” Virginia declared, “but then, I have always lived here. I do believe that I will feel smothered and as shut in as a bird in a cage if you and I go east to boarding school next winter.” The two girls were riding side by side. A mile ahead of them the Seven Peak Range loomed rugged and uninviting. “Yes, I suppose that boarding school will seem strange to you,” Margaret continued the conversation, “and probably the chatter of so many girls will make you dizzy just at first. It did me, for although I had never lived in as silent a place as this, I had been an only child, unused to the merriment of many girls, but one soon becomes accustomed to it.” Then suddenly she turned toward her friend with eyes that glowed. “Oh, Virg,” she exclaimed, “before we do go, I will write to Mrs. Martin, she’s the principal and such a dear, and ask her if we may reserve the big, sunny corner room that overlooks the orchard. There are three single beds in it and so you and Babs and I can be roommates.” Virginia laughed. “Megsy,” she said, “we are letting our imaginations run riot. We are like the old woman who counted her chickens before they were hatched. Here we are spending the money that we hope the mine will bring to us when, as yet, the location papers have not been recorded.” “But they will be, won’t they?” Margaret asked, turning questioning eyes toward the speaker. “Surely in a short 24 hours no one else will discover the place when it has been there for centuries undisturbed.”