A week had passed and it had been an anxious one for Virginia and Margaret as they had no way of knowing whether or not Tom had managed to escape the posse that had been searching for him. True, they had one day ridden to the Junction and there they had learned from Mrs. Wells, the station master’s wife, that the posse had returned to Texas, but whether they had captured the young outlaw or not the good woman could not tell. One glorious day Margaret asked Virginia if she would like to go for a ride but the western girl wished to remain at home and suggested that Megsy go for a short canter by herself. “You will be perfectly safe, dear,” Virginia assured her. “Suppose you follow the trail over the mesa and toward the sand hills, then circle around them and come home again. That ride will make you good and hungry for the delicious something that I am going to bake. Our miners are to return tomorrow, and since Uncle Tex does not know how to make pies, Mrs. Mahoy offered to teach me this morning.” Half an hour later Margaret cantered away, feeling very brave indeed, as this was the first time she had started out on a desert trail all alone and unprotected. When she reached the mesa, she drew rein and looked about. Not a horseman was to be seen, only the gleaming white sand with here and there a mesquite brush, or a clump of wiry grass or a spot of flaming color where some hardy plant was blossoming. Toward the north lay the desolate sandhills on which tall stalks of yucca stood like silent sentinels. Margaret decided to do as Virginia had suggested, gallop around the small group of hills and then, home again. How she did wish that Babs was with her, for well she knew that her eastern schoolmate would enjoy a canter on so glorious a morning. It wouldn’t be long though before Babs would be coming. “Today is the first of March,” Margaret was thinking. “April and May will soon pass and then it will be June and Barbara will come.” Margaret was nearing the first of the three isolated sand hills when she felt her saddle slipping. She dismounted to tighten the girth when suddenly she lifted her head and listened intently. What had she heard? Perhaps nothing really, for well she knew that being timid, she was very imaginative. She fastened the girth securely and had one foot in a stirrup about to remount when again she heard the sound, and this time it was much nearer than before. Leaping to her saddle, she was about to gallop away when she saw a band of horsemen coming around the nearest sand hill. Terrorized she whirled her pony’s head toward the south and urged Star to his top speed. She knew by the racing hoofbeats back of her that she was being pursued. Could she reach the V. M. Ranch before she was overtaken?