“I am very much encouraged with the output,” he told Virginia, “but I am a rancher, not a miner, and so I asked Pat Mahoy to send for his former associates in Bisbee to assist him. I can trust Pat to look after our interests as he will his own. I will stay at home for a time and get acquainted with my ward and my sister.” “Oh brother, I am so glad, and some day will you take us for a long, long ride? I am eager to have Margaret see more of our wonderful desert.” “That’s a splendid suggestion,” Malcolm said with enthusiasm. “We might even ride as far north as the Wilson Ranch.” Although Virginia’s reply expressed her pleasure, it did not reveal to her brother how very much she did hope that plan would soon be carried out. CHAPTER XXXVI CAUGHT IN A TORRENT A month had passed. The wild March winds had blown itself out. The spring rains had filled the usually dry creek with a rushing, raging torrent which could be forded by neither man nor beast. Then, when at last the sun shone out, the desert glistened, while here and there a clump of bright flowers gleamed. The sand had been washed from cactus and mesquite and there were fresh leaves on the cottonwood trees. Birds sang, and also there was a rejoicing in the hearts of the two girls who had been so long held prisoners by the inclement weather. “Think of it!” Margaret said as she swept the veranda the first clear morning after the rains. “It is three weeks since any one has been for the mail. Do you suppose that it would be safe for us to cross the creek today and ride to the Junction?” “Oh, I’m sure that it would,” Virginia replied. “There isn’t a cloud anywhere to be seen and isn’t the sky the shiniest, gleamingest blue?” Half an hour later, when their morning tasks were finished, Virg hailed her brother, who was on his way to the valley pasture to see what damage had been done to the mile square fence. “Buddy,” she called, “is it safe for Margaret and me to ride to the Junction for the mail? There must be just stacks of it there waiting for us?” The lad scanned the horizon and replied in the affirmative. The two ponies, Star and Comrade had been in the corral so long that they were high spirited and galloped across the hard, desert trail as though racing with each other. Having reached the rocky creek bottom, where only a little water was trickling along, Virginia turned her pony toward the opposite bank where she expected to find the trail which they had always ascended but it had been washed away leaving a steep perpendicular cliff, up which they could not ride. “What shall we do?” Margaret asked. “Is there no other way to reach the Junction?”