THE LETTER FROM JUANITA
“You’d better speak up pronto!”
exclaimed the girl from Rose Ranch in an unshaken
tone. “I’m going to fire if you don’t.”
“Oh, Rhoda!” shrieked Bess.
“It isn’t Walter!” exclaimed
Grace.
“Speak! What do you want? Who are
you?” demanded the courageous Rhoda.
“No shoot, Thenorita!” gasped a frightened
voice from the looming figure. “I go!”
In a moment he was gone. He had disappeared around
the corner of the boulder.
“For mercy’s sake!” gasped Bess,
“what does that mean?”
“Who was it?” asked Nan again.
“A Mexican. But he wasn’t one of
our boys,” said Rhoda. “I never heard
his voice before. Besides, if he had been from
the ranch he would not have acted so queerly.
I don’t like it.”
“Do you think he means us harm?” queried
Nan.
“I don’t know what he means; but I mean
him harm if he comes fooling around us again,”
declared Rhoda. “I never heard of such
actions. Why! nine times out of ten he would have
been shot first and the matter of who he was decided
afterward.”
“Why, Rhoda! how awfully wicked that sounds.
You surely would not shoot a man!” Bess Harley’s
tone showed her horror.
“I don’t know what I would do if I had
to. There was something wrong with that fellow.
Let me tell you, people do not creep up on you in
the dark as he did—not out here in the open
country—unless they mean mischief.
If a man approaches a campfire or a cabin, he hails.
And that Mexican—”
She did not finish the sentence; but her earnestness
served to take Grace’s mind off the disappearance
of Walter. She had something else to be frightened
about!
Rhoda was not trying to frighten her friends, however.
That would be both needless and wicked. But she
remembered the fact that there were supposedly strangers
in the neighborhood, and she did not know who this
Mexican lurking about the mouth of the bears’
den might be.
The girls went back into the cave and sat down again.
Rhoda held the rifle across her lap, and they all
listened for sounds from the entrance to the cave.
But all they heard was the stamping of the horses
and now and then the shrill and eerie cry from the
depths of the cavern.
When they made another trip to the mouth of the tunnel,
it seemed to be lighter outside, late in the evening
as it was, and the torrent in the gulch had receded
greatly.
“I believe we can get out now,” said Rhoda.
“You take the rifle, Grace. You are the
best shot. And I will go after our ponies.”
“Oh, no! I would be afraid,” gasped
the girl. “Give the gun to Nan.”
So Nan took Rhoda’s weapon while the ranch girl
went to unhobble the ponies and lead her own to the
cave’s mouth. The other three followed
docilely enough.
