first to climb to the top of Yucca Hill, Margaret having offered to remain with the four ponies. Barbara, breathless, reached them a moment later, in time to hear an excited Betsy exclaim, as she pointed toward the south, “Virg did you ever see a bird as big as that? It seems to be all wings, and it’s white, isn’t it?”

Babs protested. “Goodness Betsy. Did you call us way up here and in such a hurry just to show us a bird?”

But Virginia, whose eyes were keener, since she was used to desert distances, watched the wide-winged object which was high in the air, and at least half a mile away.

“If it is a bird, which I doubt, it has hurt one of its wings for surely it is not flying in—” she interrupted herself to exclaim: “Oh, I see now! there goes one of the little whirlwinds that scud over the desert so often. Whatever that flying thing is, it was evidently tossed high in the air and is fluttering back to earth.”

Virg had surmised correctly for, with awkward movements of apparently wide stretched wings, the something, which had so aroused Betsy’s curiosity, fluttered groundward, but before it touched the sand it caught on the arm of a formidable thorny cactus which stood near the mesa trail. Laughingly the girls descended and told the curious Margaret what Betsy’s excitement had been over.

“And there I had hoped that it might be a clew,” that maiden mourned, as again, single file, they rode back toward V. M.

“Not a wagon track have we found nor anything exciting or even interesting,” Babs began, when Virg, being in the lead, called over her shoulder as she pointed at the great cactus that appeared near the trail not far ahead:

“There’s your wide-winged bird, Betsy. Nothing but a newspaper that tried to soar for a time but failed.”

Since they were in a hurry to reach V. M. before the hour which Malcolm had suggested that they have breakfast together, the girls did not stop to examine the newspaper, but, when they had reached the ranch yard, Betsy, who had been unusually quiet during the downward ride, suddenly exclaimed:

“Girls, I’m not sure but that we missed a clew, after all, when we passed that newspaper. If you don’t mind, Virg, I’m going back and get it. However,” and she smiled in a mischievous way, “if it’s all the same to everybody, I guess I’d rather walk. It’s ages since I’ve been on horseback, and I’m getting powerfully stiff.”

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