pounced on them and on the very top I found written—”

Betsy was holding the pieces back of her and just to tease she asked, “Guess what!”

“Oh Betsy, how provoking you are, must we guess?” Babs pondered a moment then said, “Maybe it was something in the Romany tongue. That is what they call the gypsies’ language, isn’t it?”

But the would-be young detective shook her head and looked inquiringly at Margaret. “Oh, I never could guess, can you Virg?”

“Hm-m! Let me see. It might be a note scribbled by somebody on the Burning Acres, who was trying to send a message to tell that he is stranded and in need of aid.”

“I don’t think that is it.” Betsy brought the paper around and held it up that all might see. Then she pointed at some very fine writing on an upper margin. “If it were intended for someone else to read, it would be larger and clearer.”

“What does it say?” Margaret inquired. But Betsy could not tell. “Why, I thought you told us that you were sure that it is a clew to the whereabouts of the gypsy caravan or of the stolen yearlings.”

Betsy was about to defend her theory when Virginia, who had taken the paper to the window that she might better see the very fine writing, exclaimed: “It seems to be a memorandum of some kind. I can read several words, but altogether they make but little sense. They are ‘five miles beyond.’ I can’t make out beyond what, then comes ‘turn toward mountains,’ after that the pencil marks are blurred until the last sentence, which is, ‘likely to make a find there.’”

Betsy whirled toward Margaret, glowing, triumphant. “There now, Mistress Doubter, isn’t that a clew and a fine one?”

“Well,” the other maid replied rather reluctantly. “It might be, and yet again it might be merely a paper that some mining prospector was reading when a whirl-wind came along. What you read, Virg, would be just about what a miner would jot down, don’t you think?”

The Western girl nodded. “Yes, dear, I believe so. Wait until I get the magnifying glass and perhaps the blurred part will be clearer.”

While Virg had gone in search of it, Malcolm appeared calling, “Ready for breakfast girls?” Then seeing their excited expressions, he inquired: “What’s up?” Betsy’s words fairly tumbled out in her eagerness to be the one to relate the story of 

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