"Oh! A cyclone!" cried Bess.

"Not exactly. A cyclone, I reckon, is some worse. A cyclone is a
twister. They say if a cyclone hits a pig end to, and the wrong
way, it twists his tail to the left instead of to the right and
he's never the same pig again."

"Now, daddy!" complained Rhoda, "what do you want to tell such
awful jokes for? Nothing like that ever happened to our pigs."

"Well," said her father, his eyes twinkling, "we never had a real
cyclone down here. But tornadoes are bad enough."

It was barely daybreak the next morning when the sleepy peons
brought the ponies to the house. Rhoda knew the trail well, and
within the precincts of Rose Ranch, at least, her father did not
consider it necessary for any guard to ride with her.

"I often ride to Osaka for the mail," explained Rhoda. "What should
I be afraid of?"

"Aren't there any tramps?" murmured Grace.

"Well," laughed Rhoda, "not the kind you mean. Tramps afoot would
not get far in this country. And how could a man on foot catch me?
Your kind of tramps don't go far from the railroad lines. And if
there are any other ne'er-do-wells in the neighborhood, they know
daddy too well to molest me. You see, daddy used to be sheriff in
the old days. And he has a reputation," laughed Rhoda.