"I should think there would be!" exclaimed Nan Sherwood. "Why! two
men already have been wounded."

"Just like the moving pictures!" said Bess eagerly. "A five-reel
thriller."

"You wouldn't talk like that if Mr. Hammond should be hurt," said
Grace admonishingly.

"Of course he won't be!" returned Bess. "What nonsense!"

But perhaps Rhoda did not feel so much assurance. At least she
warned them all to say nothing about the raid by the Mexicans when
they arrived at Rose Ranch.

"Mother will probably not ask where daddy has gone; and what she
doesn't know will not alarm her," Rhoda explained.

All the bands of horses for the home corrals had been driven away
before the lumbering chuck wagons started from the encampment.
Rhoda and her friends soon were out of sight of the slower-moving
mule teams.

They did not ride straight for Rose Ranch; but, having come out of
the valley, they skirted the hills on the lookout for game. Rhoda
and Walter both carried rifles now, and Nan was eager to get a shot
at something besides a tin can.

The herd of horses had gone down into the valley, of course;