"Awfully ingenious, Walter," admitted Nan, with a laugh. "But,
somehow, it is not convincing."

"Oh, all right, my lady. Then we will accept Grace's statement that
the cave is haunted," and he laughed likewise.

They arrived at the ranch house within the next two hours. They
found everything about headquarters quite intact, for the tornado
had swept past this spot without doing any damage. Mrs. Hammond met
them in a manner that showed she had not become very anxious, and
Rhoda had warned her friends to say little in her mother's hearing
about their strange experience.

Nor was anything said to Mrs. Hammond regarding the raid by the
Mexican horse thieves. She supposed her husband was absent from the
house because of the tornado. That, of course, had scattered the
cattle tremendously.

The girls themselves did not think much just then of the stolen
horses and the posse that had started on the trail of the thieves.
But another incident held their keen interest, and that connected
with renegade Mexicans.

There was a letter waiting for Rhoda when she arrived--a letter
addressed in a cramped and unfamiliar hand. But when she opened it
she called her friends about her with:

"Do see here! What do you suppose this is? It's from that funny
girl, Juanita O'Harra."