Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers Part 13

"What information?"

Lieutenant Wingate repeated the conversation of the previous night, leaving out no details, however trivial they might seem to him.

"I thought so. Come up here and sit down. I shall have to leave you, perhaps for an hour or more. When I return I will give one short whistle. If all is well you will reply with two short whistles."

"You are going back there to spy on that outfit that we just left?"

questioned Hippy.

"Yes. I want to see who the others are, and what they have up their sleeves. Here's a revolver for you. I suppose they took yours. Don't use it unless you have to."

"Wait a moment!" called Hippy, as his mysterious friend started away.

"Haven't you forgotten something? That 'snack' you promised to dig for."

"Oh, yes. Here's some dog biscuit for you, and--"

"Dog biscuit?" exclaimed Hippy.

"Hardtack. You ought to know what that is," chuckled the stranger.

Hippy groaned. It revived painful memories of France in wartime, but he accepted the hardtack and began biting it off in large chunks. Hippy did not concern himself about how long the mysterious friend remained away so long as the biscuit held out, unpalatable as it was.

"I shall be listening for sh.e.l.ls to burst first thing I know. Army food!

How did I ever eat it for nearly two years and live?"

It was full two hours later when the welcome whistle signal sounded somewhere down stream, which Lieutenant Wingate answered as directed.

"Come! We will head for your camp now," announced the man a few moments later, as he stepped up before Hippy.

"Did you learn anything on your little excursion?" questioned Hippy thickly, for his mouth was well filled with hardtack.

"Yes, Lieutenant. I learned a great deal. I was there when the crowd came in to put you on the rack. The two fellows who let you get away had a hard time of it, and it looked for a time as if there was going to be shooting. Cooler heads, however, headed it off. When you get back to your party I should advise you to pull up stakes and get out. Those fellows will be after you and you'll have to look alive or you won't be alive long."

"I know I am thick, old man, but tell me why they are so eager to blow my light out," begged Hippy.

"Don't you know, Lieutenant?"

"If I did I shouldn't be asking you. Begging your pardon for my bluntness."

"One reason, but not the princ.i.p.al one, is that you bounced one of the gang from your camp."

"Go on. What's the big idea?"

"The big idea, as you call it, is that there is a price on your head up here! Now do you understand, Lieutenant?"

Hippy Wingate uttered a low, long-drawn whistle of amazement.

CHAPTER IX

THE POWER OF MIND

"What do you suppose it can mean, and who threw it into our camp?"

wondered Elfreda Briggs, folding up the newspaper that contained the message to them.

"It must mean that a friend is interested in our welfare," replied Grace. "Whoever and whatever he may be, his advice is good, and here we stay until we find Hippy. I am going out right after breakfast and make an effort to pick up the trail. Surely the outlaws, or whatever they are, will not be waiting all that time for us to follow them. I will make a quiet scout. I do not look to be interfered with, for they surely will have gone away by now."

"Shall I call the girls and tell them? The knowledge that a helping hand has been held out to us surely will comfort Nora," said Elfreda.

"Yes. I will rout out Washington and have him start the fire. It has been a trying night and I am glad it is at an end," replied Grace.

"I knew it," cried Emma Dean when she learned what had taken place. "I didn't con-centrate for nothing."

"You what?" frowned Elfreda.

"I have been con-centrating all night long--con-centrating on Hippy to call him back to us."

"Oh, you darlin'," cried Nora, throwing her arms about Emma.

"I should advise you to continue to 'con-centrate,'" suggested Anne. "If you were to stop now you might break the mental string; then we should lose Hippy for good."

"You just wait. You'll see whether or not he comes back," retorted Emma indignantly.

Nora's face was flushed that morning and her heart was filled with a new hope--the hope that Hippy might be with them before the close of that day.

After breakfast, as planned, Grace took up her rifle and went away, leaving Elfreda and the others to guard the camp and, incidentally, to keep Washington busy and out of mischief. He was, too, forbidden to play his harmonica lest the noise attract attention to the camp of the Overland Riders.

Proceeding cautiously, Grace reached the stream, and followed it until she found where the kidnappers of Hippy had left it. After waiting and watching for a full hour, Grace stepped out boldly. For six hours the Overland girl employed all her knowledge of the open in an effort to pick up the trail of the mountaineers, but the trail appeared to end abruptly at the bank of the creek. Not even the hoofprints of horses could be found on the softer ground a short distance back from the stream.

There are tricks in masking one's trail that the Kentucky mountaineers had learned from generations of feuds and attacks by revenue agents, which Grace Harlowe knew nothing of.

At noon she gave up the attempt to find the trail over which Hippy Wingate had been taken, and started back towards the camp.

"What luck?" called Nora, as she appeared at the edge of the clearing where the camp was pitched.

"None. As a trailer, I am a miserable failure, a rank amateur."

"If you were to spend as much time con-centrating as you do tearing about over the landscape, you would be more successful," declared Emma wisely, at which there was a laugh at Grace's expense.

"I surely could not be more unsuccessful than I have been," replied Grace smilingly.

The afternoon was pa.s.sed in discussing their situation. While the girls were eager to be out trying to find Hippy, they believed that they were doing the wise thing in following the advice of their unknown friend, whose message had been tossed into their camp, so they remained in camp and waited.

When night came and still no Hippy, the depression of the Overlanders increased and there was little conversation, each one appearing to be listening, Emma, with a faraway look in her eyes, now and then relapsing into deep thought. Emma was "con-centrating."

The same arrangement for guarding the camp, as had been carried out the previous night, was again followed. This time, Grace took one side of the camp and Miss Briggs the other. Both hid in deep shadows, each with a rifle at her side and a revolver in its holster. Thus prepared they settled themselves for the night, all the other members of the party being in their tents and, supposedly, asleep.