Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods Part 2

"I agree with you," nodded Elfreda.

"Emma, where do you get all that dope?" questioned Hippy. "I am beginning to believe what I suspected last season, when you were riding that 'con-centration' hobby, that your war service has unbalanced your mind."

"No, no! He is only joking, Emma," protested Nora.

"It matters little to me what Hippy Wingate says or thinks. I belong to the 'Voice of Nature Cult.'"

"What's that? A breakfast food?" laughed Anne.

"The 'Cult' is an organization of advanced thinkers, presided over by Madam Gersdorff, an adept who can converse with the birds of the air, the animals and--"

"I wish she were here," declared Hippy with emphasis. "I should like to have her tell that bronco what my opinion of him is and hear what he says in reply," added Lieutenant Wingate, flipping a biscuit, which Hindenburg deftly caught and gulped down at a single swallow.

"Madam Gersdorff gave some remarkable demonstrations of her power in the direction of interpreting the voices of nature last winter," resumed Emma. "She is giving me a correspondence course at five dollars a lesson, which I consider a remarkably low price. I wish I might induce you girls to take the course, but I don't suppose any of you have the nerve to do so in the face of Hippy Wingate's unkind criticisms. Let me tell you something. A medium that I went to in Boston a few weeks ago told me some remarkable things about myself. I had been telling her of this 'Voice of Nature Cult.' 'How strange,' answered the medium. 'I see birds all about you. A whole flock of them accompanied you into this very room. See! They are hovering over you at this very moment.'"

"I'll bet they were a flock of crows," murmured Hippy.

"Did you see them, darlin'?" begged Nora in an awed tone that brought smiles to the faces of her companions.

"No. I was not sufficiently in tune with nature to see them, especially in daylight."

"Good-night!" muttered Hippy Wingate.

"And what do you think the medium also said?" asked Emma.

"Five dollars, please," laughed Grace.

"She did not. All she would consent to take from me was a dollar, and she said that, if I would come to her twice a week regularly, she would promise that, in a few weeks, I could see the birds as well as she could. But I didn't tell you--what the medium said of even greater importance was that the explanation was that some of my ancestors, far back in the dim shadows of the early hours of the world, were birds of the air. Just think of it, girls! Birds! Flying through the air and--"

"Darting yon and hither," finished Hippy.

"_Alors!_ Let's fly," cried Elfreda Briggs amid a shout of laughter from the Overland Riders.

"So say we all of us," answered Grace, springing up and beginning to pack away her mess kit. "It will be long after dark before we reach Bisbee's Corners."

The girls were still laughing as they rode away, Emma Dean silently resentful, her chin in the air, her face flushed.

"Do you really think she is in earnest about that nature stuff?"

questioned Anne.

"She thinks she is, but of course she isn't. Emma, like many others, must have a hobby to ride. She, fortunately, is fickle in her hobbies, and rides one but a short time before she tires of it and casts it aside. What would we do on these journeys without her?" laughed Grace.

"Yes. Our Emma is a joy and a delight," nodded Anne.

After a brisk ride at a steady gallop, the Overlanders jogged into the one street that Bisbee's Corners possessed shortly after nine o'clock that evening, all thoroughly tired but happy, with Hindenburg sound asleep in the saddle bag.

The streets, they saw, were thronged with men, mostly lumberjacks, some singing, others shouting, and here and there a pair of them engaged in fist battles.

"Must have been paid off," observed Tom Gray. "We are getting near the Big Woods, folks."

"I should say we are," replied Grace, taking in the scene with keen interest. "I hear a fiddle. There must be a dance going on."

"A dance? Oh, let's go," cried Emma.

"Better listen to the voices of nature," answered Tom laughingly. "A lumberjack dance is no place for a refined woman, or man either, for that matter. Where to, Grace?"

"The general store. I'll go in. The girls had better stay on their horses, for I don't like the looks of things in Bisbee's."

"Lumber-jacks are rough, but let them alone and they will let you alone," said Lieutenant Wingate.

Tom Gray said this might be true in theory, but that it was not always true in fact.

Pulling up before the general store, Grace dismounted and elbowed her way through a crowd of men, smilingly demanding "gangway," which was readily granted, though accompanied by quite personal remarks about her, to which, of course, the Overland girl gave not the slightest heed.

"Joe Shafto bought the supplies for you, Mrs. Gray," the owner of the store informed her after Grace had introduced herself and stated her mission. "Joe packed the stuff home on the mules and said you'd pay for it when you come along. That alright?"

"Perfectly so, and thank you ever so much. What is the excitement out there?" with a nod towards the street.

"Jacks comin' in for the early work in the woods. The foremen are hirin'

'em here and sendin' 'em on to the different camps. The whole bunch is just spoilin' for fight. Better not stir 'em up unless your crowd is lookin' for trouble," advised the storekeeper.

"Oh, no. Nothing like that," laughed Grace Harlowe, laying the money for their supplies on the counter. "Nothing wrong outside, is there, Hippy?"

she asked quickly as the lieutenant came in rather hurriedly.

"No. I'm after candy."

"That is fine. Buying candy for Nora and the girls," glowed Grace. "My husband seldom thinks to bring me candy, and--"

"For Nora? No. I'm getting the candy for the bronco and the bull pup--trying to buy my way into their good graces, as it were. Neither one of them takes to the uproar in the street. The bronc' is threatening to bolt, and Hindenburg has declared war on the lumberjack tribe because one of them poked a stick in his ribs just now."

Grace, after thanking the storekeeper for his courtesy, went out laughing, but the instant she stepped into the street she intuitively sensed a change in the spirit of the crowd there. The jacks had fallen silent in comparison with their previous uproarious att.i.tude--sullen and threatening, it seemed to her.

"What's wrong here, Elfreda?" she asked, stepping up beside Miss Briggs'

pony.

"A jack tried to pull Emma from her horse, probably out of mischief. Tom jumped his pony over and knocked the fellow down with his fist. Three or four others started for him. Tom rode one of them down and the others ran into the crowd for protection. I think we are headed for trouble,"

prophesied J. Elfreda.

"Grace, where is Hippy?" called Tom Gray anxiously.

"In the store buying candy for the pup."

"Stand back, you fellows!" commanded Tom sternly as he discovered that the jacks were crowding closer and closer to the little group of horsewomen. "We don't mind sport so far as the men are concerned, but you must let these young women alone. Hurry, Hippy!" he urged, as Lieutenant Wingate appeared at the store door.

"Overland!" called Grace, which was the rallying hail of the Overland Riders, and by which signal Lieutenant Wingate knew that all was not well with his companions.

Hippy jumped from the store porch and strode to his pony.