Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert Part 8

Hippy had heard the shots too, but his orders were to keep his position and continue on until directed to stop. As Hi got within speaking distance of him, Hippy challenged.

"Move forward and keep going until I fire three signal shots to call you in," directed the guide. "The man may run along the ridge. Wing him if you see him. He may have shot Mrs. Gray. Both of them fired. There they go again!" Hi Lang was off at top speed.

Grace, in the meantime, thinking that she had heard a twig snap, halted sharply. Then, to her amazement, a man stepped out into the light a few yards to the rear of her. She saw him the instant he emerged from the shadows, and he was looking in the direction of the Overland camp.

"Now I have you!" muttered Grace Harlowe, taking a cautious step toward the man who was standing with his back toward her.

"Put up your hands! I have you covered!" she commanded sharply.

The man whirled like a flash and fired point blank at the Overland girl. Grace fired almost in the same instant. So close was he to her when he fired that she imagined she could feel the hot powder strike her face.

Each fired again. It was close quarters for Grace. She sprang to the right hoping to disconcert her adversary and make a more difficult mark for him to hit. He pulled the trigger of his revolver, and, at that second, Grace, uttering a little gasp, toppled over, half turning as she plunged forward with arms outstretched.

Black night instantly enveloped the Overland Rider, nor did she hear a rattling exchange of shots that followed almost instantly after her fall, for consciousness had left her.

CHAPTER VI

INTO THE GREAT SILENCE

Hi Lang had reached the scene just as the last shots were being fired by Grace and her adversary. The guide had seen neither of the combatants, but he had seen the flashes of their revolvers.

At first he was not certain which was which, but in a moment the man who had been shooting at Grace revealed himself for a second.

It was then that the guide took a hand.

Hi Lang was a quick and accurate hand with both revolver and rifle, and he feared no man, nor collection of men. At his second shot he heard his man utter an exclamation and knew that he had scored a hit. For the next several minutes the two indulged in snap-shooting, firing at the slightest sound or movement; then the mysterious stranger suddenly ceased firing.

The guide was cautious. He did not take advantage of the lull in hostilities for some little time, and when he did he crawled to one side and crept noiselessly around to the position that the stranger had occupied when he had fired his last shot. The man had disappeared.

Mr. Lang was anxious about Grace Harlowe, but it might be equivalent to suicide to search for her until he had satisfied himself that his adversary was either wounded or had gone away.

Finally, having searched all the surrounding bushes and rocks and finding no one, he returned to the scene of the shooting, softly calling to the Overland girl.

There was no response.

Hi stood still for a moment trying to recall where he had seen the flash of her weapon.

"It must have been about where I am standing now. I--"

Hi Lang suddenly disappeared from sight. The guide had fallen into a crevice in the rocks, a crevice that had been hidden by dwarf shrubs and mountain gra.s.s, and it seemed a long way to the bottom.

Hi b.u.mped his way to the bottom at the expense of some bruises and a badly ruffled temper.

"Hulloa!" he exclaimed. "What's this?"

He had touched something that was not rock--something that felt like a human form. The guide struck a match and peered down at Grace Harlowe, who lay face down at the bottom, and, as he turned her face up to the light, he saw flecks of blood on it.

"The hound! He hit her! I'll kill him for that, whoever he may be!"

Placing a hand over Grace's heart, Hi Lang found that she was alive.

"Thank G.o.d for that! Give me the luck to meet the critter that did this thing," breathed the desert guide.

Hi lifted the unconscious Overland girl in his arms and began scrambling toward the top of the big crevice. Finding that he could not make it without freeing one hand, he slipped an arm about Grace's waist, holding her with it while he used his free hand to a.s.sist him in climbing to the top. He reached it a little out of breath.

Without giving a thought now to the peril he was inviting by showing himself so boldly, Hi stepped out into the open s.p.a.ce, raised his revolver and fired three shots into the air, the signal of recall for Lieutenant Wingate. Then, gathering Grace in his arms, he started for the camp in long strides, raging silently at the ruffian who had tried to kill her.

Elfreda, who was on watch just outside of their camp, heard him coming and challenged.

"It's Hi. I've got Mrs. Gray."

"Is--is she hurt?" questioned Elfreda more calmly than she felt.

"She's been shot, but she's alive."

Miss Briggs ran to meet the guide, and, walking along at his side, she placed a finger on Grace's pulse and held it there until they reached the camp. Nora, Anne and Emma paled as they caught sight of the limp figure in Hi Lang's arms.

"Who shot her!" asked Elfreda.

"The critter who tried to kill Ping, I suppose."

"Oh, this is terrible!" wailed Emma.

"Get water," directed Miss Briggs, after the guide had placed her where the light from the fire would shine in her face.

Nora fetched water from the spring near which the camp had been pitched, and Elfreda bathed the wound that she found on Grace's head. Elfreda's hospital training during the war, in France, had already stood her in good stead on several occasions since her return from Europe.

"This is not a gunshot wound," she announced after a critical examination of the patient's head.

"Not--not a gunshot--" exclaimed Hi.

"No. It is a severe scalp wound, however."

"What made it, then?" demanded the guide.

"Either she has been struck over the head or she has fallen and b.u.mped her head against the sharp edge of a rock," answered Miss Briggs.

The Overland girls drew long breaths of relief.

"I found her in a hole in the ground. Fell into it myself. That's where she got hurt," said Hi. "She and that critter were shooting at each other when I came up, then all at once the shooting stopped. I got in a few shots on him myself. Reckon I winged him for he quit pretty soon after I got there. What do you think?"

Elfreda, still noting Grace's pulse and peering into her face, nodded encouragingly, and placed her smelling salts under Grace's nostrils.

"I feared it might be a fracture, but I believe it is not that bad. Concussion is the word. She must have struck hard, and it is a wonder she did not break her neck. You see how the neck is swollen. Her pulse is getting stronger, and I think she will be out of her faint in a few moments."

Grace regained consciousness shortly after that, but she was still dizzy and weak from the severe shock of her fall and the loss of quite a little blood.