“IT is my opinion that this is an Indian pony,” announced Lieutenant Wingate, bending over the dead horse nearest to the camp.
“How do you know?” questioned Grace, giving Hippy a swift glance to learn if he were in earnest.
“Because it looks like pictures of Indian ponies that I have seen.”
Grace smiled, but made no comment.
“Here is a rifle under the critter, too,” headded. “I wonder what happened to the rider?”
“Is it an Indian rifle?” asked Miss Briggs in all seriousness.
Hippy confessed that he did not know.
“I don’t believe you would qualify as an expert on things Indian,” laughed Grace, starting on with her companions toward the creek to look at the second victim of the Overton girls’ shooting. They found nothing on that pony except saddle and bridle.
“Please remove the equipment from them, Lieutenant,” Grace requested. “I will take the rifle. I wish Mr. Fairweather to examine the equipment.”
“I sincerely hope he knows more about Indians than Hippy does,” observed Elfreda dryly.
“Do you think those scoundrels will come back?” questioned Elfreda as they were returning to camp.
“Not in the daytime. If you mean will they bother us in future, I will say yes, and, being a prudent person, I shall try to be prepared for them this evening.”
“You are a queer girl, Loyalheart. The longer I know you the less I understand you. You are the gentlest, sweetest woman I have ever known, but under the surface you have an armor of steel,” declared Miss Briggs.
“This mountain air surely is making you light-headed, Elfreda dear,” laughingly retorted Grace Harlowe. “I am a woman like yourself, no different, and, like yourself, I have fairly good control over my nervous system. Youth and years of outdoor activity have given me the qualities you have in mind.”
“Perhaps that is it. It has given you something else, too—it has given you beauty of face and figure, given you a better understanding and a greater love for your friends, and mankind in general.”
Grace nodded over the latter sentiment.
“If all young women could come to understand what outdoor life means to one, I do not believe they would cling to the town, to their late hours, late suppers and nerve-breaking rounds of social pleasures. It is no especial credit to a woman to be beautiful; it is her duty to be so. Any woman whom nature has endowed with a substantial physical foundation may be beautiful, but not from wearing fashionable clothes or the use of cosmetics. Right here in the open is the remedy free to all. The open spots, Elfreda; God’s free air; healthful, wholesome exercise, and right thinking and right doing. Pardon me, dear. I do not often open my heart like this, though I think of these things every day of my life.”
“I call yours a pretty good religion,” declared Elfreda with emphasis.
“I do not call it my religion,” objected Grace. “Rather, is it my rule of practice. One might call it the application of the greater principle.”
“We are wading into deep water. Suppose we have breakfast,” twinkled Miss Briggs.
“Yes. Some time to-day I propose that we go for a tramp along the creek and up the nearby canyons, and practice a little of what I am preaching to you. We will all go and have the best kind of a time. Ah! Nora and Anne are getting breakfast.”
“Have plenty of food,” cried Hippy as he came in a few moments later with the saddles and bridles of the dead horses. “A night in the Overton trenches does give one an appetite.”
Throwing the equipment down, Hippy told Nora, Emma and Anne about the fight of the previous night, not forgetting to give himself all the credit to which he considered himself entitled.
“This is terrible,” wailed Emma. “I’m afraid of somebody or something.”
“Fiddlesticks!” rebuked Elfreda. “After going through a great war one should not have nerves. Let’s eat.”
After breakfast the defenders turned in for afew hours’ sleep, Nora and Anne in the meantime standing guard over the camp. No trouble was looked for during the day, but Grace fully expected that they would have plenty of it, in one form or another, when darkness had settled over the valley.
This apprehension was not permitted to interfere with their enjoyment of the day, so, after the sleepers had finished their naps, mess kits were packed and the party started toward the creek for an old-fashioned picnic.
Grace had a twofold reason for wishing to go to the creek and up the canyons. First, she hoped to put her companions in a better frame of mind, and for herself she wished to satisfy her curiosity as to the direction that the night raiders took after the Overton party drove them off.
Hippy Wingate was left to watch the camp—and to sleep, as Grace suspected that he would do.
Grace Harlowe, with rifle under her arm, led her party, singing college songs as she tripped along, just as she and her companions were wont to do when picnicking in the Overton hills.
Reaching Pinal Creek, the party followed it along for a short distance, then turned off into a high-walled canyon, where they finally camped and spread their luncheon on the ground by theside of a rippling mountain stream. There they ate and chatted.
Grace had studied the ground along creek and canyon for indications of the course taken by the night raiders after the battle. The hoof-prints, however, seemed to end at the bank of Pinal Creek, and she was unable to pick them up again.
The other girls, following the luncheon, amused themselves with lying flat on their backs, gazing up the sheer walls of the canyon at the ribbon of blue sky lined out by the tops of the canyon walls. Later on they strolled off singly and in pairs in search of wild flowers.
“I’m going up this canyon,” called Grace, who had risen and picked her way along the little stream that joined Pinal Creek some distance below them. “If any one of you gets into difficulties give the Overton yell.”
“Same to you,” called Nora.
It was more than an hour later when Grace came sauntering downstream, humming happily, for the vastness of the mountains and the grandeur of the scenery had thrilled and entranced her. Anne was waiting for her at the point where the girls had taken their luncheon.
“Where are the girls?” called Grace as she espied her companion.
“Downstream somewhere. They said not toworry, as they might keep on going until they reached the valley.”
“It is getting late, and I think it advisable for all to return to camp at once. Come along, Anne dear. I stirred up something up there that I believe to be a large wild animal. That is, I heard it, but could not see it. Should we still be in camp in the valley to-morrow, I hope to go hunting for it.”
“Provided you yourself are not hunted,” suggested Anne.
Grace laughed.
“Don’t you think I am quite able to take care of myself?” she asked.
“Up to a certain point, yes. Beyond that I am apprehensive.”
“Merely another case of nerves, Anne dear, so forget it and enjoy the scenery. Yonder is where we turn to take the trail for home. The girls must have tired of wandering in this wonderful place.”
Arm in arm the two girls strolled back towards the camp, chatting, laughing and enjoying the bracing mountain air.
“The girls are at the camp,” said Anne, pointing.
“I have an idea that they did not feel wholly safe in the mountains,” replied Grace. “I really believe that I could spend the rest of mylife here and without ever knowing a moment of loneliness.”
“Tenderfeet!” chided Anne laughingly, as she and Grace entered the camp.
Grace’s alert eyes instantly missed one of the Overton girls.
“Where is Emma? Has she gone to bed?” she demanded.
“Emma?” wondered Miss Briggs.
“We left her with Anne,” Nora informed them.
“Yes, and Emma went downstream a few moments after you girls went away. She said she would go back to camp, gathering flowers on the way,” interjected Anne.
“How long was this before I joined you, Anne?” questioned Grace, turning to her companion.
“I should say about three-quarters of an hour,” answered Anne, a worried look creeping into her eyes.
“What’s this?” demanded Lieutenant Wingate. “Emma missing?”
“Don’t worry. She will turn up all right,” comforted Nora. “You can’t lose Emma Dean so easily.”
“Elfreda, please get a rifle and come with me,” directed Grace incisively. “Hippy, I should like to have you go with us, but it is moreimportant that you remain here to look after the camp. Should we not find Emma soon, I will fire three interval shots for assistance. You will then hurry to me, but in that event, bring Nora and Anne with you. In no circumstances leave them here alone.”
Grace issued her directions calmly, but there was that in her tone that brought a worried look to four pairs of eyes. That she suspected more than appeared on the surface was apparent to all.
“You—you don’t think that anything ha—as happened to Emma, do you?” begged Anne.
“Girls, something serious surely has happened to Emma Dean!” gravely responded Grace Harlowe. “Come, Elfreda! We must not lose an instant. You people be alert for rifle signals.”