“OH, Grace, what is it?” cried Emma, who at this juncture arrived on the scene.
Grace Harlowe’s reaction came with Emma’s words. Whirling in a flash, Grace dropped to her knees just as the revolver of the bandit was fired at her. How the fellow had managed to get behind her without her knowing it, Grace was at a loss to understand.
A cry behind her now told Grace that the bullet intended for her had hit Belle Bates instead. It was now a question of fight or be killed, or both, so far as Grace was concerned, and, coming close on the discharge of the bandit’s revolver, she took a quick shot at the fellow, following it up with a second shot, as the bandit again fired.
The man staggered under the Overton girl’s second shot, and collapsed on the ground.
“Run!” cried Grace. “Run, Emma!”
Emma Dean paused hesitatingly, then darted away, but the instant she was out of sight ofthe bandits, Emma stopped short to wait for her companion.
Grace was still in the thick of trouble, but, though the wounded bandit, lying flat on his back, continued to shoot, the Overton girl was thankful that Belle Bates had no weapon to use on her.
Though the fight had been under way less than twenty seconds, the bandits were already running to the scene. Grace, following her second shot, had darted away, calling to Emma as she ran.
“Run! They’re after us!” admonished Grace as she came up with Emma.
A scattering fire of revolver bullets spattered on the rocks about them, but, by lively sprinting, they soon succeeded in placing substantial barriers of rock between them and their pursuers. The bandits, of course, possessed the advantage of long experience in this sort of warfare, but Grace’s mind was an alert one, quick to receive impressions and quick to react.
“I hear horses coming!” panted Emma.
“Yes. They’ve taken to the ponies. We must get where the ponies cannot conveniently go, and do it quick. Run on your toes. Be careful not to leave a footprint anywhere,” cautioned Grace.
It was soon apparent from the sounds, however,that the horsemen were overtaking the girls, though Grace felt reasonably certain that the bandits did not know where she and Emma at that moment were. In the circumstances there appeared only one way to avoid discovery, and that was to do some skillful dodging, which the two girls promptly did when the pursuers drew closer to them. Grace and Emma hid behind a rock, and, as the riders swept down toward them, moved step by step around it, so that the rock should always be between them and the bandits.
The outlaws swung by at a brisk gallop which left Grace and Emma to the rear of their pursuers.
“Run! We must find a hiding place,” urged Grace.
“Grace Harlowe, there is blood on your face!” cried Emma as they ran. “Were you hit?”
“I got a scratch on the head. A bullet scratched my scalp when I started to run away from the fight,” grinned Grace.
The way was now becoming more rugged, but the girls did not lessen their pace, and for nearly an hour they continued their plunging, stumbling sprint, at the expense of many falls and bruises, thankful that, thus far, they had succeeded in eluding their pursuers.
The Outlaws Swung By.
The Outlaws Swung By.
“I can’t go any further!” wailed Emma. “I simply can’t, Grace.”
“You must, Emma. This is too exposed a place for us to halt. There! What did I tell you?”
A rifle bullet hadpingedagainst a rock close at hand, and ricochetted off with a weirdzing—g—g—g, followed by the report of a rifle.
Emma suddenly forgot her weariness and, together, the girls fled from that danger spot. Now that their presence had been discovered, Grace decided to make another change of course, which she did instantly. It was a fortunate change, too, for it led the girls to the edge of the mountain. A few yards below where they were standing, Grace saw a shelf of rock jutting out, and rightly surmised that beneath that they might find a hiding place.
Getting to the shelf and underneath it, without leaving a tell-tale trail, was difficult, but they succeeded in accomplishing it.
“Lie down and try to get some sleep,” advised Grace, after the two had squeezed in under the shelf. “We are in no immediate danger here.”
Being on the verge of utter exhaustion, Emma Dean needed no urging, and almost immediately sank into a deep sleep, while Grace lay back with closed eyes, getting what rest she could,and reflecting over the exciting incidents of the last few hours. As for the bandit she had shot, she did not believe his wound to be a serious one. Grace had aimed for the upper left limb, and believed she had hit it. She had not had time to turn to see how seriously Belle Bates was wounded.
Nothing more having been heard of the bandits, Grace finally turned her attention to the important matter of getting back to the Overton camp. First, she got her points of compass from the sun, but this did not greatly assist her, not knowing to a certainty in which direction the camp lay. Not a familiar landmark could she find.
“Wake up! We must be going,” said Grace, gently shaking her companion.
“Grace dear, I’m so lame and stiff that I don’t believe I can walk.”
“Perhaps you prefer to remain here and starve or be captured again,” suggested Grace.
Emma got up, and said she was ready.
The two girls then started off as briskly as Miss Dean’s sore joints would permit. They continued on until four o’clock in the afternoon without finding the trail over which they had ridden to the mountain top.
“I fear we shall not find it, dear,” Grace finally admitted.
“Then what are we to do!” pleaded Emma. “I’m so hungry, so thirsty and so weary.”
“I have been thinking of that, and looking over the landscape at the same time. It seems to me that the second canyon over there should lead us somewhere near our camp. Look to your right and you will observe that the second canyon appears to merge into the one immediately in our foreground, so we will try to get down the mountain and work our way toward the point of intersection.
“We shall find water to drink in the canyon, and we must watch sharply for berries, of which I saw many when out picnicking. Other than a few berries, we cannot hope to get much of anything to eat until we reach camp.”
Emma groaned. They then began a cautious descent of the mountain, creeping from rock to rock, slipping and sliding, now and then at the imminent peril of being dashed to death on the rocks far below them.
“Here is a bush of mountain berries. Come and get them, but be careful not to fall,” Grace called to her companion.
Emma, upon reaching the bush, threw herself down beside it and ate ravenously, then suddenly realizing that her companion had not had a taste of the berries, she shamefacedly begged Grace’s pardon for her greediness.
The bottom of the canyon was in deep shadow when the girls finally reached it, though it was still daylight on the mountain top. A rippling stream of water at their feet, for the moment, put all other thoughts out of the minds of Grace Harlowe and Emma Dean, and they drank and choked until they could drink no more, and, after bathing their faces in the cold mountain stream, they arose from the brook greatly refreshed.
“That was almost as good as a meal,” declared Grace. “It will have to answer for my meal, because I failed to find more berries.”
Emma made no reply to this, but she thought volumes of uncomplimentary things about herself.
Now that the chill night air was settling over the mountains, the wound in Grace’s scalp began to stiffen and give her considerable pain, but she kept her suffering to herself, and, taking Emma by the hand, began trudging down the canyon, that already was in impenetrable darkness. They stumbled on for hours, until finally Emma gave out entirely.
“Grace, I simply cannot go another step,” she wailed.
Lighting a match, Grace peered into the face of her little companion, and she saw that Emma really was suffering from exhaustion.
“All right, little pard, we will camp right here. I wish I had a light. I lost my pocket lamp yesterday, but I am going to try to make a fire. You sit down and do the best you can while I feel about for the makings.”
After accumulating a few handfuls of twigs that would burn, Grace placed them beside Emma, and began feeling about for a suitable camping place. She found one under a projection of rock that had been worn out, perhaps by the high waters of centuries. There was shale and dirt under the rocky shelf, which Grace partly scooped out with her hands, and a few moments later a cheerful little fire was burning. By its light Grace cleared away as much more of the dirt and shale as possible, piling in green boughs in their place.
“Is it safe to have a fire?” questioned Emma apprehensively.
“No. We must have warmth or we shall freeze, chilled through as we already are. Get in under the rock and you will soon feel quite comfortable, I know.”
“Aren’t you coming in, too?” asked Emma.
“Yes, after I have laid in sufficient fuel for the night,” replied Grace. “As for the fire, you see I have laid it close to the rock, and I doubt if it could be seen from the top of the mountain.”
“I wish I could do things as you do, Loyalheart.”
“You could if you had to. There! I think we are fixed for the night, and now I will join you. Are you comfortable?” she asked, snuggling down beside Emma.
“I should be were we not in such a mess, dear.”
“Be thankful for small things, Emma. This really is quite comfy. All we need to complete our comfort are a few slices of bacon and a hot cup of coffee apiece,” chuckled Grace.
“Grace Harlowe, you are positively cruel to speak of it,” rebuked Emma. “For the moment I had forgotten that I was hungry, then you had to remind me of it. I could almost faint at thought of how hungry I am. Never, never again will I make fun of Hippy Wingate’s appetite. I never knew what a terrible thing an appetite could be.”
“I agree with you that it can be, in some circumstances,” admitted Grace. “Suppose you go to sleep now.”
“Oh, I can’t. I am too frightened,” protested Emma. “Isn’t it still, and isn’t the stillness in this canyon the noisiest thing you ever heard?”
Grace laughed merrily.
“You have expressed it exactly, little woman.Please get to sleep. I shall not answer another question, so do not ask any.”
Grace kept her word, and preserved a stony silence to all of her companion’s questions. Emma, soon tiring of asking questions that elicited no reply, ceased asking them and finally dozed off to sleep.
Grace Harlowe poked the fire and put on fresh fuel from time to time, keeping her lonely vigil, listening and wondering whether or not she would ever be able to find her way back to the camp of the Overton outfit.
Lulled by the warmth of the fire, and worn out from her trying experience, Grace’s head finally drooped until it rested on Emma Dean’s shoulder.
Grace awakened with a start, then sank back into a sound sleep, which lasted but a few moments. The support of Emma’s shoulder was suddenly withdrawn, as Emma, uttering a piercing shriek, leaped to her feet. Grace toppled over sideways, but was upright, wide awake in an instant.
In the light of the fire that was now burning low, she saw Emma, half standing, half crouching, her face ghastly pale, her body shaking as from a heavy chill.
“What is it?” demanded Grace sharply.
“I—I didn’t see, I heard,” gasped Miss Dean. “Oh, Grace, it was awful.”
“Tell me what frightened you!” insisted Grace in a severe tone of voice.
“Something screamed and wailed. It sounded like the wail of a lost soul. You know what I mean.”
“Never having heard a lost soul wail, I don’t. The mountain silence must have ‘got your wind up,’ as the soldiers say of a man who is frightened. Lie down and go to slee—”
Grace got no further. The silent, surcharged air split to a piercing scream, followed by a frightful, blood-chilling wail of agony. It was with an effort that Grace restrained herself from leaping to her feet, as Emma Dean again screamed, but the cold chills were racing up and down her spine, her nerves partly out of control.
“I can’t stand it! Oh, Grace, Grace, save me!” Emma, weeping hysterically, threw herself into her companion’s arms as that nerve-racking wail of agony again woke the echoes of the canyon, this time seeming to be directly over their heads.