GRACE HARLOWE was frightened. At least, for a moment, she felt her nerves giving way under the strain, and she feared she too was going to scream. Instead, she gave Emma Dean a severe shaking.
“Stop it, I tell you! You will have the bandits down on us next. Goodness knows we have trouble enough on our hands without again having to deal with those ruffians.”
“I don’t care. I prefer bandits rather than to have that terrible thing in the air over me,” cried Emma.
“It is an animal, though I must admit that the wail did sound like the voice of a woman in mortal agony. There it goes again. Steady yourself, Emma! Be an Overton girl!”
Emma Dean buried her head in Grace’s lap and again gave way to a storm of tears. Her whole body was jerking nervously, but Grace petted and coddled, and talked to her, until finally Miss Dean, in a measure, recovered her composure.
The wild, haunting, mournful wail was repeated. Emma shivered and so did Grace, despite her self-control, but both girls immediately recovered their composure.
The wail burst suddenly, appallingly close, seeming, to their overstrained nerves, to be right under the shelter that covered the Overton girls.
Emma Dean leaped to her feet, and was about to dash out into the canyon when Grace caught and hauled her back. At that instant, the heavy thud of padded feet striking the ground in front of the camping place was heard by both girls.
Peering over the little fire, Grace saw two yellow, ball-like eyes out there in the darkness. Emma discovered them at about the same time, but she made no sound, save a faint gurgle in her throat.
Here was something tangible, something to give battle to, and a peril that one could see and face had few terrors for Grace Harlowe.
The bandit revolver that Grace had taken from Belle Bates was cautiously drawn from its holster. Grace took steady aim and pulled the trigger. A heavy report crashed out, echoing and buffeting the canyon walls far up the dark mountain gorge.
Grace fired again, and, this time, a scream of rage or pain, neither girl could decide which,again set the echoes screaming up the canyon, but the yellow eyes were no longer there when Grace got a clear view of the scene.
“There! Your friend, the lost soul, has at least one bullet in his body. You see how foolish you were to be so frightened,” rebuked Grace, forgetful for the moment that she too had been on the verge of giving way to the terror inspired by those agonizing wails. “I am going to see what I can discover.”
“Please, please don’t leave me alone,” begged Emma. “I can’t stand it.”
“I am not going away, just out front. Remain where you are. That beast may still be lurking about.”
Grace stepped out cautiously, carrying a flickering firebrand in her left hand, the bandit woman’s revolver in her right, ready for instant action. Upon examining the rocks for traces of their terrifying visitor, she found fresh blood stains. A trail of drops led up the canyon from that point, but the Overton girl did not follow it, knowing that peril might lurk on that trail.
“Don’t ever say that I cannot shoot straight,” cried Grace as she returned to her companion. “I hit the beast.”
“What was it?” questioned Emma, still pale and disturbed.
“I can’t say for certain. I know I never heard anything so blood-curdling as that frightful wail. I have been thinking, and it seems to me I have heard that the mountain lion, or cougar, has the wildest, most agonized scream of anything in the western mountains.”
“Do you think he will come back?”
“I do not believe so. Were I in his place I shouldn’t. I will keep awake and watch. That is the prudent thing to do, so you lie down and sleep for the rest of the night.”
Once more Grace took up her vigil, and after a time Emma again dropped off to sleep. The excitement had set Grace’s head aching, and the scalp wound pained her frightfully. She tried to lie back and doze, but did not succeed. Suddenly three shots, revolver shots, she decided, aroused Grace to instant alertness.
Listening intently, she heard three answering shots.
“A signal! Emma, wake up!”
“Wha—at is it?” cried Miss Dean, starting up heavy-eyed, swaying a little as she got wearily to her feet.
“Shots up the canyon. They were signal shots, too. We must put out the fire and get away from here. Help me fetch water from the stream to douse the fire. Take your hat. Be lively!”
The fire being low, only a few hatfuls were necessary to extinguish it. This done, Grace threw boughs from their bed over the heap of ashes, then grabbing Emma by a hand fairly dragged her across the stream and on a few yards to the opposite base of the mountain.
“Climb, but be careful!” directed Grace.
The two girls scrambled up the mountainside until it grew so steep that they could go no further.
“Lie down!” directed Grace. Both were breathing heavily from exertion and excitement.
“I hear them!” whispered Emma.
“Yes. There appear to be several of them, judging from the voices,” answered Grace.
The approaching party halted a little way up the canyon, but the halt was brief, and the horsemen, as such they proved to be, moved on down, as it seemed to Grace, with greater caution, for she could no longer hear voices, only the soft hoof thuds of horses feeling their way in the black night of the canyon.
“They have stopped at our little camp,” whispered Grace. “I felt certain that they would smell the dead fire. Keep very quiet, and be careful that you do not dislodge a stone. If you do, we’re lost.”
A match was lighted down there, and for afew seconds the dim outlines of horses were visible to the watching, listening girls.
A low-toned conference followed, more matches were lighted, flickering here and there like scattered fireflies. Grace felt, rather than saw, that the men were examining the ground for trail signs. If so, they failed to discover the direction that the Overton girls had taken in their scramble up the mountainside.
“Aren’t they going?” questioned Emma.
“I think so. Keep quiet until we are certain. It may be a trick to lure us back.”
A few moments later the horses of the party were heard thudding down the canyon, and the two girls breathed with less restraint.
“Emma, I think those men were our bandits. I wonder!”
“Wonder what?”
“I wonder if they are not on their way to the Overton camp? Emma Dean, I believe we are in our own canyon, or near it!” cried Grace, a trace of excitement in her tone.
“Even if we are, we cannot find our way out in the darkness,” answered Emma helplessly.
“Yes we can. At least we cannot get far out of our way unless we climb a mountain, and that we shall not do. Let’s get down, but be as quiet as possible, for we must not be caught again. It will go hard with us if we are.”
“Suppose theyshouldcatch us?” questioned Emma anxiously.
“Those men are desperate, but if they get us again it will be after I have no shells left in my weapons.”
Grace began cautiously scrambling down the mountainside, followed by her companion, who exhibited less caution. The critical moment for the girls was when they reached the bottom, and for several moments after setting their feet on solid ground, they stood listening.
“Come! They have gone,” decided Grace, slipping a hand into her companion’s. “We will follow the canyon until we land somewhere.”
They picked their way as carefully as was possible in the darkness, but the going was so rough that Grace finally took to the little mountain stream, and plodded on down it, until the sound of a greater volume of water ahead caught her ears. She thereupon immediately stepped from the stream, proceeding with caution, and in a few moments they came to the stream that Grace had heard. There, the Overton girl felt about with her hands for a time, then lighted a match.
“Emma!” she cried, “do you know where we are?”
“No.”
“We are on Pinal Creek. We are almost home, little one, and our troubles are nearly at an end. Oh, I am so happy—and so hungry,” added Grace, laughing a little hysterically.
“I can’t believe it. Let’s run,” urged Miss Dean.
“Don’t forget that the bandits are somewhere ahead of us. I suspect that they are in the vicinity of our camp.”
Grace was anxious for her friends. No shots, so far as she had heard, had been fired by them, and she began to fear that perhaps all was not well in the Overton camp. They pressed on more rapidly now, finally reaching the creek side of Squaw Valley. No fire burned in the camp, nor could the girls see the tents, which was not surprising, for the night in the valley was almost as dark as in the mountain canyon that they had just left.
“The silence here seems charged with possibilities,” whispered Grace. “Keep alert, Emma.”
“I am, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. I feel wretched and frightened.”
“There they go!” cried Grace.
A sudden scattering fire of rifle shots somewhere out in the field made the girls’ nerves jump.
“There go our rifles, too,” added Grace, as aspirited fire sprang up at the point where the two girls believed their camp to be located.
“Oh, what shall we do?” cried Emma.
“Get into a safe place. We have no rifles and can do nothing to assist our friends.” Grasping Emma’s hand again, Grace ran back to the creek.
“Down!” she ordered as bullets began to rustle the leaves over their heads.
Both girls threw themselves down, and, with heads slightly raised, watched the flashes from the rifles. The outlaws were not riding this time, but were skulking, fighting Indian fashion, and Grace was now certain that the bandits that had been harassing the Overton outfit had returned for another attack.
The battle was being savagely waged on both sides, but who of her companions were taking part in it, Grace of course did not know. The first intimation she had that the fight was ended was when she saw four horsemen gallop down to the creek and head up the canyon.
“There they go,” announced Grace Harlowe in a relieved tone. “Hurry! Some one may have been hurt.”
Hand in hand the girls dragged their weary feet across the valley and up toward the camp.
“Do—do you think our people will shoo—oot at us?” stammered Emma.
“They may at that. I will signal them.” Grace fired three interval shots into the air, following it with the Overton hail, which was so weak that it barely carried to the camp.
“O-v-e-r-t-o-n!” came an answering shout from the camp.
Grace and Emma soon discovered the figures of two men approaching them at a run.
“Who’s there?” called the voice of Hippy Wingate. “Speak or I’ll shoot.”
“Harlowe!” answered Grace weakly. “Oh, Emma, I’m going to faint!” she cried, and collapsed.
When Grace recovered consciousness she was in her own camp. A camp fire was blazing, and a group of anxious faces were bending over her. Grace smiled and closed her eyes.
“She has fallen asleep, don’t disturb her,” said Elfreda Briggs. “The poor child is utterly exhausted. It is a wonder that she is alive after what she plainly has gone through.”