Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the High Sierras

“No. Of course you saw nothing of either him or the bandits.”

“I not only found the robbers, but I had a battle with them,” answered Stacy.

“What’s that? Don’t trifle, Brown. This is a serious matter,” rebuked Tom.

“I’m telling you the truth. It was this way. I was riding along, peaceful like, when, all of a sudden, biff, boom, bang! It seemed to me that fifty or a hundred men burst from the bushes.”

“So many as that?” laughed Tom.

“Well, something like that. I may be a dozen or so out of the way, but you see I didn’t stop to count them. I raised my trusty rifle and – well, to make a long story short, I fired right into that howling bunch of bandits. I suppose I emptied as many as twelve saddles.”

“Wait a moment,” urged one of the travelers who had joined them. “How many times did you reload?”

“Not at all. I didn’t have time.”

“Captain Gray, he emptied twelve saddles, so he must have shot two men with each bullet, as his magazine holds only six cartridges. I call that some shooting.”

“Is that so? Then I must have done as you say. Wonderful, wasn’t it?”

At this juncture, Sheriff Ford rode into camp and was quickly told of what Stacy had discovered. Mr. Ford, after a few quick questions, realized that the boy really had stumbled on the right trail and discovered the bandits.

“You did well, young man,” he complimented. “I thought I had struck a lead, but the trail pinched out. Can you take us to the place where you came on those ruffians?”

“No, but the pony can, or you can follow my trail. I reckon I left a pretty plain one. I know Uncle Hip better than you do, and if he has been able to get away from the fellows who captured him I’ll guarantee that he will find us. He would know we wouldn’t go away and leave him. For that reason I suggest that we build a fire to attract Uncle Hip’s attention, should he be in this vicinity.”

One of the men protested, saying it would be dangerous, but the sheriff agreed with Stacy.

“We will have a fire and will post guards to protect ourselves,” he said. “We shall not be bothered by the bandits to-night; I am positive of that. They know that the alarm has been given and that, in all probability, a posse is already on their trail. If nothing develops during the night – if we get no news from Lieutenant Wingate – we will start for Gardner in the morning and organize a big searching party to comb the mountains for him.”

After all phases of the situation had been discussed, the sheriff’s plan was agreed to, and a fire was built up. It had been blazing for some time when, in a lull in the conversation, Stacy was reminded that he had not finished telling about his meeting with the bandits.

“Yes. You left off with shooting two men with each bullet,” laughed Tom Gray.

“In the excitement of meeting up with the villains,” resumed Stacy, without an instant’s hesitation, “I wheeled the pony – spun him about on his hind feet like a top, set him down on all fours and dashed away. We didn’t gallop, we simply dashed. You know it wasn’t that I was afraid. Anyone who knows me knows that nothing can scare me. I – ”

“Bang, bang, bang!”

“Oh, wow!” howled the fat boy, diving head first into a clump of bushes where he crouched wide-eyed, the chill creepers chasing up and down his spinal column. The others of the party sprang up and snatched their rifles, Ford kicking the blazing wood of the camp-fire aside, and Tom Gray dousing it with a pail of water.

“Lie low, everybody, till I find out what this means!” commanded the sheriff sharply.

“Are – are we attacked? Have the scoundrels come back?” chattered Chunky.

“Be quiet!” Mr. Ford crept out into the darkness, the others waiting in tense expectancy listening for a rifle volley.

Tom thought the shots they had heard were signals, but no one else believed such to be the case.

The flash of a revolver, a sharp report close at hand, was followed by a shout from Stacy Brown and two shots from his own weapon at a shadowy moving figure skulking behind a clump of bushes.

CHAPTER VII

BANDITS CATCH A TARTAR

The blow on the head had left Lieutenant Wingate unconscious. Without loss of a minute he was thrown over the back of the horse, in front of the rider, like a sack of meal on its way home from the mill, then the horse started away at a trot.

After a few moments of violent jolting, consciousness began to return to Hippy and he groped for something to take hold of to relieve the strain of his trying position. His fingers finally gripped the boot of his captor.

Quick as a flash, the bandit brought down the butt of his revolver on the captive’s head, whereupon Hippy went to sleep again, the blood trickling from nose and mouth. Other riders, in the meantime, had caught up with and passed the rider who was carrying him away. From what was said it was apparent that Hippy’s captor was the leader of the party, for the others deferred to his commands, and, riding on ahead, soon disappeared. The trail grew more and more rugged. On the right a solid granite wall rose sheer for several hundred feet, while on the left, the side over which Hippy’s head was hanging, the ground dropped away sharply for fully three hundred feet.

Lieutenant Wingate again began to recover consciousness. It seemed to him as if all the blood in his body were concentrated in his aching head and neck. He did not realize at the moment how the arms and hands were smarting from being dragged through bushes and against the rough edges of rocks, but he did discover that two large lumps had been raised on his head, one well down towards the base of the brain. Had the second blow been an inch farther down, it probably would have killed him.

His head becoming clearer, Hippy began to consider his situation – to think what he could do to extricate himself from his uncomfortable and perilous position. His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by an exclamation from the bandit and a sharp pressure of a spur against the pony’s side. Hippy could feel the rider’s leg contract as the spur was driven home. The pony reared and threatened to buck, but, evidently changing its mind, started away at a jolting trot.

The interruption had served one good purpose: it had given Hippy an opportunity to get one hand up to his shirt, where the hand fumbled for a few perilous seconds, then dropped cautiously to its former position. That hand now held a pin. Miserable as he was, Hippy smiled grimly and pricked the pony’s side with the pin.

The bandit roared as the animal jumped, and again applied the spur, followed instantly by a jab of Hippy’s new weapon, the pin. A lively few seconds ensued, and the pony bucked so effectively that its rider had all he could do to stick to the saddle, and at the same time manage his captive and the reins. Hippy jabbed the pin in again and again, though every buck of the animal nearly broke the Overlander in two.

A few seconds of this treatment and the end came suddenly. With a final humping of its back in a buck that lifted all four feet from the ground, the pony went up into the air with arching back and with head held stiffly close to its forefeet. The bandit threw all the strength of one hand into an effort to jerk that stubborn head back where it belonged, while the other hand grabbed desperately for the body of the captive, which was slowly slipping away. The bandit, as a result, came a cropper over the pony’s head. Hippy wriggled and slipped off, shooting head first down the sharp incline of smooth rocks that fell away from the left side of the trail. The pony galloped away a few rods; then, halting, gazed about him uneasily.

The bandit, after a few dazed seconds, got up and started for his mount, then halting suddenly began searching for his captive. Hippy Wingate was nowhere in sight, though his captor found where his body had crushed down the bushes as it slipped from the trail. The bandit finally gave it up, and, catching his pony, quickly rode away.

“No use. He’s done for,” growled the man before leaving the scene. “He’s gone clear to the bottom, mashed flat as a flapjack.”

The hoof-beats of the pony had no sooner died away than Hippy Wingate’s head was cautiously raised from behind the roots of a tree that clung to the side of the mountain, gripped into a deep crevice for anchorage.

“I’m not a flapjack just yet, old top,” he muttered. “I may be if I am not careful how I move about. I suppose I ought to hang on here till daylight, but those fellows may come back. They can’t afford to let me get away. I know too much.”

Hippy began crawling cautiously toward the trail, and finally gaining it, sat down to think over what he had better do next. He felt for his revolver and was relieved to find that it had not been taken from him, and thus fortified, he decided that the prudent course would be to find a hiding place and wait there for daylight, so he started away, taking the back track, which he followed until it had so widened that he was unable to keep to the trail. He then branched off to the right, holding as straight a course as possible. The trickle of water caught his ear, and, a moment later, Hippy was flat on his stomach, drinking long, deep draughts from a tiny mountain stream. He then bathed his face and head and his smarting, swollen arms. He knew that he ought to be moving, but what direction to take was the question. Being a good woodsman, he knew that to wander aimlessly about in the night surely would result in losing himself completely.

After searching about for some time, Lieutenant Wingate found a high rock suited to his purpose. He climbed up and sat down.

“The scoundrels will have to move quickly if they get me this time,” he muttered. “They’ll – ” Hippy’s head drooped, and he sank slowly to the rock fast asleep.

When he again opened his eyes the sun was shining down into them, and his cheeks felt as if they were on fire.

“Morning! Who would think it?” he exclaimed.

Without wasting time, he made his way back to the stream where he drank and bathed. Now came the question as to the course he should follow.

“It is probable that some of my outfit will remain by the railroad where the hold-up occurred,” he reflected. “That’s where I am going.”

After a final look at the sun, Hippy started back briskly. He did not follow the trail, believing that he could find a more direct course, and that such a course eventually would lead him to the railroad a short distance to the west of where he had been the previous evening.

It was nearly noon when Hippy first began to realize that he was hungry. He had not thought of breakfast, nor would it have done him any good had he thought of it. An hour later he found a berry bush and ate all the fruit it held. That helped a little and he again plodded on. About four o’clock that afternoon he reached the railroad, and, not long after that, he was trotting around the bend to the scene of the hold-up. The place was deserted. Hippy fired a signal from his revolver and listened. There was no reply. A rabbit hopped across the tracks. He fired twice at it, missing each time.

“There goes my supper!” he exclaimed ruefully. “Next time I sight game I’ll throw a stone at it. I reckon I can throw stones better than I can shoot. I should have thought my friends would wait for me.”

Hippy did discover where the Overland ponies had been unloaded, then he understood that his companions had gone in search of him. This knowledge heartened him up a great deal, and he immediately set himself to work to discover which way the party had gone. What he was looking for was the trail of his own pony, whose shoeprints he believed he would be able to identify instantly. Hippy picked up the trail in a remarkably short time.