Chase Josephine - Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Old Apache Trail

“I HAVE asked you to visit me for a twofold reason,” announced Grace Harlowe to her friends of the Overton Unit. “In other words, I have a vacation proposal to make to you.”

“Which, translated into plain English, means that you wish to lead us into new fields of adventure,” interjected Emma Dean.

“Perhaps,” smiled Grace.

“I suspected as much when I received your invitation to come here,” nodded Elfreda Briggs.

“Curiosity has taken full possession of me, Grace. What is the big idea?” urged Anne Nesbit eagerly.

“So far as I am concerned, no plans have been made,” replied Grace. “The original suggestion may have been mine – that is, the suggestion that we get together for a real outing. From that nucleus, Hippy says he has worked out a plan that promises entertainment, health and adventure for the jaded Overton girls after their strenuous war service. Hippy and Nora will be here in a few moments. He will tell you all about it.”

“Dark mystery,” murmured Emma.

“Let me ask you girls something,” resumed Grace. “Since we returned from France, where we all did our bit, has each of you been perfectly contented with the simple life, well content to remain at home without feeling one little moment’s yearning to see something stirring? Search your innermost consciousness and tell me what you find there in answer to my question.”

For a moment no one essayed an answer; then Elfreda spoke up.

“To be frank with you, Loyalheart, I have been perfectly miserable,” declared Miss Briggs thoughtfully.

Grace nodded and smiled.

“In France, amid the activity and excitement of war, not to speak of the peril, I was positive that once out of it, once back in my peaceful home, I never again should feel the slightest inclination to wander,” continued Elfreda. “For a few months, following my return from the war zone, I really was contented, delightfully so, luxuriously so, I might say, for I was ‘living the lazy life of Reilley,’ as the doughboys say.

“Well, finally I awakened from my dream. I was restless, ill at ease. While away to war my law practice of course had gone to smash. It had not met me at the train upon my return, either, and the way I felt I didn’t care; but upon awakening I realized that what I needed was activity. However, the sort of activity that my particular ailment demanded was not at hand, and I was on the verge of doing something desperate when your letter came asking me to join our friends at your home to talk over a vacation trip. Grace Harlowe, you are a life saver. That is the honest-to-goodness truth and the whole truth,” finished Elfreda amid laughter.

“That is what I say, or rather what I probably should have said had I the eloquence of our legal friend, Elfreda Briggs,” bubbled Emma. “Give me excitement or I die!”

Grace glanced at Anne, who nodded and smiled.

“I follow where you lead, Loyalheart,” said Anne. “Too bad that the rest of the Unit are unable to be with us, but those not otherwise engaged are mostly roaming over the face of the earth, just as we are proposing to do. By the way, what are we to do – where are we to go and how?”

“We are all suffering a reaction from the war, but a strenuous few weeks in the open surely will settle us down,” said Grace. “There come Hippy and Nora. Now you will know all about it,” she added, stepping to the veranda to greet the newcomers. “Welcome, Nora Wingate. How are you, Lieutenant?”

“All present or accounted for,” answered Hippy jovially. “Happy to meet you, ladies,” he greeted, bowing profoundly as he entered the house. “I haven’t been so pleased over anything since I downed my first Boche plane in France. There, there, Nora darling, don’t monopolize the girls. Give your hero husband a chance. I take it that you are to join out with us in our big mid-summer vacation?” questioned Hippy, addressing himself to Emma Dean.

“Are you going to lead the party?” demanded Emma.

“I may have that honor.” Hippy bowed humbly.

“Count me out!” emphasized Emma.

“No, no, no,” protested Anne and Elfreda laughingly.

“Before jumping at conclusions perhaps it would be as well for us to listen to Lieutenant Wingate’s plan,” suggested Grace, rising. “Dinner is being served. Come! We can talk while we eat,” she added, leading the way to the dining room whose windows overlooked the sloping green lawns of Grace Harlowe’s much-loved home.

Elfreda, Anne and Emma had, within the hour, arrived at Haven Home where Grace had been living quietly and restfully since her return from France, in which country she and her friends of the Overton Unit had been serving with the Red Cross during the closing year of the war.

Grace’s husband, Captain Tom Gray, was still in Russia where he had been sent from France on a military mission, and Yvonne, her adopted daughter, was a pupil in a private school in New England, so she felt free to invite the girls of her Unit to join with her in a summer’s outing that would offer both recreation and adventure.

Anne Nesbit, Elfreda Briggs and Emma Dean were the only members of the Unit who had not already made their plans for the summer.

While Grace would have been pleased to have all the girls of the Overton Unit join in her proposed outing, she was just as well pleased that her invitation had not been more generally accepted. The present party was of about the right size, as she reasoned it. Then again, the members of the party had been close associates for many years; they had shared their girlhood joys and sorrows; they had suffered together in those desperate days in France when it seemed to them that the very universe were rending itself asunder, and from all this had been born a better understanding of each other and a greater love and respect.

It was, therefore, a happy gathering that sat down to dinner in Grace Harlowe’s Oakdale home on that balmy mid-summer afternoon. For a time there was chatter and laughter, the reviving of old college and war memories, intermingled with occasional chaffing of Hippy Wingate, always a shining mark for the Overton girls’ teasing.

“Girls,” finally announced Grace, “Hippy has a dark secret locked in his heart, to be brought to light only when we girls are present.”

“I could see the moment he came in that he had,” interrupted Elfreda. “Hippy always was a poor dissembler.”

“Yes, that’s what Nora says,” replied Hippy sheepishly.

“I believe that you girls are not all aware of the fact that Hippy is now a man of affairs,” resumed Grace. “Therefore, his words must be given weight accordingly. Hippy, being too modest to tell you about it himself, I would have you all know that, upon his return from the war, he found himself a rich man, following the death of a wealthy uncle who was so proud of our Flying Lieutenant’s great achievements in the war that he left Hippy all his worldly possessions. Our Hippy, it is rumored, is now lying awake nights trying to devise new ways to spend his fortune.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” protested Hippy Wingate, with a disapproving shake of the head. “What I really am trying to figure out is how not to spend it – that is, not all at once. Of course, so far as my dear friends are concerned, that is another matter,” added Hippy quite seriously.

“My ancestors originated in Missouri. You will have to demonstrate,” observed Emma Dean amid much laughter.

“What we are at the moment most interested in is the dark secret. You have something to say to us,” reminded Miss Briggs.