Chase Josephine - Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the High Sierras

“Should you miss us on your return, make for the train as fast as you can. You’re the right sort, Lieutenant. Pick your own trail and the best o’ luck.”

Lieutenant Wingate was off a few seconds later, running cautiously, now and then flattening himself on the ground to avoid the occasional volley. Hippy had no fear of the bullets that whistled over him, though he had a sufficiently intimate acquaintance with such missiles to hold them in high respect. That was why he dropped to the ground when firing was resumed. In a few moments he was out of range of the firing. He then straightened up and ran with all speed, parallel with the tracks, but keeping several rods to one side.

As he neared the locomotive Hippy proceeded with more caution. The night was now sufficiently light to enable him to see the figures of two men sitting on the bank beside the tracks on the right side of the engine. There was no special need for vigilance on their part now, for ahead of the locomotive a telegraph pole had been felled across the tracks, while to its rear were the cars and the bandits. All this made the guards somewhat careless so that they failed to see a figure dart across the tracks a few rods back of the locomotive tender.

Lieutenant Wingate crept along under the overhang of the tender, on the side opposite from the two guards. He did not know but there might be men on that side also, but soon discovered that there were not. He had crawled to the running board, by which entrance is gained to the locomotive cab, before he was discovered by the fireman.

“Sh-h-h-h!” warned Hippy just in time to check an exclamation that was on the lips of the fireman. “Lean over. I have a message for you – for the engineer. Don’t make a quick move, but just settle down. You might fire up the boiler a little. With the glare from the fire in their eyes those two fellows won’t see quite so clearly.”

The fireman, after a whispered word to the engineer, opened the fire door and threw in fresh coal, then crouched down with his ear close to the Overland Rider, whereupon Hippy briefly explained Sheriff Ford’s plan, at the same time acquainting the fireman with the situation to the rear.

Another whispered conversation across the boiler between engineer and fireman followed, with Hippy Wingate clinging on the step of the locomotive in tense expectancy. A sudden hiss of steam from the cylinders on both sides of the engine startled him, and the big drive wheels began slipping on the rails.

“Hey there! What are ye up to?” yelled a guard, making a leap for the running board.

The fireman responded by hieing a chunk of coal, which caught the bandit in the stomach, laying the fellow flat in the ditch beside the tracks. The remaining guard fired point-blank without effect at the engineer’s window, but the driver’s head was below the level of the cab window at that instant. The wheels gained a foothold, the engine began backing rapidly while the guard continued to shoot at the reversing hulk of steel.

“Good for you, Buddies!” cried Hippy enthusiastically.

The engineer did not slow down as he approached the scene of the hold-up, knowing that there were no persons in the way.

Hippy had dropped off before the engine gained much headway, and rolled over into the ditch and soon heard the tender hit the express car.

The bandits had heard the engine rumbling down the grade, but they were too busy shooting at Sheriff Ford’s party to be able to spare the time to interfere. In the meantime a new note had been added to the battle. The train crew, now taking courage, had gone to the assistance of the Sheriff, armed with revolvers, shot guns, iron bars and whatever else they could lay their hands on.

Grace Harlowe and her friends, in the meantime, however, remained on guard, and not even the trainmen could have got into her sleeping car without giving an account of themselves to the Overland girls.

The firing now grew fast and furious. Hippy heard it, listened attentively and realized that his little party was being assisted.

“I must get back and take a hand,” he muttered, making a wide detour with the intention of coming in to the rear of Sheriff Ford and his men. To do this he ran up the ravine from the railroad, near where the attack had been made.

Lieutenant Wingate had not proceeded far before he heard what sounded like hoof-beats. At first he feared that the ponies of his outfit had been taken; then he realized that this could not be the case.

The ravine in which he found himself was now fairly well lighted by the rising moon, and discovery was certain, the banks on either side being so steep that the Overlander knew that he could not look for escape that way. Not caring to be caught in a trap, Hippy turned and began to retreat down the ravine, then halted abruptly, as he discovered a horseman coming up the ravine at a gallop. A man was running just ahead of the rider, the latter calling orders to the runner.

At this juncture, Lieutenant Wingate unlimbered his revolver and waited. The two men saw him, and the runner pointed to him, then dashed right past Hippy, shielding his face with a hand. As he passed, the runner fired a shot at Hippy.

“I know you!” yelled the Overlander, sending a bullet into the ground behind the runner. “I know your game, you scoundrel!”

Hippy, for the moment, apparently had forgotten the man on horseback, who was now to the rear of him, for Lieutenant Wingate, upon discovering the identity of the man on foot, was so amazed that all other thoughts took flight.

All at once the Overland Rider remembered. He wheeled like a flash and fired at the figure that was now towering over him. A blow, crushing in its force, came down on the head of the Overland Rider, felling him to the ground. The butt of a rifle in the hands of the horseman was the instrument that caused Hippy’s undoing.

In the meantime, while Hippy was carrying Ford’s message to the engineer of the Red Limited, the hot reception they were getting led the bandits to give up the fight and scatter. It was one of the fleeing train-robbers who had struck Lieutenant Wingate down.

“Have the train draw up here and wait for us,” Sheriff Ford directed, as the trainmen were about to return to their train after the bandits had finally been driven off. “Those ruffians have had enough, and won’t come back. Some of them are wounded, too.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked a trainman.

“No. I’m going to look for Lieutenant Wingate. He may be on the train, but, if he is not, have the engineer give us three whistles.”

“Hippy wouldn’t go back without us,” declared Tom Gray with emphasis.

“Go back to your train, men, while we look for our friend,” urged Sheriff Ford.

The train crew lost no time in following Ford’s advice, being eager to get away from that locality. Stacy Brown was sent back with them to put on his clothes. Stacy was shivering in his pajamas, but the fat boy had done his duty as steadily as any of his companions, and fully proven his courage, thus winning the admiration of Sheriff Ford and Tom Gray. The two other volunteer passengers, one a salesman for a Chicago grocery house, the other a Colorado ranchman, announced their intention of remaining with the sheriff to assist him in his search.

Shortly after the departure of the trainmen, three long blasts of the locomotive whistle told the party that Lieutenant Wingate had not returned to the train.

“That settles it, men. It is up to us to get to work,” declared the sheriff. Ford divided his forces and sent parties in various directions to search for the missing Hippy Wingate, hoping, and partly believing, that the lieutenant had probably met up with the bandits on their retreat into the mountains after abandoning their attack on the train, and secreted himself somewhere in the vicinity of the attempted hold-up.