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

The Overlanders were now in the Sierras, and the country all about them was wild and uninhabited. After surveying his surroundings with critical eyes, Ford took to the ravine up which Hippy had gone in attempting to get back to his companions, and soon found the place where the bandits had staked down their horses.

Two warning whistles, the engineer’s regular signal that the train was about to start ahead, caused the sheriff to run down the ravine to the railroad, at the same time firing three shots to recall his companions.

“Get aboard in a hurry!” shouted the conductor, leaning from the engine cab as the train came back to the scene of the attempted robbery.

“Wait! Has Lieutenant Wingate returned?” demanded Ford.

“No!” shouted Stacy Brown from the platform of the smoking car. “Didn’t you find him?”

“Are you positive, Stacy?” called Tom Gray, running up at this juncture.

“He is not on the train, Tom,” answered Grace Harlowe from a vestibule doorway. “The engineer said he dropped off just as the engine began backing down. Tom, you must search for Hippy. Nora is nearly wild from worry over him.”

“We are going to find him, little woman,” answered Captain Gray.

“Are you folks going to get aboard?” demanded the conductor insistently.

“No. We’re not going to leave that man here by a long shot,” retorted Ford.

“All right. Stay if you want to. We’re going ahead,” snapped the conductor.

“Stop!” ordered the sheriff. “You hold this train until I give you leave to move it. I am an officer of the law, and in command here for the present. Captain Gray, what do you wish to do?”

“Find the lieutenant, Sheriff.”

“Then, would it not be a good idea to unload your ponies?” asked Ford. “We may have to be here until tomorrow, and perhaps make a long journey into the interior, which we cannot well do on foot.”

“Yes. We will unload enough animals to carry your party,” answered Tom.

“Pull your train up to the mouth of the ravine and stop,” commanded Ford, clambering aboard the locomotive. “Get aboard there, boys.”

The train promptly pulled ahead while the sheriff had his final argument with the conductor in the locomotive cab. The argument was brief, but heated, the sheriff laying down the law to the angry conductor, who, by the time his train had reached the mouth of the ravine, was wholly subdued.

The Overland Riders stepped off the train to watch the unloading of the ponies and to get instructions from Tom and Mr. Ford.

“We are about twenty-five miles from Gardner,” said the sheriff, addressing Grace. “You people, I believe, intend to detrain there. Have someone unload your stock and then wait until we return. You will find a very fair little hotel at Gardner.”

“We will wait,” answered Grace composedly.

Ford called upon the train crew to assist in unloading the ponies. Unloading boards were obtained from the baggage car with which a rather substantial gangway was constructed, and down it the light-footed ponies – five of them – were led without the least difficulty. Rifles and light equipment for the party were unloaded, the rest of the Overlanders’ property and two ponies being left on the train.

While the unloading was in progress Tom Gray went to the dining car and purchased provisions, consisting of canned goods, pork and beans and a side of bacon. Stacy Brown, who had gone back to the sleeping car for something he wanted from his suitcase, dropped in while Tom was bartering, and helped his companion carry back their purchases. By the time they reached the head of the train all was in readiness for the departure.

Ford waved the lantern that he had borrowed from the conductor.

“Go ahead,” he called to the conductor. “Mrs. Gray, don’t forget to report to Gardner what has become of us. If we are not back in two days have them send a posse for us.”

“I understand,” answered Grace Harlowe.

“I say, you! You might have Emma do a little transmigrating for us while we’re away. I reckon we’ll be needing it,” called back Stacy.

As the train pulled out, the passengers, including the girls of the Overland party, were gathered on the platforms cheering. The searching party now consisted, besides Sheriff Ford, of Tom Gray, Stacy Brown and the two passengers who had been with them from the first, making five in all.

“Now, sir, what is your plan?” demanded Tom after they had saddled and made ready to start.

“I think we will follow up the ravine for a little way,” answered the sheriff. “Your man went this way. I know because the fireman saw him take to the ravine. One of you lead my horse; I’m going ahead on foot with the lantern.”

“If you have no objection, I will go with you,” offered Tom.

Ford nodded, and the two started away, the others, on the ponies, keeping well to the rear.

The two men in advance finally reached the point in the ravine where Lieutenant Wingate had been struck down. With lantern held close to the ground, the sheriff went over it on hands and knees, examining every foot of the ground.

“Stand where you are until I come back,” he directed, addressing Tom Gray. “Do you recognize this?” he asked, holding up a hat, upon his return a few moments later.

“It is the lieutenant’s hat,” answered Tom promptly, and Stacy Brown agreed with him.

“What’s the use of a hat without a head to wear it?” demanded Stacy.

“This!” replied Ford. “I have proved one thing. Our man came this way, but beyond this point the only trace of him is the hat. Unless I am much mistaken, he left here on the back of a horse, and he went that way.” The sheriff pointed up the ravine. “It is fair to assume that he did not go voluntarily. The only inference possible, then, is that he has been taken.”

“Captured by the bandits!” exclaimed Tom.

Ford nodded.

“For what reason?”

“Candidly, I don’t know, Captain. We have got to find out, and it is advisable for us to go in search of the answer to that question as fast as we can. We will mount and move on.”

“I suppose I am the one who will have to furnish the brains for this party and find the missing man,” declared Stacy pompously, but no one laughed at his sally.

A minute later they were mounted and on their way up the ravine, the sheriff still carrying the lantern, which he held low, keeping his gaze constantly on the trail, which still was fairly plain and easy for an experienced man to follow. Stacy dropped behind a little way and produced a plum pudding can from his pocket. Opening the can, he calmly proceeded to eat the pudding.

“What’s that you’re eating?” demanded one of the two passengers.

“Pudding. A plum one.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Oh, back there in the diner,” answered Stacy carelessly.

“You stole a pudding, eh?” laughed the questioner.

“Oh, my; no, sir. How could you think such a thing? Don’t you know I wouldn’t do anything like that?”

“Oh! You paid for it,” nodded the passenger.

“I did not. Captain Gray did. You see it was this way. The captain paid for six cans of baked beans, but they gave him only five cans. The colored gentleman in the diner cheated us out of one can, and probably pocketed the difference, so I sort of helped myself to a pudding to even things up.”

“Humph! You are a young man of unusual ability. You should have been a lawyer.”

“I know it,” admitted Chunky.

An exclamation from Ford interrupted the conversation. The sheriff had picked up a handkerchief which Tom thought belonged to Hippy Wingate. They believed that the lieutenant had dropped it purposely, knowing full well that pursuit would follow promptly when his friends discovered that he was missing.