Buch lesen: «Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the High Sierras»

CHAPTER I
OLD FRIENDS GET TOGETHER

“Who is this Stacy Brown that you girls are speaking of?” questioned Emma Dean as the Overland girls sat down to dinner in Grace Harlowe’s hospitable Haven Home.

“He is my Hippy’s nephew,” Nora Wingate informed her. “You will like ‘Chunky,’ as he is known to his friends, and I promise you that he will keep this outfit from getting lonely,” added Nora laughingly.

“He was one of the members of the Pony Rider Boys’ outfit,” volunteered Grace. “You know we have heard of them several times on our journeyings. They used to go out in search of adventure every summer, so Stacy is a seasoned campaigner. We shall need him where we are going, too.”

“By the way, where are we going, Grace?” spoke up Elfreda Briggs. “I believe our destination is to be in the nature of a surprise – a mystery, as it were.”

“I just dote on mysteries,” bubbled Emma. “Of course I could have learned all about it had I not been too conscientious.”

“That is characteristic of your sex,” replied Hippy Wingate soberly. “May I ask you how you could have found out?”

“I thank you for the compliment, and regret exceedingly that I cannot return the compliment in kind. How could I have found out? Why, by the transmigration of thought.”

“The what?” cried Elfreda laughingly. “Is this some new freak, Emma Dean?”

“It may be new with me, but the principle is as old as the ages. I belong to the Society for the Promotion of Thought Transmigration. Our great and Most Worthy Master lives in Benares, India, where numbers of the faithful journey for instruction and inspiration once every two years.”

“Do you mean to say that you belong to that fool outfit?” wondered Hippy.

“I am happy to say that I do. I joined last winter, and, novice that I am, I have realized some remarkable results,” replied Emma.

“Nora, we ought to take her to a specialist before we start on our journey. It won’t do to have a crazy person with us. She might get us into no end of trouble,” suggested Hippy.

“Humph! I’d much prefer to be crazy than to have a bungalow head,” retorted Emma scornfully.

“A bungalow head?” exclaimed the girls.

“Yes. A bungalow has no upper story, you know.”

“Ouch!” cried Hippy Wingate, clapping both hands to his head. “Now that our Sage of India has spoken, suppose Grace and Tom enlighten us as to where we are going this summer. In view of the fact that this is my treat – that I have offered to pay the expenses of the Overland Riders on this journey – it might not be inappropriate for me to inquire where we are going. Elfreda’s question in that direction is as yet unanswered.”

Tom Gray nodded to his wife.

“I had intended to wait until Stacy Brown arrived, but as he is not a member of our little organization, there is no reason why our business matters should be discussed with him,” said Grace. “Dear friends, we are going to the High Sierras, the great snow-clad peaks of the far west. Adventure, hardship and health are awaiting us there. It will be a long journey before we reach the beginning of our real objective, but I believe you folks will agree with me that the preliminary journey is well worth while.”

“You say that Hippy is paying the bills?” interjected Emma.

“He has so said. However, Tom will not have it that way, so we have agreed that Tom and Hippy shall share equally in the expense of the journey. Both feel quite rich now since they cleaned up on their big lumber deal in the North Woods,” replied Grace.

Elfreda said that such an arrangement would not please her at all, declaring that she would pay her own expenses.

“You have nothing to say about it,” laughed Tom. “The subject is closed. So far as our having Stacy Brown as our guest, is concerned, you all agreed to that when Grace wrote to you about his wish to join us on our summer outing. Are you still of the same mind?”

“Yes,” answered the girls in chorus.

“What about a guide? Is that arranged for?” asked Miss Briggs.

“Not yet,” answered Grace. “We thought we would leave that until we reached our destination. Oh, girls, I have some of the loveliest trips in mind for several seasons ahead, but I’m not going to tell you a word about them now. In the meantime, anyone that has a suggestion to offer will please offer it.”

“I have no suggestions to offer, but I should like to ask further light on this new dope that Emma Dean has sprung on us. What is it, and how does it work?” asked Hippy.

“If you won’t make fun of me I’ll tell you,” replied Emma. “The transmigration of thought is ‘tuning-in’ one’s mind to receive messages from the mind of another person, just as a wireless operator ‘tunes-in’ his instrument to catch the message being sent by another operator far away. In other words, persons so attuned to each other may converse, read each other’s thoughts and hold communion, even though separated by thousands of miles of sea or land or both.”

“Marvelous!” breathed Hippy. “For instance, please tune-in your mind and tell me what I am thinking about. Let’s see you do that, if you can,” he declared triumphantly.

“Our minds never could be in perfect accord, Theophilus Wingate. We are as far apart as the poles, but our range being so short, I can easily tell you what you are thinking about. Not being a deep thinker, you are as transparent as a piece of clear crystal.”

“Emma, don’t you say that about my Hippy,” protested Nora indignantly. “My Hippy has a mind as big as his heart, and – ”

“You are thinking,” interjected Emma gravely, “what a shallow little butterfly I am, but what you do not know is that that thought is merely the reflection of your own mentality. You are, in other words, seeing yourself as others see you, Hippy Wingate.”

A peal of laughter from the Overland girls greeted Emma’s retort. Hippy flushed, then joined in the laughter.

“This is so sudden,” he murmured. “I’ll tell you what you do. Wait until Stacy arrives, then you just practice your transmigration stuff on him. Stacy will make a wonderful subject for you. He is so temperamental, so spiritual, that I am positive you and he will get wonderful results.” Hippy winked at Nora as he said it.

None of the others had ever seen Stacy Brown, so they had not the least idea what was in store for them from the comedian of the Pony Rider Boys’ outfit. Stacy was an old campaigner, however, and Hippy knew that he would prove a valuable member of their party on the ride into the High Sierras. Stacy knew the open, and with his companions had experienced many exciting adventures in the wilder parts of the country. The Overland Riders, too, had had their full share of thrilling adventure, first as members of the Overton College Unit in France during the great war, where Hippy Wingate had won honors as a fighting air pilot, and Tom Gray at the front as a captain of engineers. However, they had a new phase of excitement to experience in “Chunky” Brown, and the first of those experiences was near at hand.

A shot suddenly broke the summer stillness of Haven Home, a shot that brought the Overland Riders to their feet.

“Bang, bang, bang!”

“Merciful Heaven! Are we attacked?” cried Elfreda Briggs.

“Whoop! Yeo-o-o-o-o-w!”

Three more shots were fired, followed by a succession of startling whoops and yells.

“What does it mean? I’m afraid!” cried Emma.

The Overlanders ran out of the dining room to the veranda, but no one was in sight.

“Chunky has arrived. Don’t be afraid, girls,” laughed Hippy Wingate. “He is on the other side of the house. There he comes!”

A short, fat young fellow, riding a gray bronco and perched high on his saddle, at this juncture dashed around the end of the house, firing two shots into the air as he passed the amazed group. Just as he swept past, his sombrero fell off, but Chunky did not stop. In a minute or two he was back, and, making a graceful dip from the saddle, reached down for the hat. As he did so, the pony swerved and Stacy Brown landed on the grass of Haven Home, flopped over on his back, and after a few dazed seconds got up and shook himself.

Stacy made a low bow to the spectators gathered on the veranda.

“Oh, my dear, my dear! Are you hurt?” begged Nora, running to him.

“Hurt? Of course not. I always fall off before dinner. It puts a keen edge on my appetite. Hulloa, folks! Glad to meet ye. Hey, Bismarck! Come here,” he ordered.

His dusty gray pony trotted to him and nosed Stacy’s cheek affectionately.

“Got anything loose around the house? I’m half starved,” urged Chunky. “Uncle Hip, introduce me to these beautiful young ladies. I’ve heard of you folks, and so has Bismarck. You’ll find him right friendly, especially the front end of him, but I shouldn’t advise you to get too close to the tail end. He is very light there. Let him browse in the yard while I feed the inner man.”

“Indeed not,” objected Grace. “I am not going to have my flowers trampled down after all my hard work on them this spring. Tom, please lead Stacy’s pony around to the stables. I will put something on the table for you at once, Stacy. Come right in. We were just finishing dinner when you arrived so violently. Oh! Pardon me. You haven’t yet been introduced to the girls.”

“Thanks!” bowed Stacy. “Thanks for the invitation, but come to think of it don’t introduce me until after dinner. I never like to meet strangers on an empty stomach.”

“This is Miss Elfreda Briggs, a rising young lawyeress, and here is the life of our Overland party, Miss Emma Dean. We address each other by our first names, so you may call her Emma. Come now, Stacy.”

“You’re a funny fellow, aren’t you?” said Emma, surveying the newcomer curiously as they walked towards the house.

“Then we are a pair of ’em, eh?” chuckled the fat boy.

“I am not a boy, thank my lucky stars and all the saints,” objected Emma. “I’ll have you understand that, sir.”

“Let the dove of peace rest over your touchy spirit, Emma,” laughed Grace chidingly.

“It isn’t a dove. It’s a crow,” corrected Chunky. “A thousand pardons, Emma dear. I – ”

“I’m not your dear,” answered Emma with considerable heat.

“Yes, you are, but you don’t know it. To realize it you will have to emerge from the unconscious state in which you now so sweetly repose,” teased Stacy, amid the laughter of the others.

“I should prefer to be unconscious all the time,” flung back Emma.

“Ah! The food does smell good. Food always has a strange effect on me, and really, I haven’t smelled any in almost a thousand years – not since breakfast this morning. By the way, where do we go and when do we start?”

“To the Sierras,” answered Tom Gray. “How are you, Chunky?” he added, extending a hand.

“Starved. How’s yourself?”

“I think after we go back to the dining room and after I have my dessert that I shall feel fit as a fiddle,” replied Tom. “To answer the rest of your question, we expect to start tomorrow forenoon. The ponies will be shipped in a car that is now on the siding at Oakdale.”

“Girls, what do you think of my nephew?” cried Hippy jovially, as they again seated themselves at the table.

“So far as I am concerned, I think that he is another of those bungalow fellows just like yourself, Hippy,” answered Emma. “Mr. Brown, may I ask if you ever have had any experience with mental transmigration?” she asked, turning to Chunky.

Chunky, his mouth full of food, surveyed her solemnly.

“Uh-huh!” he replied thickly. “I met one of those animals once in the Rocky Mountains. You see it was this way. We had been riding far into the night to find a suitable camping place, when we were suddenly halted by a savage growl just ahead of us. I went on ahead, with my trusty rifle ready, to slay the beast whatever it might be. Suddenly I saw him. He was the most terrible looking object that I’ve ever come up with in all my mountain experience. I threw up my rifle and shot the beast dead in his tracks.”

“Wonderful!” breathed Emma. “But what has that to do with mental transmigration?”

“I’m coming to that. It is wonderful – I mean it was. Will you believe it, that terrible beast came to life. Yes, sir, he rose right up and made for us. My pony bolted, and I fell off – just as I ordinarily do before meal time. My feet at the moment chanced to be out of the stirrups and I fell off. Well, I might have been killed – I surely would have been killed, but I wasn’t, just because of that stunt that you mentioned. I transmigrated myself out of that vicinity with a speed that left that terrible object so far behind that he just lay down and died again,” finished Stacy Brown solemnly, amid shouts of laughter, in which all but Emma Dean joined.

Stacy gave her a quick sidelong glance, and Hippy Wingate, observing the look, knew that war had been declared between Stacy Brown and Emma Dean.

CHAPTER II
AN INTERRUPTED SLEEP

“Right at this point,” said the traveling salesman impressively, “a train left the track and plunged into that ravine down there.”

“Any loss of life?” questioned Tom Gray.

“A great many. I was in that wreck myself. I was shaken up a bit, that’s all. You see I know how to take care of myself. We commercial travelers have to or we should soon be out of business. Nearly the whole train went into that ravine, and the car in which I was riding stood on end. I clung to the air-brake cord and thus was miraculously saved.”

“Humph!” muttered Stacy, hunching his fat shoulders forward. “You don’t look to be light enough to perch on an air-brake cord.”

The Overland girls glanced amusedly at Chunky and the traveling salesman. The entire party was enjoying the late afternoon mountain air from the rear platform of the observation car on the transcontinental train known as the Red Limited. Just inside the door sat other passengers, who had been enjoying the frequent passages-at-arms between Stacy Brown and Emma Dean. The train had been rumbling over bridges and lurching through narrow cuts, affording the passengers brief views of a swiftly moving scenic panorama of interest and attractiveness.

“As I was saying, the rope, in all probability, saved my life, as I was the only person in the car that came out alive,” continued the traveling salesman. “I’m in ladies’ fine shoes, you know.”

Stacy and Emma regarded the speaker’s large feet, glanced at each other and grinned.

“I’ll bet you couldn’t transmigrate them,” whispered the fat boy.

Emma elevated her nose, but made no reply to the trivial remark.

“I mean that I am selling ladies’ fine shoes, young man,” added the salesman, he having observed the fat boy’s grin. “My card.” He passed business cards to those nearest to him, and from them the Overlanders learned that he was William Sylvester Holmes, traveling for a Denver shoe firm. “My trade call me ‘Bill,’” he explained.

“Hello, Bill!” muttered Hippy, nudging Nora.

“May I ask what car you were in?” questioned a tall, bronzed passenger in a mild, apologetic voice.

“The same as this one.”

“Hm-m-m! That’s odd. I do not recall having seen you. However, I was in the other end of the car, which perhaps accounts for it,” said the stranger in a more humble voice.

William Sylvester flushed. Instead of being overcome, however, he shifted his conversation to another train wreck that he said had occurred a few miles further on at a place called Summit.

The faces of the Overland Riders expanded into discreet smiles at the mild way in which the tall man had rebuked the loquacious traveler. Grace and Elfreda, in particular, found themselves much interested in this big man. Grace asked a fellow passenger who the man was, and learned that he was Bill Ford, for some years sheriff of Sonora County. Ford had been observing the traveling salesman through mild blue eyes in which there appeared an expression of more than casual interest.

“It was that Summit wreck that nearly did me up,” resumed Holmes. “We went over an embankment there. Being in a berth in a sleeping car I was unable to grab hold of anything. The car played football with me, but I came off with nothing more serious than a broken arm. Oh, I have had my experiences! Were you in that wreck, too?” he asked, turning quickly to the sheriff.

“Never heard of it,” answered Ford carelessly.

“All that saved us was the fact that the cars were made of steel. We’ll pass Summit within the hour, and I’ll show you where we went off the rails that time.”

“Tell us about something that happened when the train didn’t leave the rails,” urged Stacy.

“With pleasure. I remember, some two years ago – it was this very train, I do believe – when a party of bandits held up a train on this line. That occurred between Summit and Gardner. They uncoupled the express car and, after compelling the engineer to haul it up the track a short distance, dynamited the car and robbed it of the treasure it was carrying.”

“They’ve been cutting up that same kind of caper quite lately,” nodded the sheriff.

“Di – id they rob the passengers?” stammered Emma Dean.

“In some of the cars, yes. In my car they did not. I held them off with my revolver. I – ”

“That was very careless of you. Why, sir, you might have shot yourself,” cried Stacy.

Mr. Holmes gave the fat boy a withering glance and resumed his story.

“After my display of courage the other passengers got brave, and with their assistance I drove the bandits off. However, I should not advise it. For the average person, the safe course is to sit still and take his medicine. Gentlemen, never offer resistance when a gang of bandits orders you to put up your hands, but put them up as fast as you can and let them stay put,” he added, fixing his gaze on Tom Gray who smiled and nodded.

“Yes, sir,” agreed Chunky. “That’s the way I always do.”

“Were you ever held up?” questioned the salesman.

“Many times. I put up my hands too, but there was a gun in both of ’em,” answered Stacy amid much laughter.

At this juncture a passenger asked the storyteller to tell them more about the hold-up, which he did without urging.

“The train in question was carrying a treasure, just as this one no doubt is. The bandits had obtained information of this fact from a confederate. They were right on the job when the train came along. After stopping the train they placed men at the car door to take up a collection from the passengers. All submitted tamely, as they should have done, except in the car where I was, and – we are approaching Summit now. From that point we go down grade for twenty miles or so, then we begin to climb again. We stop at Summit.”

“Isn’t it terrible, all that banditry. I’m afraid,” shivered Emma when a little later the party had gone to the dining car for supper.

“For one who can transmigrate as well as you can, there should be no fear,” suggested Hippy. “Just transmigrate the bandits to some other train.”

“I think we should transmigrate ourselves in the event of such a thing occurring,” vouchsafed Elfreda Briggs.

Sheriff Ford came into the dining car shortly after the train had left Summit, and nodded at the party in a friendly fashion.

“What has become of our story-telling friend, sir?” asked Grace.

“I saw him go into the smoking car ahead as the train was leaving Summit. He sent two telegrams before leaving. This shoe business requires a lot of telegraphing, it appears,” added the sheriff dryly.

“How do you know it was about shoe business?” demanded Stacy.

“Because I happened to see the last telegram.”

Tom Gray eyed the sheriff inquiringly, but the mild blue eyes of Mr. Ford conveyed nothing to him.

After a pleasant evening, during which they saw no more of the traveling salesman, the Overland party retired to their berths for sleep. Forward, near the express car, rode the Overlanders’ ponies in as much comfort as is possible to provide for animals en route. At every stop during the day one of the men of the party had run forward to look over the car of “stock,” as the riders called their saddle animals. Now, however, all were too soundly asleep to think of ponies, and above the rumble of the train might be heard the rasping snores of Stacy Brown and Hippy Wingate.

It was shortly after one o’clock in the morning when many of the sleepers were awakened by a sudden disconcerting jolt caused by an abrupt application of the air brakes. The train slowly settled down to a slow crawl, the hiss of the air from the brakes being plainly audible to those who had been awakened.

The train stopped. Nothing of an alarming nature seemed to have occurred, so the nervous passengers again settled down into their blankets, for the night air was chill and penetrating. Others lay awake, but there was nothing to hear except the snores which continued without interruption.

A few moments of this and then a subdued murmur of voices was heard just ahead of the Overlanders’ car. A brief period of silence followed the murmur, then a man’s voice, agitated and full of alarm, was raised so high that almost every person in the car was awake on the instant.

“What is it?” cried a woman’s voice from behind berth curtains.

“We’re held up! The train is held up!” cried the man.

“Robbers! Robbers!” screamed the woman who had asked the question; and a chorus of frightened voices took up the refrain.