Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the High Sierras

“Wait! I’ll get a derrick,” shouted Stacy.

“Keep quiet!” commanded Tom sternly, at the same time taking a rope from the pommel of his own saddle and hurrying to Lieutenant Wingate’s assistance. While Grace, was patting the head of the fallen animal, trying to soothe her, Tom slipped the rope over her neck, Hippy having dropped the loop over one hind foot.

“Oh, Tom, you surely will choke Kitty to death if you pull on the neck rope,” warned Grace.

“Serve her right if I did,” growled Tom. “She is a perpetual nuisance. What next, Lieutenant?”

“We must haul her up, that’s all. Keep your rope taut, but don’t put too much strength on it,” directed Hippy, as he began to pull on the rope about the white mare’s hind leg. He failed to budge her.

“It is the pack,” said Elfreda. “Don’t you see that Kitty’s pack is pressing right against the rocks?”

“That’s right,” agreed Tom Gray. “We must unload the beast before we can do a thing with her. Confound her!”

“Now, Tom,” admonished Grace Harlowe.

“Stacy! Get that pack off and be careful about it too,” ordered Lieutenant Wingate.

Stacy could not manage the pack alone, so Grace and Elfreda assisted him in removing it. This undertaking, perilous as it was, was accomplished after more than two hours had been lost through Kitty’s clumsiness. It was then discovered that the white mare had gone lame, but Hippy found that she had suffered nothing more serious than a bruised hip.

“We must be on our way,” he urged.

“As it is, we shall not get across this ridge before dark,” declared Elfreda, glancing at the lowering sun.

“Oh, don’t say that,” begged Nora. “We must.”

Tom Gray shook his head.

“To make haste would be dangerous,” he warned.

As soon as the white mare was again in proper shape the party started ahead, determined to get as far on their way as possible before night, but darkness was settling over the canyons on either side of them when Lieutenant Wingate finally called a halt.

“We must make camp while we can see to do so,” he directed.

“What, here?” cried Emma.

“It is the best we have,” answered Lieutenant Wingate in a doubtful tone.

The trail had been steadily narrowing as they proceeded, and ahead of them it appeared to be almost impassable, at least for horses. It was decided to stake the ponies down in single file, which the three men finally succeeded in doing to their satisfaction. It was not an ideal tethering place, but most of the animals were used to sleeping in ticklish places, and, in fact, if necessary could sleep standing up.

Packs were removed and stored in safe places, but Woo, who had been sent out to locate a spring, returned with the information that he could find none. This, however, did not disturb the Overlanders, for their bottles held sufficient water for supper and breakfast, provided they were economical in its use, so a small cook-fire was built, and in a few moments the kettle was singing merrily and the odors of coffee and venison were in the air, to the accompaniment of Woo Smith’s “Hi-lee, hi-lo.” It was an unusual supper for the Overland Riders, sitting there with their food served on an army blanket laid on the ground, with empty space and sombre canyons on either side of them now filled with inky blackness.

While they were eating, Woo gathered stems of bushes and piled them ready for making a larger fire to light up the camp after supper.

“I should like to know where we are going to sleep,” reminded Nora as they finished the meal.

Tom said he would make up their beds very shortly, whereat the Overlanders laughed, but with not much mirth in their voices.

“If you don’t make haste you won’t be able to find beds to make up,” averred Emma. “Don’t you see the fog rolling in? We shall soon be enveloped in it.”

“Fog!” Hippy laughed heartily. “Why, child, that isn’t fog – it is clouds. We are above them, but I think they will rise and take us in. When it gets a little darker here, you will see a sight that will interest you.”

Hippy’s prediction was fulfilled. The moon rose full at about nine o’clock that evening, and exclamations of wonder were uttered by the girls of the party, as its beams lighted up the slowly moving clouds that now had risen almost level with the top of the ridge itself. Here and there sharp peaks thrust themselves through the cloud seas, which were dark and menacing to the eyes of the observers.

“How beautiful,” murmured Elfreda Briggs.

“It is indeed,” breathed Grace. “The scene reminds me of the one that we looked down upon when we were riding the Old Apache Trail, except that this is infinitely more beautiful. Hippy, does not this remind you of France, when you were flying above the clouds?”

“In a way, yes. Many is the time that I have gone to sleep on a cloud for a few seconds. Tom, what is our altitude here?” he asked, turning to his companion.

“According to my aneroid, about eight thousand feet.”

“We are surely getting up in the world,” chuckled Emma.

“Don’t congratulate yourself too soon, Miss Dean. We may be going the other way before morning,” reminded Stacy Brown. “What about starting a conflagration, Captain Gray?”

“Woo, stir up the campfire and let’s have some light and warmth,” directed Tom.

“Oh, it is too bad to destroy this wonderful view. If you build a fire we shan’t be able to see the full cloud effect,” protested Grace.

“You will,” answered Hippy. “We soon shall be enveloped in clouds, and we are going to feel the cold, too.”

There was a biting chill in the air already and, to the amazement of the campers, mosquitoes were numerous and very active.

Tom, after a survey of their surroundings, said he would make up the beds, and called to Woo to bring the pick-axe.

“Make up the beds with a pick?” exclaimed Emma.

“Yes. By the way, where do we sleep tonight?” asked Miss Briggs in a slightly worried tone.

“I will show you,” replied Tom, beginning to dig a trench in the thin layer of soil that covered the ridge.

“If you can transmigrate a real bed, I wish you would make it two so that I may have one,” called Stacy.

Tom made no reply, but, after digging the trench, he had the guide and Hippy place stones on either side of it as an added protection against rolling out of bed.

“Stacy, get in here and see if this hole fits your ample proportions,” directed Tom.

Stacy hesitated.

“I don’t like to be buried so soon after supper,” he complained. “Is this some new game that you are trying to play on me?”

“Yes. It is a game to keep you from falling out of bed and making a mess of yourself,” replied Tom tersely.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE LAND OF PINK SNOWS

“I – I think I should prefer to sleep downstairs,” stammered Stacy.

“If that is the way you feel, you have only to roll over and you will be downstairs for keeps,” promised Lieutenant Wingate.

“All right, I’ll sleep in the hole in the ground, but don’t you dare throw dirt on me,” warned Stacy, crawling into the trench and cautiously disposing of himself to see if his bed fitted. “This isn’t even half a bed, Tom. How am I going to turn over?”

“Don’t,” laughed Grace.

“Yes, please do,” urged Emma.

“Wow!” muttered Chunky sitting up and peering over the edge of his bed at the cloud-sea rolling slowly along just below the camp. “Wouldn’t it be a terrible catastrophe if I were to be transmigrated out of bed?”

“That depends upon the point of view,” suggested Emma.

The Overlanders were startled at this juncture by a shout from the Chinaman, accompanied by a series of bangs.

“Somebody knocked over the kitchen table!” cried Chunky.

“Me savvy piecee kettle go ’way,” wailed Woo, who, in emptying out some dishes, had let them fall over the side of the ridge so that the utensils were then on their way to the bottom of the canyon, a thousand feet below.

“He has lost the kettle,” groaned Nora. “At this rate we shall soon be without anything.”

“Except our appetites,” finished Chunky.

“What a tragedy,” observed Emma.

“Don’t wolly till to-mollow,” advised the guide. “Hi-lee, hi-lo!” Nothing could disturb the equanimity of Woo Smith for very long, and he immediately resumed his duties. The loss of a few utensils was not a thing to be greatly disturbed about – at least he so reasoned the matter out.

It was late in the evening when the Overlanders finally got into their trenches and dropped off to sleep, but their sleep was brief. First, Stacy had a nightmare and set up such a howling that all hands awakened in alarm. The next disturbance came when a sudden mountain wind-storm sprang up. The Overlanders were aroused just in time to see their campfire lifted into the air and hurled out over the clouds in which the embers and sparks quickly disappeared.

“Oh, this is terrible! We shall surely be blown off the ridge,” cried Emma.

“Lie down in your trenches and let the blooming storm blow itself out!” shouted Hippy. “No wind-storm up here can harm you so long as you keep down.”

The girls of the party rather reluctantly lay down again, and found that, in that position, the wind barely touched them, and, from that time on, peace reigned in the Overland camp until morning. The morning, however, brought with it fresh troubles. Every member of the party awakened shivering. Stacy declared that his feet were frozen, which Emma asserted was a chronic condition with him.

The Overlanders dragged themselves from the trenches, shoulders hunched forward, hands thrust into their pockets, their faces blue and pinched. The limit of their endurance was reached, however, when the familiar voice of Woo Smith assailed their ears.

“Hi-lee, hi-lo! Don’t wolly till to-mollow,” sang the guide.

“Smith!” shouted Tom Gray.

“He – he thi – thi – thinks he’s a bird,” chattered Stacy. “I hope he tries to fly.”

“Smith, please cut out the singing and prepare hot coffee as quickly as possible,” directed Tom.

“Me savvy coffee. Me savvy nicee piecee day. You savvy nicee day?” bubbled the guide.

“Oh, let him have his way, Tom,” urged Grace laughingly. “We should be glad that we have such a cheerful guide.”

“Cheerful idiot!” muttered Tom.

“Yes, Woo. We savvy,” called Grace, smiling over at the grinning face of the Chinaman. “Please make haste with the breakfast, though. Girls, get up and look out over the wonderful scene before you, and I will guarantee that you will instantly forget your troubles.”

With shaded eyes, they looked and did, for the moment, forget their chilled condition. The peaks were now in the full glare of the morning sun, while down in the canyons day had not yet fully dawned, and the dim shadows there were gray with the morning mist.

Another day of hard riding was before them, but before starting out Tom and Hippy announced that they would try to find a trail up the mountain that loomed in the sky some distance beyond. Upon reaching the end of the ridge that formed a natural bridge connecting two mountain ranges, Tom and Hippy came upon a sharp descent that led down into a broad, open valley, beyond which lay the mountain they were to climb.

“This looks promising,” nodded Tom, as they jogged down into the valley.

“It is more than that; it is wonderful,” cried Hippy as the two men found themselves in a field knee-deep with blue lupines that grew there in profusion. The odor of the flowers was almost overpowering. To the right and the left of the two explorers were bunches of tuft-grass, here and there groves of slender lodge-poles, and spindling pines and junipers. Tom and Hippy paused in admiring silence. It was more beautiful than anything that they had thought possible in this rugged country.

While they were hunting for a possible trail that would lead them up the mountain, Tom Gray declared that Nature had used this sweetly scented field for a dumping ground, after having completed the building of the mountain itself.

“Yes, and she protected her work mighty well when she erected that snow-capped peak,” answered Hippy. “I know that there must be a way out of this place to reach that mountain,” he added, getting up from a fall, very red of face, his jaw set stubbornly.

Despite their persistent efforts to find a trail out of the valley of the lupines, it was noon before they did discover a possible way out for their party. After marking it by tying a handkerchief to the bent-over top of a spindling pine, they started back to join their companions. The Overland party had some time since saddled and bridled their ponies and were ready to move when Tom and Hippy returned to them, and all were on their way soon after the arrival of the two men.

“You are going to see something that will gladden your heart, Brown Eyes,” declared Hippy as they started on. It was late in the afternoon when they finally rode into the valley below. The blue lupines, the grass, the pines and the junipers there presented a scene that brought cries of delighted amazement from the Overland girls.

“Oh, look at the pink ice cream!” cried Emma, pointing to the towering mountain which they were to try to climb.

“Why, Tom, we didn’t notice that coloring on the snow up there this morning,” exclaimed Lieutenant Wingate. “It must be a cloud reflection.” Tom Gray nodded and said that the pink shade probably would soon disappear.

“We must camp in the midst of these flowers,” cried Grace Harlowe. “It is finer than any place we have yet seen in these mountains.”

“I agree with you,” answered Elfreda. “It gives me fresh courage to go on. Why, Grace, I feel as if I could vault a six-foot fence.”

“Suppose you try to jump over the white mare,” suggested Grace, laughingly. “This high altitude has gone to my head, too.”

“No, thank you. I think that it might be best for a person of my years to keep her feet on the ground,” laughed Elfreda. “But the effect, as well as the view here, is wonderful. I do not believe there is anything like it anywhere else in the world.”

Camp was promptly made amid the flowers. Soon thereafter the clouds on the horizon rolled down behind the mountains as the sun sank out of sight, but as long as light remained on the mountain tops, the wonderful pink tint clung to the everlasting snows on the pinnacles, and the mosquitoes increased in numbers and ferociousness.

“The higher we go the worse they get,” complained Stacy Brown. “Isn’t it queer how that pink tint hangs on?”

“Say, girls,” bubbled Emma Dean, “what if it should prove to be ice cream in reality?”

“In that event I know someone who never would go home,” laughed Nora.

“Two someones,” reflected Stacy, with a far-away, longing look in his eyes.

CHAPTER XVIII

AT THE “TOP OF THE WORLD”

The morning dawned with the sky a molten green and gold. The mountain peak and the high ridges were a beautiful pink, and below them lay the green and blue of the meadow like a velvet carpet.

“Wonderful!” breathed the girls in chorus.

“Could anything be more beautiful?” murmured Grace.

“This is worth all the hardships we have endured,” declared Elfreda.

The Overlanders continued to admire the scene until breakfast was ready. Immediately after the meal the journey was resumed, each one eager to reach the pink snows above that held so great a fascination for all. They came to the snow line late in the day. The ponies were left in charge of Woo Smith to remain until the party returned from the high peak of the Sierras, which was now their immediate objective.

Now that they were close to it, they discovered that the snow really was pink. No one seemed able to explain this mystery until Tom announced it as his opinion that the pink shade was due to a tiny bright red flower whose petals were found imbedded in the snow. Stacy scooped up a handful of snow and tasted it, and then made a wry face.

“It tastes like turpentine,” he declared.

The Overland Riders danced and capered about in the snow like school children, and tried to snowball each other, but found the snow so crumbly that it could not be rolled into balls. This they overcame by wetting handfuls of snow from their canteens, and then, ere they even thought of making camp, they had a merry snowballing battle thousands of feet above sea level. They battled until their breaths gave out in the rarefied air – threw snowballs at each other until almost exhausted.

“Never mind. Don’t wolly till to-mollow,” comforted Stacy Brown.

With the coming of night a chill settled over the mountain, beside which the previous nights were almost sultry, and a damp, gray cloud hid the lower reaches of the peaks like a great gray blanket. The Overlanders were glad that they were above rather than below that cloud, and they hugged their cook fire, though it was far from being a roaring one, for they did not have fuel to waste.

Tom Gray, who, before the evening was far advanced, went out to examine the strange twisted little trees that grew here and there, discovered that they were full of pitch. He said nothing to his companions, but, moving back a little distance from the camp, he tested one with a match. The trunk of the twisted tree flared instantly. He put out the blaze with snow and returned to camp.

“How would you folks like a real camp-fire?” he asked.

“There ain’t no such thing,” mocked Emma.

Grace gazed at her husband inquiringly, knowing quite well that Tom had some plan for a fire in mind.

“The easiest thing in the world, my dear friends,” chuckled Tom. “All that is needed to make a regular conflagration is the know-how.” Tom struck a match against the trunk of a small scrubby tree against which he was standing, and held the match close to the trunk until he felt the heat, then sprang away from it. The tree blazed up gloriously.

“I did it with my magic wand!” he cried, waving his arms dramatically.

Exclamations of wonder greeted the achievement, and the Overlanders gathered about the blaze, holding out their hands to catch some of the warmth.

“Me savvy nicee piecee fire,” observed Chunky solemnly.

“However did you do it, Tom?” wondered Nora.

“The tree is filled with pitch,” answered Tom Gray. “When we get ready to turn in we will light another one. I don’t suppose we shall get any warmth from it, but we can hear it crackle, which will be some comfort.”

That night the Overlanders made their beds under an overhanging rock where there was no snow, and were lulled to sleep by another of Tom Gray’s burning trees. They awakened in the morning again stiff with cold, but half an hour after sunrise they had fully recovered their spirits and were making preparations for the long hard hike ahead of them.

Each of the men carried a pack on his back, leaving the girls to carry such provisions as they thought would be needed. Even the rifles had been left behind with Woo, the mountain climbers carrying no arms but their revolvers. Ropes, an axe and a shovel were included in the equipment and they finally set out for what Elfreda Briggs characterized as “The Top of the World.”

The peak of the great mountain was reached late in the afternoon, with all hands well tired out. They found the summit of the peak strewn with huge granite slabs, from some of which the snow had been blown away in spots, forming little scooped-out cups in the pink mantle.

“Well, now that we have enjoyed this punk view, suppose we get down to some place where we can make camp and sleep,” suggested Stacy.

“This is where we are to sleep to-night,” answered Tom.

“What! Here?” gasped Stacy.

“Yes. Did we not come up here for that purpose?”

Stacy shivered, and glanced down over the glittering snow field, then shivered some more, but made no further comment.

“This will be the first time that I ever slept in a snow bank, and I trust it may be the last,” observed Emma resignedly. “Last night we found a nice dry spot for our beds, but up here – Br-r-r-r!”

“You will be as comfortable as though you were in your own bed at home,” promised Grace.

“I wish to goodness I had your imagination,” grumbled Chunky. “It must be beautiful to be able to dream things the way you do.”

No fuel for a fire had been brought along on this last leg of the climb above timber line, so supper was a cold meal. Everyone felt so miserable after supper that the Overlanders with one accord began preparing to roll up in their blankets for the night. Hippy had already dug trenches in the snow for the party to sleep in, so they might be out of the wind. The girls talked chatteringly of everything they could think of, to assist them in forgetting their misery, then crawled into their trenches and tightly rolled themselves up in their blankets.

“This is the first time I ever went to bed with my boots on,” complained Elfreda. “Should I live until morning I surely shall have something to brag about.”

“Why, girls, this is an ideal summer resort,” laughingly chided Grace.

The response was a chorus of dismal groans. For a few moments after that the Overlanders lay gazing up at the bright stars, then a gradual warmth overspread their shivering bodies, and one by one they dropped off to sleep, now nearly thirteen thousand feet above sea level.

CHAPTER XIX

BOWLING IN NATURE’S ALLEY

Contrary to expectations the Overland Riders slept soundly all through the night, but the moment they crawled from under their blankets in the morning, they began to shiver.

“Come on! Take a run with me,” urged Tom.

“Please go away and let me die,” moaned Emma.

“We must have exercise to start our blood circulating,” reminded Hippy.

“I don’t want exercise. I want something to warm me up on the inside,” protested Stacy.

Grace and Elfreda, holding hands, were already dancing about in grotesque fashion, taking long draughts of air into their lungs, the color rising to their faces as the circulation of their blood responded to their lively movements.

“Never mind, folks,” comforted Hippy. “If you will all take a lively sprint, then a snow-wash, I will give you something that will please you and fix you up in great shape.”

“I shall be past all human help long before that,” answered Emma.

“Why don’t you transmigrate yourself to a warmer clime for an hour or so?” suggested Stacy.

Tom Gray nodded to Hippy, whereupon Lieutenant Wingate took from his pack a tiny alcohol stove, which he filled from a small bottle and lighted. Over the stove he placed a coffee pot full of white snow dug from underneath the crust where it was not tainted with what Stacy had been pleased to characterize as a “turpentine taste.” As the snow melted in the coffee pot, more snow was added until there was sufficient for their use. The Overlanders, quickly discovering that something unusual was going on, ran to the coffee-maker.

“Wha – at’s this?” demanded Elfreda.

“An alcohol stove – a hot cup of coffee for each in a few moments,” chuckled Lieutenant Wingate.

“Hippy Wingate, did you have that last night?” demanded Emma.

“Yes.”

“And you let us suffer with cold and eat a coffeeless supper?” rebuked Nora Wingate.

“You lived through it. Why kick, now that you are about to have a warm drink?”

“We ought to throw you off the mountain,” declared Grace.

“Don’t do it till he gets the coffee ready,” urged Stacy.

“The reason that I did not use the alcohol kit last night was that I had only enough alcohol to burn the stove for one meal,” explained Hippy. “I knew that you would be in more urgent need of coffee in the morning than you were last night.”

“I withdraw my suggestion that we throw you over,” laughed Grace.

“Are you ready?” called Lieutenant Wingate. “The coffee is.”

“Are we ready? Just watch us,” cried Emma Dean.

Each had an individual cup, and Hippy passed lumps of sugar to them from his own kit. They had no milk, but there was no complaint, for the Overlanders were glad enough to get the coffee black. This, with some biscuit and cold venison, comprised the meal, but they declared unanimously that they had never had a more appetizing breakfast.

“I have decided,” announced Stacy finally, “not to be a party to the plan to throw Uncle Hip overboard – at least not to-day. Good-morning, Sun! Welcome to our happy home,” he added, bowing to the rising sun.

Tom called attention to two birds circling over them, which he said were jays looking for crumbs, whereupon the girls broke up pieces of hard tack and sprinkled them over the ground a few yards from the camp. The jays swooped down on the crumbs, chattering and scolding. Grace then suggested that, having reached the “top of the world,” they resume their journey and explore the lower ridges, taking the whole day for their return to camp. The first quarter of a mile down was a slide rather than a walk, but the Overlanders made merry over their frequent mishaps, finally reaching a long granite slope on the south side of the mountain where there was little snow. There, the sun’s rays blazed down all day long, and there many sparkling streams had their origin.