Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Old Apache Trail

“Hm-m-m-m-m,” mused Grace. “They are sharper than I thought. Hold tight to me, Emma. It won’t do at all for either of us to slip off. We are liable to be shot if we do.”

As they worked their way up the mountain trail, Grace tore bits of linen from her handkerchief and cautiously allowed them to drift to the ground, hoping thereby to so mark the trail that their friends would see and understand.

The captors did not speak a word to the girls, slipping hoofs, creaking leather and the heavy breathing of the ponies being the only sounds accompanying the journey.

Some time near morning a halt was made, and for a few minutes Bud and the woman sat on their ponies listening. Grace surmised that they had heard something. Either this or they were expecting to hear something. A few minutes later the man who had been left down in the canyon came jogging up to them, giving a signal whistle while still some distance to the rear.

The woman rode out a few yards to meet the newcomer, and was joined by Bud, whereupon an animated, but low-toned conversation between the three ensued.

“Hang on! There’s goin’ to be some rough ridin’,” warned Belle as she galloped up to the two girls, following the conference. “We’ve got to make a certain place before sun-up. No funny business, neither,” she added warningly.

It was a grilling ride that the Overton girls experienced during the next two hours. A halt finally was called to enable two of the men to go back and mask the trail of the ponies, but just how it was done Grace was unable to see, owing to the darkness that still enshrouded the mountains.

Day dawned slowly, finding the party threading its way through rocky defiles, now well at the top of the ridge of mountains. Gray, rolling hills and rocky towers were all about them, and in the east the grayness of the skies was gradually giving way to pale rose and silver that lengthened and brightened along a horizon broken by many mountain peaks.

The party finally came to a halt in an open space, well screened by rocks from view of any roving eyes that might be observing from near or distant mountain tops.

There the captors made a hurried breakfast. Grace and Emma were directed to help themselves to food, which they did, then sat down by themselves to eat, under the observant eyes of their captors.

The men plainly were ill at ease, and it was evident that they still were listening expectantly. Finally, one of the men saddled his horse and rode back, he soon being lost to sight among the rocks.

“Those ruffians really fear that they are being followed,” muttered Grace, barely loud enough for Emma, for whose ears the words were intended, to hear. “They have sent that fellow back to take an observation. I wonder if they have good reason for thinking that they are being followed?”

“Why can’t we cut and run?” suggested Emma.

“There is nothing to hinder our doing so, except that we probably should be shot before we reached yonder rocks.”

“There comes Belle now!” whispered Emma excitedly.

“Keep quiet, please, and let me do the talking,” advised Grace.

The woman was approaching the two girls at a rapid step, an expression in her eyes that Grace Harlowe did not like. In repose, Belle’s face, while regular, and rather attractive at first glance, showed hard lines, particularly about the mouth, indicating that, when occasion demanded, she could be hard and merciless. The expression that the face of their captor wore as she came towards them gave promise that the present might be such an occasion.

Belle halted before the Overton girls and stood regarding them through narrowed eyelids. Then she spoke, and what she had to say brought a pallor to Emma Dean’s face, and stirred the fighting instincts of Grace Harlowe to the danger point.

CHAPTER XI

FOLLOWING A COLD TRAIL

“I TELL you I heard Grace’s signal shots!” protested Elfreda Briggs, in reply to Hippy’s declaration that he had heard no shots except the three fired by Elfreda.

“Listening, as I was, I surely would have heard the signal had she given it,” averred the lieutenant. “It’s too dark to see anything, but of course, if you girls have anything to suggest, I am ready to act.”

“Hippy Wingate! You don’t mean that you’re going to sit down and leave Grace and Emma in that terrible canyon all night?” protested Nora, indignantly.

“No, not without an effort to find them. I didn’t mean that I should sit by the campfire and wait for daylight. I’m going now.” Hippy slung his rifle under his arm and strode off toward the creek. “Should anything break loose, shoot,” he called back.

Reaching the creek, the lieutenant trudged along it to the canyon, Elfreda having told him that Grace had gone in that direction. He examined the bank of the creek with a pocket lamp that Anne had handed to him, as Grace had done before him, but failed to find footprints. When he arrived at the point from which other canyons radiated, the lieutenant took the wrong one and wandered along its course for half a mile. Finding nothing of what he sought, he returned to the creek and searched along a second canyon, and so on until finally reaching the dark ravine through which Grace really had gone in search of Emma. Hippy, on the contrary, failed to find a trail.

It was long past midnight when finally he gave up his search and started back to the camp. As he neared it, he discovered, by the light of the campfire, that a string of ponies was being led down from the Apache Trail.

“There comes Ike! Now we’ll see what can be done,” cried the lieutenant in a relieved tone. Hippy started on a run for the camp. By the time he reached there Ike had arrived and the Overton girls were gathered about him, all speaking at once, trying to tell him of the disaster that had befallen them.

“Them critters got Miss Dean and Mrs. Gray?” demanded Ike.

“We do not know. We know that they are missing,” replied Elfreda. “Hippy, did you discover anything?”

“Not a thing.”

“Come here, Western. Folks, this is Western Jones thet came along with me to help lead the string of ponies. Glad now thet I fetched him. West, please stake down the ponies. Now you folks tell me every little thing thet’s happened, so I can get a line on this business.”

The girls told the old stagecoach driver of the occurrences of the night when he left for Globe, of the picnic, of Emma’s disappearance and of Grace’s having gone in search of her.

“We’ve got to find ’em, thet’s all,” declared Ike, after a moment’s thought. “Tell you what we’ll do. The lieutenant and I’ll take two ponies and lead ’em until we pick up the trail, then we’ll ride as far up the canyon as we can an’ walk the rest of the way. We’ll send the ponies back if we have to. They’ll come right back so long as the others are staked here.”

“What about guarding the camp?” questioned Lieutenant Wingate.

“Western Jones can do thet. West, how’d you like a little brush with some of thet Con Bates gang?” demanded Ike, grinning.

“Sweeter’n wild honey,” grinned Western. “Is it them as has done this trick?”

“I reckon mebby it is. We don’t know for shore. Mebby Apaches, for all I know.”

“Leave ’em to me,” grinned Western Jones.

“Then you keep these gals right here in this camp, an’ don’t you let a one of ’em get away till I come back. Got the makin’s of a light, Lieutenant, or have I got to carry a torch to light the way?”

“I have a flash lamp.”

“Saddle up an’ we’ll be off right smart, an’ we’ll bring back the missin’ girls. I don’t reckon as thet gang will have more’n a mouthful of success with them two little ladies. They better look out thet they don’t rile thet sweet, smilin’ Grace Harlowe too much or they’ll discover, when it’s too late, thet they barked agin’ the wrong cottonwood. Look for us when we get back.”

“Darling, be careful! Don’t get shot,” begged Nora, giving her husband a good-bye kiss.

Hippy hurried along and joined Mr. Fairweather, and together they saddled and bridled, and then strode down to the creek leading their mounts. Ike took the flash lamp and, soon after reaching the stream, he picked up the trail of the Overton party on their way to the picnic grounds. He found Lieutenant Wingate’s footprints also.

Reaching the point where other trails radiated out from the main canyon, Ike bade his companion hold the horses. Then began a painstaking examination of the ground, along the little mountain stream, a proceeding that excited Lieutenant Wingate’s admiration. After a time Mr. Fairweather’s light disappeared and Hippy was left in the somber canyon to pass the time as best he might.

Ike was gone an hour. He returned without showing a light. Hippy heard him when he was almost upon him, and challenged.

“It’s Ike,” was the brief answer.

“What luck?” questioned Hippy.

“Struck the trail. Stands out like a boulevard in a big city. Found somethin’ else, too.”

“What was it?”

“Found where some woman met one of ours an’ went with her up the canyon. It wa’n’t a regular white girl’s footprint thet the woman made. Reckon it was an Indian or some mountain woman, ’cause she had on moccasins. There was three or four men a little further upstream an’ they had horses. I found this up there. Reco’nize it?” Ike held out something white and turned the ray of the flash lamp on it.

“E. D.” muttered Hippy. “I should say this is Miss Dean’s handkerchief. Well, what next?”

“All hands got on the horses and went on up the canyon. I come back from that pint.”

“Ike, you are a wonder! How do you do it? I couldn’t read the story of a trail the way you do, if I was to practice it all the rest of my life.”

“An’ I reckon thet if I tried to sail one of them flyin’ machines my name would be Dennis, right smart,” replied Ike. “Get aboard! We’re goin’ right up thet trail and we’re goin’ to keep goin’ till either we lose it for good, or find the gals, or get shot doin’ one or t’other. We can’t pull off an’ wait till mornin’. Mornin’ may be too late.”

Hippy swung into his saddle, Ike being but a few seconds behind him in mounting, Mr. Fairweather taking the lead at a slow jog trot.

“Right here’s where they took to the ponies,” announced Ike finally. How he knew that in the darkness, Hippy was unable to imagine, but then, Hippy Wingate had not followed mountain trails at any stage of his career, and knew nothing of them.

Ike now began to flash his light against the mountain, first on one side, then on the other.

“Whoa!” The command came out sharp and incisive. “Hold my nag, Lieutenant.” The old driver dismounted, and, handing his bridle rein to his companion, began climbing up along the mountainside, keeping the ray of his light directly on the ground at his feet.

Ike returned in a few minutes.

“I reckon we’ve got to do some tall climbin’ ourselves. Party went up the mountain here.” Ike mounted and started up a twisting, narrow trail, his light now in almost continuous use, for the going was extremely perilous.

“See them bits of white cloth alongside the trail?” Ike called back.

“I had not noticed them. I see them now,” answered Hippy.

“Them’s markers that Mrs. Gray prob’bly dropped to show us the way. Thet’s a real gal, Lieutenant.”

Hippy marveled in silence.

Day was breaking when they reached the top, and, looking back, Hippy found himself wondering how they ever made it, for the mountain they had climbed looked to Lieutenant Wingate to be straight up and down.

Ike Fairweather again dismounted, was searching the ground, running back and forth, covering wider and wider stretches of rock and earth, continuously combing his whiskers with his fingers, and perspiring freely. Ike finally returned to his companion, his chagrin reflected in his face.

“What’s the matter, Ike?” asked Hippy in a cheerful voice, a tone that, at the moment, did not reflect his real feelings.

“Matter? I’m plumb locoed, Lieutenant. I’ve lost the trail, an’ I don’t know where to look for it. It’s a mighty big place up here, an’ mebby we find the track an’ mebby we don’t. Leastwise, I’m sorry for the gals who, I’ll bet, are lookin’ their eyes out for us.”

“You are excited, Ike. Sit down, consult your whiskers and perhaps you may find an idea or something in them,” suggested Hippy gravely.

Ike promptly adopted his companion’s suggestion, and for the next several minutes gave himself up to reflection, punctuated with an occasional throaty growl.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it, Lieutenant!” cried Ike, springing up. “It’s a cold trail.”

“A trail with snow or something on it?” questioned Hippy innocently. “I haven’t seen snow in these mountains, but I presume there is plenty of it.”

“No, no, Lieutenant. A cold trail’s a fixed trail – doctored so as to mislead a trailer, or covered up altogether so he can’t find it. I reckon Ike Fairweather ain’t goin’ to be fooled by no cheap mountain trick like thet. Lieutenant, you work to the right, while I go to the left. Take a wide circle along the top of the mountain an’ come up with me by thet monument you can see the top of over to the north’ard. Watch the ground like sixty, an’ watch out for broken twigs an’ crushed clumps of grass. If you find any, sit still an’ wait for me.”

Hippy Wingate wheeled his pony and trotted off to the right, peering at the ground, a puzzled expression in his eyes.

“I shouldn’t know a frozen trail, or whatever you call it, if I saw one,” he muttered helplessly.

CHAPTER XII

AN INTERRUPTED INTERVIEW

“YOU come with me, Mrs. Gray!” commanded the woman who had lured Grace to capture. “I reckon you and me got somethin’ to settle.”

“I do not know what you mean, but I am ready,” announced Grace, rising. “Come, Emma!”

“You set where you be!” ordered Belle savagely.

Emma’s eyes flashed her resentment, and, for a few seconds, Grace feared that her little companion was about to do something rash. Miss Dean, who had started to rise, now settled back, face flushed, her whole body a-tremble, but more from anger than from fear.

“When I want you I’ll call you,” was the woman’s parting admonition as she turned away, nodding to Grace to follow her.

Belle led her captive off behind some rocks, within easy calling distance of the group of bandits who were still munching at their breakfast and at the same time keeping an eye on Emma Dean.

The instant that Grace could do so without being observed by the men, she thrust her hand inside her tunic and quickly transferred her automatic revolver to the right hand pocket. She was now walking along with both hands in her pockets, feeling more confidence in herself now that a means of defense lay within her right hand.

The mountain woman halted behind a wall of rock, and, leaning against it, surveyed Grace with malignant eyes.

“You Harlowe woman, what do you reckon I ought to do to you?” she demanded.

“I don’t reckon you’d better do anything to me, except to permit myself and companion to return to our camp,” answered Grace, lounging carelessly, scuffing the dirt with the toe of her boot, but not permitting her gaze to leave the face of the mountain woman for a second.

“What if I do?” Belle’s eyes blazed.

“I have friends who never will cease their efforts until you have paid in full, bitterly so, for what you may have done to me or to my companion, Miss Dean.”

“You threaten me?” demanded the woman, her hand slipping to the revolver that swung in its holster from her hip.

“No. I am simply stating a fact, and you know it,” calmly replied Grace.

“Why did you shoot my husband?” snapped Belle.

“Why did I wha – at?” gasped Grace.

“You heard what I said.”

“Who is your husband?”

“Con Bates. I’m Belle Bates, an’ I’m goin’ to see to it thet you settle for thet little job you did.”

“So, you are the wife of that highwayman, eh? I begin to understand. What is it you wish me to do?”

“Settle up right smart.”

“How?” questioned Grace, now smilingly.

“I reckon you got money or you wouldn’t be out on a trip like you be. You will write a letter to your friends, telling them to shell out all the money they have, to leave it in a certain place that I’ll tell you ’bout, then to get back to Globe as fast as hoss flesh will carry ’em, and then you all get out of the country, an’ stay out.”

“Do you believe they will be foolish enough to leave money for one of your gang to go and help himself to? I don’t believe you know my friends. Why, your messenger never could get away with anything so simple as that. Let us consider this matter. Suppose I do write the sort of letter you demand, and further, that, by this childish subterfuge, you get such money as our outfit has with it, what will be your next move? What do you then propose to do with Miss Dean and myself?”

“I reckon mebby I’ll let you go.”

“Mebby, eh? That is too indefinite, but I presume it is as good as the word of an outlaw like yourself can be,” replied Grace boldly. “Suppose I refuse to do as you request? What then, Mrs. Bandit?”

“I’ll serve you as you served Con, only more so.”

“How do you know my name?” questioned Grace, more for the sake of gaining time to further plan to outwit this woman, whom Grace fully believed meant to do something desperate, than because she cared to know. She saw, too, that Belle Bates was working herself into a high pitch of excitement and anger that might result in greater peril for her captives.

“Thet’s none of your business,” retorted Belle in reply to the Overton girl’s question.

“Let me suggest another plan. If you will send Miss Dean with the letter to my friends, I will write to them that they are to deposit, if they wish, a certain amount of money in whatever place you may designate.”

“See anything green in my eyes?” jeered the bandit’s wife.

“My plan is no more foolish than yours. I suggested it merely to prove to you that yours will not stand the test. Why, Belle Bates, if such a thing as ransom for me were suggested to them, my friends would throw your messenger out of camp and probably into Pinal Creek. They would then nose out your trail and they would follow you until yourself and every member of your thieving band were in jail or worse. You can expect nothing less, for you are as bad as the worst of your miserable outfit,” added Grace.

Belle Bates’ face was not pleasant to look upon at that moment, and her rage was rapidly getting the better of what little judgment she possessed.

This was exactly what Grace Harlowe was seeking to accomplish, to get her captor in such a rage that she would do something that would give Grace an advantage, nor did the Overton girl overlook the possibility that Belle Bates’ rage might lead to the woman’s using her revolver on her tantalizer.

Fortunately for Grace, the situation did not develop that way. With a cry of rage, Belle sprang at Grace Harlowe with clenched fists.

“I’ll fix that purty face of yours!” she cried, and launched a swift blow at her captive.

The Overton girl, smiling aggravatingly, had stood calmly awaiting the rush, and easily dodged the blow that the Bates woman struck at her.

At that point Grace Harlowe got into action. Her left hand shot out and was as swiftly withdrawn, holding in it the heavy revolver which she had snatched from Belle Bates’ holster. Grace instantly sprang back out of reach of those wiry arms, whose strength she already had felt, and pointed the weapon at her adversary.

“Put your hands over your head!” she commanded sternly. “Quick! Don’t utter a sound or I’ll shoot. Now back up against the rock behind you.”

“I’ll kill you for this!” fumed the woman. Belle Bates had been trained in the hard school of the mountains; she had faced weapons before, and she had seen others face them, as well as some who went down before them. One glance into the brown eyes that were looking along the barrel of her own revolver told Belle that Grace Harlowe meant what she had said and that she possessed the nerve to carry out her threat.

“Turn around facing the rock and rest your hands against it as high above your head as you can reach!” commanded Grace.

The woman obeyed sullenly.

“You will now call to Miss Dean to come here. Be careful how you do it, too, and remember what is behind you. I hope there is nothing behind me,” added Grace to herself.

Belle hesitated. Grace uttered another warning, a more insistent one, whereupon the mountain woman called to Emma Dean to come to her.

“Drop thet gun, an’ do it quick!” came the sharp command in a man’s voice behind Grace Harlowe.

The Overton girl’s heart seemed to leap into her throat. She felt a suffocating sensation there, her breath coming only with great effort, and she could feel herself going cold all over.

CHAPTER XIII

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE

“OH, Grace, what is it?” cried Emma, who at this juncture arrived on the scene.

Grace Harlowe’s reaction came with Emma’s words. Whirling in a flash, Grace dropped to her knees just as the revolver of the bandit was fired at her. How the fellow had managed to get behind her without her knowing it, Grace was at a loss to understand.

A cry behind her now told Grace that the bullet intended for her had hit Belle Bates instead. It was now a question of fight or be killed, or both, so far as Grace was concerned, and, coming close on the discharge of the bandit’s revolver, she took a quick shot at the fellow, following it up with a second shot, as the bandit again fired.

The man staggered under the Overton girl’s second shot, and collapsed on the ground.

“Run!” cried Grace. “Run, Emma!”

Emma Dean paused hesitatingly, then darted away, but the instant she was out of sight of the bandits, Emma stopped short to wait for her companion.

Grace was still in the thick of trouble, but, though the wounded bandit, lying flat on his back, continued to shoot, the Overton girl was thankful that Belle Bates had no weapon to use on her.

Though the fight had been under way less than twenty seconds, the bandits were already running to the scene. Grace, following her second shot, had darted away, calling to Emma as she ran.

“Run! They’re after us!” admonished Grace as she came up with Emma.

A scattering fire of revolver bullets spattered on the rocks about them, but, by lively sprinting, they soon succeeded in placing substantial barriers of rock between them and their pursuers. The bandits, of course, possessed the advantage of long experience in this sort of warfare, but Grace’s mind was an alert one, quick to receive impressions and quick to react.

“I hear horses coming!” panted Emma.

“Yes. They’ve taken to the ponies. We must get where the ponies cannot conveniently go, and do it quick. Run on your toes. Be careful not to leave a footprint anywhere,” cautioned Grace.

It was soon apparent from the sounds, however, that the horsemen were overtaking the girls, though Grace felt reasonably certain that the bandits did not know where she and Emma at that moment were. In the circumstances there appeared only one way to avoid discovery, and that was to do some skillful dodging, which the two girls promptly did when the pursuers drew closer to them. Grace and Emma hid behind a rock, and, as the riders swept down toward them, moved step by step around it, so that the rock should always be between them and the bandits.

The outlaws swung by at a brisk gallop which left Grace and Emma to the rear of their pursuers.

“Run! We must find a hiding place,” urged Grace.

“Grace Harlowe, there is blood on your face!” cried Emma as they ran. “Were you hit?”

“I got a scratch on the head. A bullet scratched my scalp when I started to run away from the fight,” grinned Grace.

The way was now becoming more rugged, but the girls did not lessen their pace, and for nearly an hour they continued their plunging, stumbling sprint, at the expense of many falls and bruises, thankful that, thus far, they had succeeded in eluding their pursuers.

“I can’t go any further!” wailed Emma. “I simply can’t, Grace.”

“You must, Emma. This is too exposed a place for us to halt. There! What did I tell you?”

A rifle bullet had pinged against a rock close at hand, and ricochetted off with a weird zing – g – g – g, followed by the report of a rifle.

Emma suddenly forgot her weariness and, together, the girls fled from that danger spot. Now that their presence had been discovered, Grace decided to make another change of course, which she did instantly. It was a fortunate change, too, for it led the girls to the edge of the mountain. A few yards below where they were standing, Grace saw a shelf of rock jutting out, and rightly surmised that beneath that they might find a hiding place.