GRACE HARLOWE’S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE LOST RIVER TRAIL
[Illustration: “Elfreda Darted Ahead.”]
Grace Harlowe’s Overland
Riders on the Lost
River Trail
By
JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A.M.
Author of The High School Girls Series, The College Girls Series,
The Grace Harlowe Overseas Series, Grace Harlowe’s Overland
Riders on the Old Apache Trail, Grace Harlowe’s Overland
Riders on the Great American Desert, Grace Harlowe’s
Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers, Grace
Harlowe’s Overland Riders in the Great North Woods,
Grace Harlowe’s Overland Riders in the High
Sierras, Grace Harlowe’s Overland Riders
in the Yellowstone National Park,
Grace Harlowe’s Overland Riders
in the Black Hills, Grace Harlowe’s
Overland Riders
Among the Border
Guerrillas, etc.,
etc.
Illustrated
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
Copyrighted, 1924, by
Howard E. Altemus
PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—A Mystery of the Night
“There is peril in the air,” warns the guide.
Overlanders take flight. Emma says the suspense is
killing her. “The worst is yet to come,” promises Stacy
Brown. Threatened by a forest fire. The Overland Riders
hasten to the relief of imperilled villagers.
CHAPTER II—In the Demon’s Grip
Inhabitants of Silver Creek deride Ham White’s warning.
Aroused at last. The fire demon roars. Miss Briggs
narrowly escapes. “The fire is yonder! Work, you
thick-heads!” A woman’s scream starts a panic among the
villagers.
CHAPTER III—A Rain of Fire
Ham White directs the fire-fighters. Great tongues of
flame. The panic increases. Grace urges village women to
the creek. Danger in the water. Elfreda Briggs is
carried away on the current. Land at last. The Overland
girl utters a thrilling cry.
CHAPTER IV—The Lost Cabin
The village is saved. Overland horses are missing. “Run,
girls! Run!” cries Grace. Ham White is excited.
Searching parties are organized. Emma concerned for her
“Hamilton.” Another member of the Overland party is
missing. “Help! I’m dying!” groans Elfreda’s caller.
CHAPTER V—A Fruitless Quest
Overland girls search the village for their missing
companions. Ham White hears more bad news. The guide
fears the worst. “There is another peril!” Only the
lieutenant knows that one of his party has slipped away
looking for the missing.
CHAPTER VI—Facing a New Peril
The wounded prospector tells his story. “Oh, you poor
man,” cries Elfreda Briggs. “They shot me for gold!” A
grave duty to perform. Miss Briggs’ legacy. Sam
Petersen’s horse hidden. Mountain bandits pay a visit to
Lost Cabin.
CHAPTER VII—The Discovery
“Hawk Murray!” breathes Elfreda Briggs. The Overland
girl keeps her nerve. Ready to defend herself. Startled
by the return of a bandit. “Lady, what about the saddle
over there in the brush?” he asks. Elfreda in the toils.
A strange thing happens.
CHAPTER VIII—Stacy Takes a Hand
“I’ll show you you can’t steal my beans and fish!” howls
the fat boy. Stacy proves himself a hero. Mysterious
shots put the caller to flight. “They’ve shot him!”
cried the girl. A voice from the shadows of the Lost
Cabin. An amazing disappearance.
CHAPTER IX—Mysteries Multiply
The journey to Silver Creek begun. Stacy helps himself
to beans. The welcome home. “Lost River” an Indian
legend. Words fail the fat boy. Miss Briggs confides in
Grace. Elfreda’s gold turns to stone. Sam Petersen’s
diary whisked from Grace Harlowe’s hand.
CHAPTER X—The Man from Seattle
“Hands up!” Peanuts are great civilizers. Overlanders
regard their guest with suspicion. Emma makes the fat
boy laugh. “Just another mystery.” “Now who are you, and
what is your game?” demands Ham White sternly. Stalked
by a shadow. “Quick! Something has happened to Elfreda!”
CHAPTER XI—Believers in Safety First
Guns bang and Stacy lies low. Struck on the head. “I
felt a hand under my pillow,” explains Miss Briggs. The
guide is disturbed. Emma offers to “demonstrate” for
him. Stacy alarmed for his trousers. Jim Haley makes a
mysterious disappearance.
CHAPTER XII—A Successful Experiment
Elfreda’s experience leaves her pale. More than one man
involved in the attack. White finds a trail of blood.
Stacy Brown votes himself the cross of war. The fat boy
up to mischief. Another shadow stalks the Overland
tents. A near panic in the camp.
CHAPTER XIII—The Camp is Invaded
Bears on the rampage. Ponies snort in fright. “We’ve got
them going!” cries Ham White. Havoc worked by marauding
beasts. One bear is killed. Stacy confesses that he
called the bears. The savagery of Nature let loose.
“They are coming! Move cautiously.”
CHAPTER XIV—The Battle of the Beasts
Howls are mingled with snarls. Coyotes attack the dead
bear. Wolves add to the uproar. A sight that thrilled.
The battle brief. Grace takes a shot and misses. Stacy
downs a lion. Slinking forms stalk the ponies. Beady for
trouble. A wounded man staggers into camp.
CHAPTER XV—A Rude Awakening
“It’s Jim Haley!” exclaims the guide. The mountain
ruffians wanted peanuts. White refuses to double-cross
the Overlanders. Ham White sees the “Forest Eyes.” The
old prospector’s secrets studied. Interrupted by an
intruder. “Who says a woman can’t throw a stone?”
CHAPTER XVI—Bandits Take Their Toll
Hippy and the guide search for a prowler. Guarding the
camp. An Overlander is missing. An anxious watch. The
search abandoned. Nora reassured by the guide. Ham White
admits that he has made a discovery. “Stacy Brown has
been forcibly removed!” is the startling announcement.
CHAPTER XVII—A Test of Courage
Two Overland Riders now missing. Hamilton White is
apprehensive. An all-night vigil. The guide sends wigwag
signals in the early morn. “Great danger to both!” Grace
Harlowe reads the fluttering message. A girl’s clever
strategy. “Hamilton White, I have you now!”
CHAPTER XVIII—The Flaming Arrow
Hippy finds himself in the toils. Visited by his
captors. “Keep quiet and listen to me!” warns a hoarse
voice. A long and trying hike. The Overlander restored
to his friends. “Isn’t that just like a man!” A guest
who is doubly welcome. A flaming messenger drops into
camp.
CHAPTER XIX—His Fate in the Balance
A letter from Stacy. The fat boy to “be shot at
sunrise.” In the hands of desperate men. A sudden flash
lights up Tom Gray’s eyes. Bandits’ demands are met. The
guide takes a hurried departure. A mysterious mission.
“It isn’t safe to say a word.”
CHAPTER XX—“I’m Shot!” Cries Emma
Tom leads in the long night journey. Battle sounds in
the air. Grace makes a pleasing discovery. A warning
against the mountain bandits. The Overland party
awakened by the crash of a rifle. The camp in confusion.
Emma Dean falls a victim.
CHAPTER XXI—Stacy Seeks a Change
Carried away on a horse. In the hands of rough men. The
fat boy forced to write a letter. His bluff is called.
Bandits hear bad news. Stacy takes advantage of his
opportunity.
CHAPTER XXII—A Strange Visitor
Emma misses an opportunity to “demonstrate.” A battle is
fought over the Overlanders’ heads. A thrilling duel in
the mountain meadow. “Something terrible is going to
happen!” An exhibition of great courage. A bandit’s
career ended.
CHAPTER XXIII—A Thrilling Discovery
Cat-foot Charlie arrives. A fallen hero. The arrival at
Three Mile Pass. The key to many mysteries. Sunlight
yellows the pass. “Look! Oh, look!” Grandma and the
Children! Elfreda Briggs comes into her own. A final
good-bye to forest and mountain trails.
CHAPTER XXIV—The House of Happiness
Overlanders visit Haven Home. A joyous Christmas
reunion. Stacy Brown makes a sensational entrance. The
pink and white bundle in the nursery. Surprises come
thick and fast. What the snowbird said to Emma and
Stacy.
GRACE HARLOWE’S OVERLAND
RIDERS ON THE
LOST RIVER TRAIL
CHAPTER I
A MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT
“Lieutenant! Lieutenant!”
“Eh? Wha—what is it?” muttered Hippy Wingate, rousing himself from a
deep sleep.
“Listen, Lieutenant! There is peril in the air,” answered Ham White.
“I don’t know where it is, but I do know there is trouble afoot, and
that instant action is necessary. I don’t think it advisable to let
the others of our party know, so long as there probably is no
immediate danger.”
“Humph! You men of the forest make me weary. Everything is a
mystery—a peril and so forth and so on. Ham, you’re a good fellow,
but you remind me of Tom Gray—always looking for trouble. What is
the big idea?”
Hamilton White placed his lips to Hippy’s ear and whispered. A
little distance from them the camp was sleeping soundly. Not a sound
disturbed the forest night save the faint whisperings of the
tree-tops and the occasional twitter of a bird high up among the
branches.
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Hippy, sitting up awake and thoroughly on
the alert. “Are you positive?”
“Yes. It may be a matter of hours; then again minutes may cover the
time.”
“What shall we do?” questioned Hippy.
“Move at once,” answered the guide with emphasis. “We will lay our
course to the northeast and get as far away from here as possible in
the shortest possible time. We’ve got to break camp now,
Lieutenant!”
Hippy Wingate sprang to his feet and began dressing. While doing so
he asked how they were to explain their hurried departure to the
others of the party, unless the whole truth were told. White said he
would attend to that.
Hippy shook his head.
“Ham, you have the Overland Riders sized up wrong. They aren’t
tenderfeet, not by a long shot, nor are they shying at danger any
more than you are,” declared Hippy with some heat.
“Turn them out!” ordered Ham. “We can’t afford to waste a moment.”
“All right, Buddy, I’ll turn them out. You will have to do the rest,
though. Turn out, you sleepy-heads!” roared Hippy.
The response was almost instantaneous. The Overland Riders bounced
out of their tents, rubbing their eyes, staggering a little, for
they were not yet fully awake, and demanding to know what had
happened. Ham White, who was already engaged in packing their
belongings, paused long enough to reply.
“Folks, we must break camp and get out of this right smart,” he
informed them.
“What! Lose my night’s sleep?” wailed Stacy Brown. “Move if you
wish, but I stay right here until after breakfast, then I’ll think
about seeking new and more beautiful scenes.”
“Mr. White, will you please tell me why we must break camp at this
hour of the night?” begged Grace Harlowe, stepping over to the
guide, and looking up into his face. “What is it? I know you must
have good reason or—”
“Because, Mrs. Gray, some trouble has developed in the woods, and we
are exposed to it. I don’t wish to alarm you, and for that reason I
can’t explain just now, so please trust to me and don’t urge me to
give my reasons,” answered the guide, resuming his work.
Grace directed a quick glance at the sky, and Elfreda Briggs, now at
her side, did likewise. The stars were clear white, and a light
breeze was stirring the tops of the big pine trees.
“Grace, what do you make of it?” questioned Miss Briggs.
“Nothing, J. Elfreda. Mr. White is an experienced guide, so let’s
hustle and pack for a move.”
Emma Dean, who had dressed hurriedly, was now importuning the guide
to tell her what it was he feared.
“If you will only tell me, I will demonstrate over it, and you will
see how quickly the danger, or whatever it may be, will pass,” she
said.
“Pardon me, Miss Dean, I am too busy to talk. Please get yourself
ready for riding as quickly as possible,” replied Mr. White.
“Oh, very well!” Emma elevated her chin and walked away.
“Go on! Demonstrate! I know Ham is willing to try most anything
once,” urged Stacy Brown.
“If Mr. White tried you once, I am quite certain a second trial
would be unnecessary, Stacy,” retorted Emma.
“Wow!” muttered Stacy.
“If my Hippy says it is all right I am satisfied,” spoke up Nora
Wingate, giving Hippy a playful pat as he passed her.
“How demonstrate?” wondered Hippy. “Is this another of your fads?
You have been ‘concentrating,’ ‘reading nature,’ and doing goodness
knows how many other crazy things, on several recent journeys.”
“Mine is not a fad, Hippy,” replied Emma with dignity. “What you
call ‘fads’ are simply demonstrations of Truth.”
“Such as Arline Thayer put over on you last year,” chuckled Stacy
Brown, to which Miss Dean deigned no reply.
“It is too bad that poor Arline’s health will not permit her being
with us this year,” murmured Grace.
“Demonstrating,” resumed Emma thoughtfully, “is to breathe in
harmony, permitting no inharmonious thoughts to enter your being.”
“Meaning what?” persisted Hippy Wingate teasingly.
“Meaning, sir, that if you will think hard in the right way,
believing with all your might that certain things will come out as
you wish them to, you will find that they will.”
“Good! I’ll just demonstrate a million dollars into my pocket
between now and morning,” promised Stacy.
Hamilton White gave the Overlanders a quick glance of appraisal, and
nodded to himself. He admitted that perhaps he had not at first
formed the proper estimate of the party he was guiding through the
forests and mountains of the rugged state of Washington. All hands,
with the possible exception of Stacy, began work, and in less than
an hour the camp had been struck and the equipment loaded on the
ponies, the embers of the cook fire having been well soaked with
water.
The girls of the party were still trying to solve the mystery of
their hurried departure as they mounted and started away with Mr.
White in the lead. They soon found themselves too fully occupied to
give thought to anything other than to dodging trees and low-hanging
limbs, for the forest was very dark. Hippy Wingate brought up the
rear, Stacy Brown in the middle of the line of riders, grumbling and
complaining with every jolt of the pony, now and then dozing off in
his saddle but suddenly awakening as a tree-trunk scraped his shin
or a bough smote him in the face.
After an hour of uncomfortable riding the guide called a halt, and,
strapping on his climbers, began climbing a tree. He was out of
sight in a few seconds. In the meantime, Grace, gazing up to the
skies, noticed that the stars had now lost their whiteness and had
taken on a faded tint. This puzzled her. She did not know how to
interpret the change, unless, perhaps, it was caused by fog.
“Did you solve the mystery, Mr. White?” called Emma in her sweetest
voice as the guide stepped to the ground and began removing his
climbers, for Emma had already attached herself to Hamilton White as
a man worth while. “What did you discover?”
“Principally atmosphere, Miss Dean,” was the noncommittal reply.
“I think you are real mean,” pouted Emma. “I am angry with you. Some
persons think it is clever to make a mystery of everything, and—”
“Oh, demonstrate over it,” advised Stacy wearily. “It’s only
light-headed persons who thus reason.”
“Indeed! That accounts for some of your peculiarities,” Emma came
back quickly. By this time the Overlanders were laughing over the
sparring of Emma Dean and Stacy Brown.
“Please get under way,” directed the guide, vaulting into his
saddle. Grace and Elfreda took up positions behind him, and the
journey through the somber forest again began. It continued on until
about an hour before daybreak, when, in the faint light, the two
girls observed the guide moisten a finger on his lips and hold it
up, slowly turning the finger from side to side.
Grace wondered, and did the same several times, observed
questioningly by her companion.
“What is it?” whispered Miss Briggs.
“I—I’m not certain,” answered Grace a little lamely.
“This suspense is killing me,” cried Emma, joining the two girls.
“Unless my curiosity is gratified, I surely shall expire.”
“Why don’t you do what you threatened to do, demonstrate over the
situation?” demanded Elfreda laughingly.
“Hamilton doesn’t like me to,” returned Miss Dean flushing.
“So? That is the way the wind blows,” chuckled Elfreda, and the
girls laughed heartily.
“Hamilton!” murmured Grace. “It seems to me that matters are
progressing rather rapidly, Emma dear. Here we have been out less
than two days on our annual vacation in the saddle, and you are
calling our handsome guide by his first name. I am amazed at you.
I—”
Ham White threw up a hand as a signal that they were to halt. Day
was dawning, and the waving plumes of the tall pines were now quite
plainly visible from below.
“Stop here and take a light breakfast. Better not unpack anything. I
will be back in a few minutes,” said the guide. “These are orders,”
he flung back over his shoulder as he rode rapidly away.
“It seems to me that our guide is rather bossy,” observed Nora
Wingate.
“He isn’t!” protested Emma indignantly. “He is the finest man I ever
knew.”
The others looked at each other and burst out laughing; then they
began teasing Emma as they ate breakfast standing beside their
ponies. Mr. White returned ere they had finished their light meal. A
quick, comprehensive glance showed him that his orders had been
obeyed.
“You people think me an alarmist, I know, but the fact is I did not
wish to alarm you until I was certain. Now that I have been able to
get a clear observation, I know.”
“The worst is yet to come,” grumbled Stacy.
“Yes. You always bring this outfit bad luck,” retorted Emma.
“Please, please, children!” begged Grace. “What is it, Mr. White?”
“We are in the direct path of a forest fire!”
There followed a moment’s silence, then Hippy spoke up.
“What is the chance of our getting away from it?” he asked.
“I am coming to that, and—”
“Then the question seems to be, how much time have we to get out of
the way of this fire?” questioned Grace.
The guide said that neither he nor any one else could answer that
question.
“A forest fire is a sneaking demon,” he declared. “Sometimes one
sees no fire at all, then again it seems as if the whole universe
were ablaze. As a rule, persons who are caught in forest fires never
realize it until the fire has leaped upon them. This fire, so far,
is the kind you do see. Look up!”
All eyes were turned upwards. They saw that the sky was covered with
a yellow haze. The haze seemed low. Birds were winging their way
northward, flying swiftly, and there were rustlings farther out in
the forest, and sounds of unseen creatures hurrying.
“I wish Tom were here,” breathed Grace. Tom Gray, her much-loved
husband, now a well-known forestry engineer, was somewhere off in
that vast forest, making a survey for the government. Grace uttered
a fervent prayer for his safety.
“I believe the fire is still some hours away, but the breeze is in
our direction, and bids fair to hold all day. By striking off to the
eastward and making good time, we have an excellent chance of
getting to higher rocky ground where we shall probably be safe,” was
the guide’s prediction.
“_Alors!_ Let’s go,” urged J. Elfreda Briggs, with a touch of her
old-time lightness of spirit.
“That is what I am getting at. I can direct you so that you folks
ought to make it, but I dislike leaving you,” added Mr. White.
“Leaving us!” exclaimed Emma.
“Yes. More than half a day’s ride from here is a village, a forest
mountain village, with women and children, who, perhaps, will never
know their peril until too late. It is known as Silver Creek, named
from the stream that flows through it, a stream that for about half
of the year is a swollen torrent—water icy cold, coming from the
mountain peaks in the north. In any event, they will need help, and
it is my duty to get there as quickly as possible. Lieutenant, will
you take it upon yourself to lead your party to safety, and let me
go on?”
“That—that is for the girls to answer,” replied Hippy gravely,
turning to Grace and her companions.
“Help will be needed at Silver Creek, you think, Mr. White?”
questioned Grace.
“Yes. All they can get.”
“Girls, I think we, too, know where our duty lies, do we not?” she
asked evenly.
“Yes!” was the quick reply from Elfreda and Nora and Emma.
“We are going with you, Mr. White,” announced Grace.
“Oh, help!” wailed Stacy.
A moment later the Overland party was riding at top speed, following
closely on the heels of the guided pony, knowing that upon their
speed in reaching their destination many lives might depend.