INTO THE GREAT SILENCE
Hi Lang had reached the scene just as the last shots were being
fired by Grace and her adversary. The guide had seen neither of
the combatants, but he had seen the flashes of their revolvers.
At first he was not certain which was which, but in a moment the
man who had been shooting at Grace revealed himself for a second.
It was then that the guide took a hand.
Hi Lang was a quick and accurate hand with both revolver and
rifle, and he feared no man, nor collection of men. At his second
shot he heard his man utter an exclamation and knew that he had
scored a hit. For the next several minutes the two indulged in
snap-shooting, firing at the slightest sound or movement; then the
mysterious stranger suddenly ceased firing.
The guide was cautious. He did not take advantage of the lull in
hostilities for some little time, and when he did he crawled to
one side and crept noiselessly around to the position that the
stranger had occupied when he had fired his last shot. The man had
disappeared.
Mr. Lang was anxious about Grace Harlowe, but it might be
equivalent to suicide to search for her until he had satisfied
himself that his adversary was either wounded or had gone away.
Finally, having searched all the surrounding bushes and rocks and
finding no one, he returned to the scene of the shooting, softly
calling to the Overland girl.
There was no response.
Hi stood still for a moment trying to recall where he had seen the
flash of her weapon.
"It must have been about where I am standing now. I--"
Hi Lang suddenly disappeared from sight. The guide had fallen into
a crevice in the rocks, a crevice that had been hidden by dwarf
shrubs and mountain grass, and it seemed a long way to the bottom.
Hi bumped his way to the bottom at the expense of some bruises and
a badly ruffled temper.
"Hulloa!" he exclaimed. "What's this?"
He had touched something that was not rock--something that felt
like a human form. The guide struck a match and peered down at
Grace Harlowe, who lay face down at the bottom, and, as he turned
her face up to the light, he saw flecks of blood on it.
"The hound! He hit her! I'll kill him for that, whoever he may
be!"
Placing a hand over Grace's heart, Hi Lang found that she was
alive.
"Thank God for that! Give me the luck to meet the critter that did
this thing," breathed the desert guide.
Hi lifted the unconscious Overland girl in his arms and began
scrambling toward the top of the big crevice. Finding that he
could not make it without freeing one hand, he slipped an arm
about Grace's waist, holding her with it while he used his free
hand to assist him in climbing to the top. He reached it a little
out of breath.
Without giving a thought now to the peril he was inviting by
showing himself so boldly, Hi stepped out into the open space,
raised his revolver and fired three shots into the air, the signal
of recall for Lieutenant Wingate. Then, gathering Grace in his
arms, he started for the camp in long strides, raging silently at
the ruffian who had tried to kill her.
Elfreda, who was on watch just outside of their camp, heard him
coming and challenged.
"It's Hi. I've got Mrs. Gray."
"Is--is she hurt?" questioned Elfreda more calmly than she felt.
"She's been shot, but she's alive."
Miss Briggs ran to meet the guide, and, walking along at his side,
she placed a finger on Grace's pulse and held it there until they
reached the camp. Nora, Anne and Emma paled as they caught sight
of the limp figure in Hi Lang's arms.
"Who shot her!" asked Elfreda.
"The critter who tried to kill Ping, I suppose."
"Oh, this is terrible!" wailed Emma.
"Get water," directed Miss Briggs, after the guide had placed her
where the light from the fire would shine in her face.
Nora fetched water from the spring near which the camp had been
pitched, and Elfreda bathed the wound that she found on Grace's
head. Elfreda's hospital training during the war, in France, had
already stood her in good stead on several occasions since her
return from Europe.
"This is not a gunshot wound," she announced after a critical
examination of the patient's head.
"Not--not a gunshot--" exclaimed Hi.
"No. It is a severe scalp wound, however."
"What made it, then?" demanded the guide.
"Either she has been struck over the head or she has fallen and
bumped her head against the sharp edge of a rock," answered Miss
Briggs.
The Overland girls drew long breaths of relief.
"I found her in a hole in the ground. Fell into it myself. That's
where she got hurt," said Hi. "She and that critter were shooting
at each other when I came up, then all at once the shooting
stopped. I got in a few shots on him myself. Reckon I winged him
for he quit pretty soon after I got there. What do you think?"
Elfreda, still noting Grace's pulse and peering into her face,
nodded encouragingly, and placed her smelling salts under Grace's
nostrils.
"I feared it might be a fracture, but I believe it is not that
bad. Concussion is the word. She must have struck hard, and it is
a wonder she did not break her neck. You see how the neck is
swollen. Her pulse is getting stronger, and I think she will be
out of her faint in a few moments."
Grace regained consciousness shortly after that, but she was still
dizzy and weak from the severe shock of her fall and the loss of
quite a little blood.
"Where--where was I hit!" was her first question, weakly asked.
"You were not hit anywhere," replied Elfreda. "You fell into a
hole and landed on your head. Mr. Lang, will you carry her to her
tent? She must be quiet for the rest of the night, and it won't do
for us to start across the desert until she has had a good rest."
"That suits me. I've got a little job on hand for the morning.
Here's the lieutenant," he added, as Hippy came in, wiping the
perspiration from his forehead.
"What's this! Brown Eyes knocked out again?" he demanded.
"She fell down and hurt herself," answered Elfreda.
"What was the shooting, Hi?"
"Mrs. Gray and that critter out there were doing it. I reckon she
pinked the pirate, for he was shooting with his left hand when he
opened up on me. I reckon I touched him up too, and, getting
enough of it, he cleared out. I'll get him for that," added Hi,
gathering Grace up and carrying her to her tent. "To-morrow we'll
go out and see if we can't round up that critter. Can't do
anything to-night except to see that he doesn't do any more damage
to this outfit."
"I think I'd like to get a shot at him myself," observed Hippy.
"There, Mrs. Gray! You keep quiet. If there's any more scouting to
be done this evening, the lieutenant and I will do it," directed
the guide, laying down his burden.
Hippy nodded.
"Lieutenant, what do you think of this business? Are you certain
that you folks haven't any enemies!" asked Mr. Lang when the two
had walked out beyond the camp and sat down to talk over the
affair.
"Not that I know of, in these parts, Hi."
"It's mighty queer. I can't figure it out," pondered the guide.
"Have you any?" asked Hippy carelessly.
"Reckon I have plenty. They know better'n to cross my trail,
though."
"It strikes me, Hi, old man, that one of them crossed your trail
this evening," chuckled Hippy Wingate.
The guide made no reply then, and for some moments thereafter
occupied himself with his own thoughts.
"You asked me just now if I had any enemies. I'll say this, Lieu--"
BANG! BANG!
Two quick shots were fired from behind Hippy and the guide. One
bullet passed between the two men, the other clipped the crown, of
Lieutenant Wingate's sombrero.
The answer came, it seemed, within a second after the two shots.
Hippy and the guide leaped to their feet, drawing their revolvers
as they did so, and emptying them into the bushes, firing low and
trying to cover all the ground where a man might be lurking.
"As you were about to say," drawled Hippy, slipping another clip
of ammunition into his revolver.
"That there is one man who might and would get me if he thought he
could get away with it. But why should he wish to shoot a woman?
Crawl out to the left and then go in and let the folks know
everything is all right now. I'm going to hang around a bit and
try to tease that cayuse into shooting at me again."
"They're at it again," complained Grace Harlowe in her tent. "Go
out, Elfreda, am see if any one is hit."
Hippy was reassuring the girls when Elfreda came out.
"Humph!" exclaimed Miss Briggs. "We surely are making a brilliant
start. I think I shall be glad to get on the desert. One can see
such a long way there. Grace is anxious to know about those shots,
so I will run in and tell her. Are you going out again, Hippy?"
"Not unless I get a word from Hi. You see I do not know where he
is, and it would not be safe for either of us were we both to be
out there without either knowing where the other is."
Ping, wide-eyed, was an eager listener to what Lieutenant Wingate
had to say, but he made no comment, and no song that fitted the
situation found expression on his lips.
An hour passed, and the guide had not returned. The girls were
getting anxious, but Hippy said that, no shots having been heard,
it was safe to assume that no one could have been hit.
No one had, and all this time Hi Lang, almost within sound of
their voices, had been lying flat on top of a rock, listening with
every faculty on the alert. For two hours the guide remained in
one position, watching, waiting and eagerly hoping.
"One shot--just one second when I can see my mark, is all I ask,"
he muttered. "I'll get that shot yet!"
A few moments later Hi crept down from his hiding place and
returned to camp, on the alert every second of the way for the
report of a revolver and the whistle of a bullet.
"This beats me," he declared in answer to Hippy's question as to
whether or not he had discovered anything. "You folks turn in,
How's Mrs. Gray?"
"Asleep," answered Miss Briggs. "I think she will be ready for a
start some time to-morrow."
The guide told Lieutenant Wingate to turn in also, saying that he
would watch the camp through the night, so the Overland Riders
went to bed for what sleep they could get, but they passed a
restless night, starting up at every sound, listening for the
report of rifle or revolver or a call for help. Nothing disturbing
occurred. Shortly after daylight, Grace got up and dressed and
went out to breathe in the invigorating, sweet mountain air. She
felt strong and able to meet whatever emergency she might be
called upon to face.
Hi Lang was nowhere in sight. Ping, who was fussing with a cook
fire preparatory to getting breakfast, shook his head when Grace
asked him where the guide was.
"No can tell," he said, caressing his injured hand.
Breakfast was served at seven o'clock, but long before that Grace
had been out looking for trail signs and finding some, though she
could not tell whether they had been left by a prowler or by one
of her own party.
It was eleven o'clock that forenoon when Hi Lang strode into camp,
his rifle slung under one arm, a heavy revolver on either hip.
The greeting of the girls brought a smile to the face of the
guide. They were relieved and glad to see him, and he saw it. He
also was glad to be with them once more, for, in the brief time he
had known them, he had grown to feel a genuine affection for these
bright-eyed, plucky young women who preferred to spend their
vacation on his beloved desert rather than dance away the weeks of
their vacation at some fashionable summer resort.
"Mr. Lang, where have you been?" cried Emma Dean.
"Out looking for game," he answered briefly, laying aside his
rifle.
"Did you find it?" asked Grace smilingly.
"No. Ping, bring me some chow. How you feeling this morning, Mrs.
Gray?" he asked after he had begun eating his breakfast.
"Fit and fine, sir. You found a trail, I take it," she added in a
lower voice.
"Yes." Hi gave her a quick look of appreciation for her keenness.
"You hit your man all right. I found blood where he was standing
when you two were shooting at each other. I also found the trail,
further on, the trail of the same man and another. There were two
of them."
"I wonder which, one it was that put a hole through my perfectly
new hat," grumbled Hippy.
"At least one of them has left the range," resumed the guide. "I
found the trail of a pony and footprints of one man on the other
side of the range, but what became of the other fellow, I don't
know. I'm going out again after breakfast and look further. Do you
feel like making a start to-day?"
"Yes. I think we should be moving," replied Grace.
"We'll leave after chow this evening. Better get what rest you can
to-day. Lieutenant, I wish you would stick around and see that the
camp is not bothered."
"If you need him, Mr. Lang, we can protect ourselves. Do not worry
about us," interjected Grace.
"Don't need him. Ping, put some grub in my pack, then I'm off."
After the guide's departure time dragged rather heavily for the
girls. Later in the day Grace took her pony out for a gallop and
felt better for the change. At four o'clock Mr. Lang came in, and,
though he had been up all night and had been hiking in the
mountains all day long since early morning, he appeared fresh and
alert.
"Pack up and get out!" he ordered, nodding to Ping Wing. "Serve
the grub on our mess kits first. Follow the foothills and we will
catch up with you. I give it up, folks. This mystery has got to
solve itself. It's too much for me."
"Don't worry, Mr. Lang. If our friend the mystery man keeps at us
long enough we shall catch him. I wish we knew why he is bothering
us so," said Grace. "I should prefer to stay here until we solve
the mystery, but we must be on our way, and perhaps he may follow
us."
"That sounds interesting," observed Miss Briggs.
Ping and his lazy burros started about an hour before the rest of
the party got under way, and when they did get under way they
jogged along slowly through the foothills of the range, where the
going was fairly easy. The guide said they should come up with
Ping before dark, and that they would, after having mess, then
continue on at a slower pace until they reached a suitable camping
place for the night.
Dusk was upon them when they finally overtook the Chinaman, who
was sitting on the rump of a burro chattering to his mount to get
him to go faster, but without much success. The ponies of the
party then took the lead, which, Hi Lang said, would induce the
burros to move faster in an effort to keep up, but it was a much
slower pace than the Overland Riders were in the habit of
traveling, that they now dropped into.
Night enveloped the outfit suddenly, it seemed to them, and with
the cool of the evening their spirits rose. Even Ping's spirits
rose, until he forgot his aching thumb and broke into song.
The ground began to slope away under the hoofs of the horses, for
they were now moving down a sharp descent, and the air seemed to
take on a strange new quality, a new odor. No longer could the
girls hear the rustling of foliage. A great and impressive silence
settled over them, in which even the footfalls of the ponies were
soft and subdued. Glancing up, they saw the stars shining with a
brilliancy that none of the party had ever observed before.
The chatter of the Overland Riders died away, and Ping Wing's song
died away, also, in a throaty gurgle.
"What is it?" cried Emma Dean. "I feel queer, and my pony is
trembling. Oh, Grace, I'm afraid of something."
Grace knew what it was that was disturbing Emma, for she felt
something of the same sensation that Emma was experiencing, but
she made no reply.
"It is the desert!" answered the guide solemnly. "It is the
mystery of the desert, a mystery that no man can solve. Perhaps it
is the mystery of centuries; perhaps it is the spirits of the
thousands who have perished here on this sweet, cruel sea of
burning sand, that have come back to warn us living ones of the
fate that may be in store for us who dare."
"The mystery of the desert," murmured Grace Harlowe, but Hi Lang
spoke no more. His lips seemed sealed, though could they have seen
his face they would have observed a new and more tender expression
there, and seen him inhale in deep breaths, heavy draughts of the
faintly scented air of the desert that he both loved and hated.