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GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS
by
JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
Illustrated
The Saalfield Publishing Company
Akron, Ohio New York
Made in U. S. A.
Copyright MCMXXI
by The Saalfield Publishing Company
[Illustration: "It's Grace!"
_Frontispiece._]
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I--EXCITEMENT IN THE FOOTHILLS 11
Washington Washington's music is rudely interrupted.
The revenge of an outraged mule. "Why dat fool mule
kick me?" Hippy airs his knowledge of woodcraft.
"Laundry" puts the Overland camp in an uproar.
CHAPTER II--THE MYSTERY MAN 25
"Dis am de sebbenth yeah." The Spectacle Man
introduces himself. The voice from the wilderness.
The visitor gives the Overland Riders a word of
advice. Mystified by an appearance and a
disappearance.
CHAPTER III--HIPPY BOUNCES THE "SHEREEF" 32
Overlanders ordered to leave the mountains at once.
Hippy Wingate's smile grows into a frown. A bullet
that missed its mark. Grace Harlowe steps on Washington's
neck and starts an uproar. A mysterious
shot wings the mountaineer.
CHAPTER IV--FOOTPRINTS IN THE MOSS 42
The Mystery Man slips away unobserved. The Overlanders
led to wonder. Tom Gray utters a warning.
Washington gets another scare. The prowler leaves a
trail. Revolver shots stir the Overland Riders to
action. "That's Grace's weapon!" cries Lieutenant
Wingate.
CHAPTER V--THE WAY IS BARRED 52
"Halt! Who comes?" Grace Harlowe slightly
wounded. Hippy, in search of her, loses himself.
Grace tells of her duel in the bush. The Overlanders
are sternly halted and ordered to go back. A shot and
a command. Hippy's hat is shot off.
CHAPTER VI--HIPPY MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARS 61
Overlanders throw up their hands. Nora tweaks a
mountaineer's nose, and boxes his ears. Tables turned
on a mountain ruffian. A night prowler frightened
away by a shot. "Hurry, Grace! Hippy has gone!"
cries Elfreda Briggs in a thrilling voice.
CHAPTER VII--A VOICE FROM THE SHADOWS 74
The search for Hippy Wingate is begun. Significant
trail-signs are discovered. Grace Harlowe makes a find.
"Hippy's hat!" gasps Miss Briggs. A mysterious
message is tossed into the Overland camp at night.
The girls are encouraged by a comforting word.
CHAPTER VIII--A FRIEND IN NEED 87
Hippy, awakening, finds himself a captive. A grilling
ride on horseback. Captors question and threaten their
prisoner. Sight of food makes Hippy sad. "Don't make a
sound, Lieutenant," warns a friendly voice. "There's a
price on your head!"
CHAPTER IX--THE POWER OF MIND 99
"I didn't con-centrate for nothing," declares Emma
Dean. Grace finds and loses the trail. Elfreda fires
at a noise. "Cut the gun!" howls Hippy Wingate. "The
mountaineers are after us!" Lieutenant Wingate's
rescuer advises the party to move at once.
CHAPTER X--"THEY'VE GOT THE BOY!" 107
"Two skips an' er jump" to their destination.
Washington's howls arouse the Overland camp. The
colored boy suddenly disappears. The night vigil of
the Overland Riders is broken by a shock.
CHAPTER XI--"A MARKED MAN" 114
"Hold your fire!" orders Lieutenant Wingate. Washington
Washington flounders into camp. "All this scare for a
black nightmare," groans Emma. The "rural free delivery
man" makes an early call. Another mystery for the Overland
Riders to solve.
CHAPTER XII--A MOUNTAIN MYSTERY 121
A message and a postscript. Miss Briggs says she will
show her companions. Camp is made on the Thompson farm.
Julie calls to look the Overlanders over. Invited to a
mountain dance. Hippy makes a trouble-forecast.
CHAPTER XIII--THREE MEN IN THE CORNFIELD 132
Washington says he "sawed" a man. Jeremiah makes a
call on the Overland camp. How the Spectacle Man
"fits" glasses. The "benefactor of all mankind"
suddenly changes his mind. "Two dollars, please."
CHAPTER XIV--ELFREDA DISTINGUISHES HERSELF 140
The Mystery Man makes a pun. Jeremiah "rolls" out of
camp. Elfreda discovers a bear. "He is eating up our
food." With the bear's assistance Miss Briggs succeeds
in lassoing him. The Overland camp turned into turmoil.
CHAPTER XV--WHEN EMMA SAID TOO MUCH 148
Young Bruin upsets the entire Overland party. "Quick!
Get her loose!" Hippy kills and dresses the bear.
Footprints in the cornfield. A stranger comes to call
and fills up on bear meat. "I'm the game constable!
Where's the bear?" he demands sternly.
CHAPTER XVI--A JOKE ON THE OVERLANDERS 162
"No one ain't allowed to have bear meat till December."
Overland Riders are told that they are under arrest.
Hippy knocks out the "constable" and brings him to with
a pail of water. "I'll give you ten seconds to get out
of camp!"
CHAPTER XVII--THE DANCE AT COON HOLLOW 168
Hippy declares he is not getting sufficient nourishment.
Gay mountain folk gather at the schoolhouse. Washington's
music not appreciated. Emma Dean lays the foundation for
a "riot." Hippy makes a disheartening discovery.
CHAPTER XVIII--AN INTERRUPTED PARTY 180
Julie introduces her "feller" to the Overlanders. Lum
Bangs threatens Lieutenant Wingate. Weapons drawn in
the schoolroom. A mysterious shot cripples the
"constable." Knocked out by a blow. Washington has a
bad fright.
CHAPTER XIX--A CALL FOR HELP 189
Emma "con-centrates" on Hippy and "saves his life."
The Overland camp found destroyed. "Dey done got de
mule!" wailed the colored boy. Julie's warning is
recalled. Grace and Elfreda summoned to the Thompson
home to care for sick children.
CHAPTER XX--HIPPY AS A ROUGHRIDER 199
Lieutenant Wingate goes for a doctor. The Overland
girls sleep in a barn. Julie refuses to tell tales. The
doctor arrives alone. "We were attacked from ambush!"
Jed Thompson orders the Overland nurses from his cabin.
CHAPTER XXI--AN APOLOGY AND A THREAT 209
"The lieutenant is down there yet and may be dead!"
The doctor reads Jed Thompson a severe lecture.
Thompson goes to Hippy's rescue. Hippy accused of
being Jim Townsend. "If he looks like me, he's a
lucky man."
CHAPTER XXII--JULIE BRINGS DISTURBING NEWS 216
Lieutenant Wingate informs Jed that the Spurgeons are
coming to "shoot him up." On the trail again. Julie
overtakes the Overland Riders, bearing a warning. "Bat
Spurgeon an' his gang is waitin' fer you-uns on the
White River Ridge," she tells them.
CHAPTER XXIII--THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 228
Grace learns that Tom Gray is in the feudist country.
Tom's tent found, but he is missing. Nora's missile
hits the wrong man. The Overland Riders seek refuge
in a cave. Fresh disasters befall them. Fighting out
a mountain feud.
CHAPTER XXIV--TRAIL'S END 245
The Mystery Man found a captive in a cave. He "fits"
Grace Harlowe with "magic glasses." Through her new
specs she sees Tom Gray. Jeremiah Long says his
farewell. What Tom found on Hippy's claim.
GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND
RIDERS AMONG THE
KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS
CHAPTER I
EXCITEMENT IN THE FOOTHILLS
The foothills of the Kentucky Mountains echoed to the strains of a
rollicking college song, as Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders rode into a
laurel-bordered clearing and dismounted to make their first camp of
this, their third summer's outing in the saddle.
Only one of the party remained on his mount. This one was Washington
Washington, the colored boy that they had taken on at Henderson to be
their man of all work, guide and assistant cook, for Washington had
declared that, "Ah knows more 'bout de mountings dan any oder niggah in
Kaintuck." On his own recommendation, Grace and her party had accepted
him.
Washington, however, already had shown a love of leisure that was not
wholly in keeping with his further recommendation for activity, and,
instead of assisting the girls of the Overland unit to unload their
ponies, the boy sat perched on the pack mule that he had been riding,
playing a harmonica, swaying in his saddle in rhythm with the music, and
rolling the whites of his eyes in ecstasy.
"Just look at him, girls," urged Grace Harlowe Gray laughingly. "If that
isn't a picture!"
"I call it a nightmare," objected Emma Dean. "Oh, if I only had a nice
ripe tomato, and could throw straight enough."
"Impossible!" declared Elfreda Briggs, whereupon Anne Nesbit and Nora
Wingate broke forth into merry peals of laughter.
"Laundry!" roared Hippy Wingate. "We didn't hire you for a moving
picture. Shake your lazy bones and get busy. If you don't hustle you'll
get something harder than a tomato."
"Laundry?" wondered Tom Gray. "Why Laundry, Hippy?"
"That's his name, isn't it? Doesn't he call himself Washington
Washington on Sundays and holidays, and Wash-Wash, for short, on
weekdays? I have his word for it. Wash is laundry and laundry is wash in
the neck of the woods where I was reared," explained Hippy, at the same
time narrowly observing the colored boy, who, following Lieutenant
Wingate's threat, had permitted himself to slide to the ground, and
there he sat, still mouthing his harmonica, lost to everything but the
music he was creating.
"Your logic is unassailable," nodded Miss Briggs. "I was wondering why,
while we are about it, we don't hire a brass band. We at least would not
be obliged to listen to the same tune all the time. Does any one know of
a way to put a mute on a harmonica?"
"Ah reckon Ah do," mimicked Emma Dean, taking careful aim and shying a
pebble at Wash.
The pebble went rather wide of the mark--that is, the mark for which it
was intended, but it reached another and a fully as satisfactory one.
The pebble hit Washington's pack mule on the tender part of its hind
leg, galvanizing that member into instant and vigorous action.
The eyes of the Overlanders were not quick enough to see the movement
that followed. What they did see, however, was Washington Washington
lifted from the ground and pitched head first into a clump of laurel,
where the light foot of an outraged mule had landed him.
"He's killed!" cried Anne, voicing the thought that was in the mind of
each of her companions, and a concerted rush was made for the clump of
laurel.
They found the colored boy somewhat dazed when they dragged him from the
bushes.
"Wha--whar dat 'monica?" he gasped, referring to the harmonica that he
was playing when the mule kicked him.
"Maybe he swallowed it," suggested Emma. "I hope not, for he surely
would have musical indigestion. Wouldn't that be terrible--for us?"
"No great loss if it has landed over in the Cumberlands," observed Tom
Gray. "Wash, where did the mule hit you?"
"Ah reckons all ovah, 'cept on de bean. Why dat fool mule kick me?
Hain't nevah done nothin' laik that befo'. Ah ask yuh why he do dat?"
insisted Washington.
They glanced at Emma, whose face reddened.
"I threw a stone at you and hit the mule, if you must know," she said.
"The mule passed it on, hitting you with his foot. That mule must have
played tag when he was a child. I'm sorry, Wash--but if you had been
attending to your business you would not have been hit."
Washington's first thought upon recovering from his daze had been for
the harmonica, and his first act, after getting to his feet, was to go
in search of it. He found it after considerable effort, and ran the
scales on it.
"Glory be!" cried the boy. "Dat fool mule ain't done kicked de music out
ob it."
"Listen to me, Washington," demanded Grace, stepping over and laying a
firm hand on the lad's shoulder. "You will put that instrument away--"
"'Tain't no inst'ment. Hit's a 'monica," he interrupted.
"I am speaking. Put it away, and do not let me see you touch it again
until you have finished your work. Do you understand?"
"Uh-huh."
"See that you do not forget. Unpack both mule packs, but look out for
the mules' heels, and remember that we did not hire you for an ornament.
Emma Dean, let this be a warning to you," admonished Grace, turning to
her companion. "Never trifle with a mule. They are all notoriously
devoid of a sense of humor."
Washington, in the meantime, had shuffled away and had leisurely begun
removing the packs.
"Speaking of ornaments, I suppose I am the only real ornament in this
outfit," observed Hippy.
"You mean the kind that they pack away in the garret with broken chairs
and old chromos," suggested Emma.
Hippy shrugged his shoulders and walked away, followed by the laughter
of his companions. Emma had scored again, as she frequently did, and
Hippy, instead of being ruffled, took keen delight, as usual, in her
repartee.
"I fear that boy is not going to do at all," said Grace's husband with a
shake of the head. "As I have remarked before, you should have a man for
a guide, a man who knows these mountains and who is able to protect and
look out for you girls in the event of your getting into trouble."
"But, Tom dear, don't you think the Overland girls by this time should
be quite able to look out for themselves?" begged Grace.
"Ordinarily, yes. You are, however, going into territory that is rather
wild, going among people that do not value human life or liberty
according to our standards. My friend, Colonel Spotsworth, of
Louisville, strongly advised against you folks crossing the eastern end
of the range, which would take you through mountains where moonshiners
and feudists hold forth. I agree with him."
"We have Hippy," suggested Elfreda. "In an emergency he is worth half a
dozen of the ordinary kind."
"Yes, but Hippy is not a woodsman. He knows nothing at all about
woodcraft, a necessary accomplishment in one who is going to pilot a
party of girls across such mountain territory as you propose to travel."
"What's that you say, Tom Gray?" called Lieutenant Wingate from the
campfire where he was observing Washington fan it into life.
Grace laughingly repeated what Tom had said.
"Humph! I know all I need to know about woodcraft," declared Hippy with
emphasis. "When I smell wood burning in the kitchen stove I know it is
time to eat. What more knowledge of woodcraft does a fellow need?"
"Amply sufficient for you, Hippy. But what about the rest of the party?"
grinned Tom Gray.
"As I was about to say," resumed Grace, "we shall be up with you in a
few weeks. How long do you reckon it will take you to finish your
government contract to survey that tract in the Cumberlands?"
"Possibly four weeks. Not longer."
"Call it three weeks--three weeks from to-day. That will make it the
twenty-fifth. We will try to be in the vicinity of Hall's Corners on
that date, and if you are not there we will wait for you. You will do
the same provided we are late in reaching the Corners. Let's have a look
at the contour map," suggested Grace.
While the others of the party were busy setting the camp to rights,
Washington having removed the packs from the mules, Grace and Tom pored
over the map of the eastern section of the mountains. Not only were they
planning their routes, but they were critically examining a portion of
the map that was encircled with a ring of red ink. The space within the
circle represented a tract of mountain land that belonged to Lieutenant
Hippy Wingate, property that he had inherited.
Hippy had never seen this property, it having been left to him by a
wealthy uncle whose large fortune Hippy had inherited while fighting the
Germans in the air in France. He now proposed to look it over. In fact,
this journey of the Overland Riders had been planned with that object in
view.
Following their return from France, where they had served in the Overton
College Unit, Grace having been an ambulance driver at the front, the
girls had decided to seek recreation in the saddle each summer. Their
first vacation was spent in an exciting ride over the Old Apache Trail
in Arizona, following this with a venturesome journey on horseback
across the arid waste of the Great American Desert. Lieutenant Wingate's
determination to visit his property in the Kentucky Mountains led the
Overland Riders, as Grace Harlowe and her friends called themselves, to
make those mountains the objective of their third vacation in the
saddle.
After Tom Gray had finished his government survey, it was their purpose
to proceed with him to Lieutenant Wingate's tract, where Tom was to make
a survey and examination of it, so that Hippy might learn whether or not
the property possessed any particular value.
"Hippy says his uncle took the property in payment of a debt, but that
the uncle never had considered it to be worth much of anything," said
Tom reflectively. "From what little I know of that section of the
country, I am inclined to agree with him. However, we shall see when we
get there."
"Who knows but that Hippy may find still another fortune awaiting him
there?" suggested Grace.
Tom shook his head and smiled.
"It would be Hippy's luck, wouldn't it? He doesn't need it; he already
has more money than he knows what to do with. Nor have I the slightest
hope that he will find anything of value there. The twenty-fifth, then,
it is. I shall make Chapman's my base and work from there. If necessary
to communicate with me in the meantime you may address me there. I--"
"What's this? Henpecking your husband again, Grace Harlowe?" teased
Hippy, coming up to them at this juncture.
"Yes, Hip. I am a shining example of a much henpecked husband. What
would you do were you a henpecked husband?" questioned Tom quizzically.
"Come, now!"
"Well," reflected Hippy, "I think that would depend largely upon the
hen."
"You are right," agreed Tom Gray laughingly. "I shall be leaving in the
morning, old man, and I have agreed with Grace to meet the Overland
outfit at Hall's Corners three weeks from to-day, or as near to that
date as possible. We will then make a pilgrimage to the lands of one
Lieutenant Wingate and see what we shall find there. Probably nothing
more than some wild game, a few rattlers and--and some mountaineers,"
added Tom significantly.
"I have been thinking, Tom and Grace, that, should we discover anything
of real value there, the Overland Riders should share in it. This is a
sort of exploration party, and to the discoverers should belong the
spoils," declared Hippy.
Tom shook his head.
"No, no," protested Grace. "It is fine of you to make the offer, but I
could not permit it for myself, and I am positive that the other girls
will not even listen to it."
"You see, Tom, how they spurn me. The instant I get a brilliant thought
they promptly duck it in ice water," complained Hippy.
"We will do this much, we will be your guests when we reach your
domains, and, if you insist on being liberal, you may cook our meals for
us three times a day. However, so far as sharing in your good fortune is
concerned, we can do so only in our hearts," decided Grace with
emphasis.
Grace immediately acquainted her companions with Hippy's unselfish offer
to share with them whatever good fortune might be in store for him in
the Kentucky Mountains.
"That is splendid of Hippy," declared Anne, smiling and nodding.
"I tell him, however, that when we are his guests in the Hippy
Mountains, he can give us three good meals a day, cooked by his own fair
hands, but that is all," announced Grace. "Do I echo your sentiments,
girls?"
They said she did. That is, all except Emma Dean agreed with Grace
Harlowe. Emma warned them that Hippy had better not offer her a share in
anything unless he were prepared in his heart to lose it.
"Very good then, I won't. I withdraw the offer," declared Hippy airily.
"I will agree to cook a meal for you over on the range. Mark the words,
'cook a meal for you on the range!' Ha-ha. How is that? I reckon I can
stand it to cook a meal for you if you can stand it to eat it. Speaking
of food reminds me that I smell bacon frying, so suppose we fall to and
devour it, provided it is fit to eat. Personally I am not overloaded
with confidence in Laundry's ability as a chef."
Night had settled over the mountains when they finally sat down on the
ground by the campfire to eat their supper, the first warm meal they had
had since starting out on their journey at daylight that morning.
Washington had done very well with his first meal, considering that he
so recently had been kicked out of camp by an irate mule, and the
Overland girls admitted that the little colored boy did know how to cook
after all, for the bacon, the coffee, and the potatoes, baked in their
jackets in hot ashes, were delicious.
The girls, however, had already found it necessary to read Wash a
lecture on the beauties of neatness and cleanliness, it having been
discovered that, in this direction, Wash-Wash was not all that his
nickname implied.
Wash, having been given permission, retired to the edge of the laurel to
resume his harmonica exercise. Lying back in the shadows, only the
whites of his eyes and the reflection of the light from the campfire on
teeth and harmonica were visible to the Overlanders, giving merely a
suggestion of a human countenance.
"A nature sketch in black and white," observed Anne Nesbit. "I should
think he would weary of blowing that thing so much. He has been doing so
all day long."
"Blowing? You are wrong," corrected Hippy. "A harmonica is played with a
grunt and a sigh. I could make a brand new pun on that if I wanted to,
but--"
"Don't you dare," begged Miss Briggs. "I am long-suffering, but I cannot
tolerate the ancient quality of your puns."
"Most spinsters are that way," retorted Lieutenant Wingate. "Tom, have
you any orders for me? I suppose I shall have to act as guardian for
your wife while you are absent from this outfit. If you have half as
difficult a time managing her as I do, I don't envy you your lot. The
only bright spot in the situation is that I have to put up with her
peculiarities for the duration of this journey only. You are in for
life."
"Hippy, I am ashamed of you," rebuked Nora Wingate.
"Thank you. You see, Tom, what a helpmate my little Nora is. I don't
have to feel ashamed of any act of mine; I don't have to feel
embarrassed after I have put my foot in it, nor anything. Nora does all
of that for me. Really, Tom, you ought to train Grace to be ashamed for
you for your shortcomings, or to be embarrassed for you. You have no
idea what a lot of bother over nothing it relieves a fellow of."
"Nora Wingate is a very busy woman," observed Emma, whereat there was a
laugh at Hippy's expense.
"Tom Gray's wife doesn't have to apologize for him," laughed Grace.
"Folks, don't you think this conversation is growing rather personal? I
would suggest that we all put on the brakes and start something less
personal."
The brakes were instantly put on in one direction, but wholly released
in another. The music from Washington's harmonica ceased suddenly in the
midst of a lofty flight, ending in a gurgle and a gasp. The Overlanders
heard it and laughed.
"He's swallowed the music box!" cried Emma.
Wash, finding his voice, uttered a shrill scream of fright that brought
the Overland Riders to their feet in alarm. They were amazed to see the
colored boy charging across the camp, his feet barely touching the
ground, his eyes wide and staring. In his flight he bowled over Grace
Harlowe who measured her length on the ground on her back.
"Stop!" shouted Tom Gray, making a grab for the boy, and missing him by
an inch or so.
Emma Dean stuck out a foot and succeeded better than she had hoped, for
Washington tripped and plunged floundering into the campfire.
Uttering a piercing yell, he bounded up like a rubber ball and made a
mad dash for the bushes with Hippy Wingate in full pursuit.