ELFREDA DISTINGUISHES HERSELF
"The smoke is too thick. I can't see through the glasses. I want my
money back," complained Emma.
"No extra charge for the additional soot. Who is next? Ah! Wash needs a
pair of specs to tone down the whites of his eyes," cried Jeremiah.
"Never mind him. He is smoky enough as it is," returned Hippy. "If you
are dead set on doing more business you might go out and put goggles on
the mules. Perhaps then they might not see so much to bray at."
This badinage was kept up for some little time, so that the prowlers in
the cornfield might not suspect that their presence were known to the
campers.
All of the party were wondering how the Mystery Man knew that they were
being watched, for none of the Overlanders had heard the slightest sound
in the direction of the cornfield, and their ears, after all their
campaigning, were always on the alert. Jeremiah was a man of many
mysteries.
Grace invited him to share their hospitality for the night, which he
acknowledged by rising and favoring them with another profound bow.
"I will sleep in the open, if I may be permitted to do so--as before,"
he murmured. In the same low tone, he added: "I don't just like the
location of your camp."
"Why not, sir?" asked Miss Briggs.
"Too many ears in the cornfield, and besides--"
Emma Dean uttered a dismal groan. Her companions burst out laughing,
Jeremiah regarding them with eyes that twinkled and laughed, though the
face remained almost expressionless.
"Is it not true?" he asked.
"Yes. Too true! Alas, too true," murmured Hippy in an awed tone.
Grace got up laughing and went to her tent for blankets for her guest.
"By the fire as before?" she asked upon her return.
Jeremiah shook his head.
"I will place them, Mrs. Gray. Thank you."
The girls then bade their guest good-night, each one shaking hands with
him, and, as Grace extended her hand, he placed in it a roll of money.
"The funds I held you folks up for," explained Mr. Long. "You can
return it to them to-morrow with an explanation. Do not let the
lieutenant take too many chances, is my suggestion. Good-night."
It had been decided that, so long as their guest were to sleep in the
open, it would not be necessary to keep guard outside. Grace said,
however, that she would stand watch in her tent part of the night, then
call Elfreda, and turn in.
Mr. Long made up his bed on the cornfield side of the camp and, after
listening to one of Hippy's war stories, rolled up in his blankets and
went to sleep. Grace, from her tent, could faintly make out the form of
the Mystery Man, and, sitting, chin in hand regarding him, she wondered,
as she had done many times before, who and what the man was. That he was
all he would have them believe she did not for a moment credit.
"What's that?" Grace leaned forward and peered. Mr. Long appeared to be
asleep under his blankets, but, a short distance from him, she saw
another figure cautiously rolling slowly towards the cornfield.
Looking more closely at the blankets, the Overland girl saw that they
were folded lengthwise to make them appear something like the form of a
human being, and that it was Jeremiah himself who was so cautiously
rolling away.
After waiting another hour for his return she decided that their guest
had left them for the night. Grace then awakened Elfreda and asked her
to take the watch for a couple of hours, saying she was very tired.
Elfreda got up sleepily and, for several minutes, sat with hands clasped
to her head.
"Anything stirring?" she asked, yawning.
"Nothing except the Mystery Man. He stirred himself out of camp. He
rolled out. I do not believe he will return to-night."
"Queer chap, that. All right, Loyalheart. I am awake now. Tumble in and
I will see if I can keep you out of trouble until daylight."
"See to it that, instead, you don't get us into a peck of it," chuckled
Grace, tucking herself in under the blankets. "Thank you for getting the
bed so nice and comfy for me."
"Don't tantalize me. I know how sweet that bed is, for I just got out of
it myself," replied Miss Briggs sourly. Grace did not hear, for she
already was sound asleep, and Elfreda, muttering to herself,
straightened up and exercised her arms and shoulders more thoroughly to
arouse her sleepy faculties.
"There! I think I can manage to keep awake now. I hear Hippy snoring.
Gracious! If I had a snore like that I think I should file it. Oh!"
Elfreda had seen a movement on the cornfield side of the camp. To her,
it looked like a man crawling into camp.
Miss Briggs reached for her rifle and waited. Now and then little
ribbons of flame flickered over the bed of coal of the campfire,
lighting up the camp momentarily. Elfreda was unafraid for the weapon in
her hands gave her confidence, and the cool touch of the barrel against
her hand steadied it.
The intruder was now coming directly towards her.
The moving object was directly in line with Washington Washington's
tent, and for that reason Miss Briggs would not have dared to fire, even
did she find it necessary to do so.
Her first impulse was to awaken Grace, but upon second thought she
decided to wait. Perhaps it was the Mystery Man returning, though
Elfreda did not believe he would take the chance of getting shot.
"Mercy! It's an animal," gasped the watcher. "A bear!" she added in an
awed whisper, as a faint mountain breeze fanned the campfire into a
flame.
The bear by this time had sniffed its way across the camp, bearing to
the left as it neared her tent, but halting when it reached the pack
that contained their provisions. Here the animal was quite clearly
outlined in the light cast by the fire.
It was a small bear, but it looked very large to Elfreda Briggs, who had
never experienced meeting a bear at such close range. He began clawing
at the pack of provisions and tearing with his teeth at the tough canvas
covering, and had it open before Elfreda realized what he was up to.
"He is eating up our food!" she exclaimed under her breath. Miss Briggs
raised her rifle to fire. She lowered it ever so little as a new thought
occurred to her.
"I'll do it!" she declared, laying the rifle on the ground beside her.
"I probably shall make an awful mess of the attempt, but I am going to
try to rope that beast. I don't believe he will attack me if I miss. If
he does I shall have every incentive to break all running records in my
sprint for the rifle."
Elfreda reached for Grace Harlowe's Mexican lasso, arranged it for
casting, then, after listening briefly to Grace's breathing, stepped
cautiously from the tent.
The bear was tearing at the food and its covering, and grunting with
satisfaction, and the supplies of the Overland Riders were disappearing
at a rate that promised a famine, if Bruin's operations were not
immediately checked. So busy was he that her cautious footsteps were
unheard, and so deep was his snout plunged into the treasure he had
found that he failed to catch the scent of his enemy.
As she neared him Miss Briggs felt a sudden weakness in the knees that
threatened flight on her part, but, by summoning all her will, she
managed to call back her grit.
"Ill do it if it kills me!" muttered the Overland Rider. "If I win, I
shall have the laugh on Grace Harlowe. If I lose--well we won't think
about that. Here goes. Steady, and 'con-centrate,' Elfreda Briggs!"
Miss Briggs swung the rope above her head three times to open the loop,
and, gauging her distance as well as she knew how, she let go. One side
of the loop hit Bruin on the ear.
Uttering a snarl at the interruption, the animal made a leap and
accomplished what the roper had failed to accomplish. He leaped right
into the loop with his head and one leg. His spring drew the lasso
tightly about him. He was fast, but he did not propose to be so for many
seconds. Throwing himself on his back, the bear began clawing and biting
at the hateful thing that was drawing tighter and tighter about him.
Elfreda, triumphant, now highly excited, determined to hold fast to that
which she had, twisted the free end of the rope about her arm and
grasped the tautened strand with both hands, at the same time bracing
her feet and pulling with all her might.
Bruin bounded to his feet, and for one terrible instant J. Elfreda
thought he was going to rush her. Instead, the bear whirled and, humping
himself almost into a furry ball, galloped away. His captor, with the
rope twisted about her arm, could not have freed herself in time, even
had she thought of so doing.
"Help! Oh, help!" she wailed, as her feet were jerked from under her and
she was hurled violently to the ground. "Help--p!"
The camp of the Overland Riders was in an uproar in an instant. J.
Elfreda, champion of peace, though not a pacifist, had started
something, the end of which was not yet in sight.