THE BATTLE WITH THE BANDITS
The highwayman uttered a yell, and leaped clear of the ground, dropping
his rifle, which clattered to the trail within easy reach of the
Overton girl’s hand.
_Bang!_ _Bang!_
Two rifle bullets ripped through the roof of the old stagecoach.
“The cowards!” fumed Grace under her breath.
Snatching up the rifle that the highwayman had dropped, she crawled out
from under the coach, and ran around behind it just as two more bandit
shots rang out.
Grace threw the rifle to her shoulder and fired at a shadowy figure
that she could barely see, and, in the next second, Lieutenant
Wingate’s heavy army revolver cracked spitefully from the front seat
of the coach. With Grace Harlowe’s first shot Hippy had unlimbered, and
his revolver was now banging away to good purpose, as Grace realized
when she heard another yell of pain.
“Look out, Grace, I’m coming!” warned Hippy as he leaped from the top
of the coach to the trail.
“Disarm this fellow, please! He is wounded only in the leg, and he’s
dangerous. I will take care of the others while you are doing that,”
said Grace, starting to creep forward with rifle ready to fire.
_Bang!_
A revolver flashed from behind a jutting shelf of rock.
_Bang!_
The rifle in Grace Harlowe’s hands answered the revolver shot. She
heard her bullet smack against the shale rock and pieces of stone
patter on the trail.
“Ouch!” grunted the bandit who had fired at her.
Grace was certain that she had not hit the man, but she believed that a
splinter of rock had accomplished what her bullet had missed doing.
While all of this was going on, Hippy was removing the weapons
from the bandit through whose leg Grace had fired a bullet from her
automatic revolver.
The Overton girl was still cautiously creeping forward.
“If any of you highwaymen fires another shot it will be your last,” she
warned.
“Look out, Mrs. Gray! I reckon there’s another of them critters behind
thet pint of rock,” drawled the calm voice of Ike Fairweather, who
sat holding his horses, observing the fight with fascinated eyes.
Ike, eager as he was to get into the fight, dared not leave his team,
knowing that, if he did so, they would promptly run away with the coach
and outfit.
“I have my eye on him, Mr. Fairweather,” replied Grace in a voice that
was without a trace of excitement. “You heard what I said, fellow!”
she added, addressing the bandit lurking behind the rock. “Toss your
weapons into the road! Toss them out!”
_Bang!_
Again Grace Harlowe had fired at the same rock, and again she heard a
scattering rain of shale that her bullet dislodged.
The highwayman hiding there threw his rifle away. She heard it fall on
the trail, but was certain that the man still possessed at least one
revolver, and perhaps two.
[Illustration: “Disarm This Fellow.”]
“The rest of them! You have two more weapons. Out with them, quick!”
Two revolvers followed the rifle and fell on the trail, just as she was
about to emphasize her command with another shot, as a reminder that
she meant what she said.
With rifle at ready, Grace now sprang boldly to the ledge of rock where
she saw a man standing leaning against a tree, a hand pressed to his
forehead. A few yards further on were two others, one lying beside the
trail, the other sitting with his back against a rock.
“How many of you are there?” demanded Grace of the standing man.
“Three others,” weakly answered the bandit.
“Are the two here badly hurt?”
“I--I don’t know.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Splinter of rock hit me on the head,” groaned the fellow.
“You stand where you are if you know what is good for you,” directed
Grace. “Get up!” she ordered, stepping over to the sitting bandit.
“I can’t. Got smacked in the laig an’ haid. I reckon I’ll git you yet
fer this bizness.”
“Don’t threaten. Hippy!”
“Righto!”
“When you can leave your patient, please come here.”
Lieutenant Wingate approached at a brisk trot. By now the rest of
the Overton girls, having found their courage, had crept from the
stagecoach and were hiding behind it, peering out through troubled
eyes. Elfreda finally stepped out and walked slowly toward the scene of
activity, but halted a little distance from it, not wishing to detract
Grace’s attention from her work.
“Please search the fellow sitting here and remove his weapons, Hippy.
Also, please see if I have killed the one on the ground there. I can’t
quite bring myself to touch either of them,” said Grace.
The man referred to was not dead, but he was unconscious.
“He will be out of his trance soon, I think,” announced Hippy after a
brief diagnosis. “He has a dandy scalp wound. Good work, Brown Eyes.
Any more of his kind looking for trouble?”
“I think not. Have you searched each one, Hippy?”
“Yes.” Lieutenant Wingate was still working over the unconscious
bandit. “He is coming around now.”
“Elfreda!”
“Yes, Grace.”
“Where are the girls?”
“Hiding behind the coach until the smoke of battle has cleared.”
“Please tell them to watch the fellow that I winged first, and to shout
if he tries to crawl away. You ask Mr. Fairweather if he has any rope.
When we get these fellows in condition to move we shall have to tie
them.”
Elfreda walked back to the coach, returning a few moments later with a
coil of clothesline.
“Is there anything more that I can do to assist you, Grace?” she asked.
“Yes. Tell Mr. Fairweather to turn the coach around, for we must return
to Globe as quickly as possible. The prisoners must have attention, and
then--”
“Jail,” suggested Elfreda.
Grace nodded.
“The driver says he will have to unhook the horses and turn the coach
around by hand,” Miss Briggs reported.
“Tell him to do so. What will he do with the horses while turning the
vehicle?”
“He says he must stake them down,” replied Elfreda, “because the team
will run away the instant his back is turned.”
Grace made no reply, but stepped over to Lieutenant Wingate.
“How is your man?” she questioned.
“He will be ready for jail by the time Ike is ready to start. That’s
all right, old pard,” he added, speaking to the man he was working
over. “Don’t struggle, for I can’t spare the time just now to clout
you over the head. You thought this wagonload of girls would be an
easy mark to rob, didn’t you? I reckon you have several other guesses
coming. Of course you couldn’t be expected to know that this crowd is
right out of the war zone in France, every mother’s daughter of them
just eager for trouble. The matter with you amateurs is that you don’t
know how to start a real mix-up.”
“Please don’t nag the man, Lieutenant,” admonished Grace.
“I’m not. I’m giving him brotherly advice for the good of his
physiognomy. How is the bird there by the coach?”
Grace said the girls were watching that bandit. She handed the
clothesline to Hippy.
“You must tie his feet. He promises to be troublesome,” she warned,
referring to the man that Hippy had restored to consciousness. “Be
humane about it, and do not hurt him unless you have to. Should that be
necessary make a quick, clean job of it.” This was said principally for
the benefit of the prisoner.
“Leave him to me,” growled Lieutenant Wingate.
“When the patient is able to be moved, please carry him to the coach.
Mr. Fairweather will help you, if you need him. While you are doing
that I will keep watch over the fellow with the damaged head.”
“I don’t need any assistance, thank you,” returned Hippy, who, after
tying the feet of his prisoner, grasped the bandit under the arms and
dragged him to the coach, where he dumped the man on the ground.
“Here’s two of the birds, Isaac,” chuckled the lieutenant. “Two more
over there are being guarded by Mrs. Gray. Think we girls are able to
take care of a cheap bunch of highwaymen, such as these fellows?” he
demanded.
Ike stroked his whiskers.
“Between you and thet there little woman over there, I shore reckon you
could clean up ’bout three times your weight in mountain lions. Never
did see anythin’ like the way she lit into ’em. Bah!” growled Ike,
giving the man whom Grace had shot in the leg a prod with the toe of
his boot.
“Lucky for you, you sneak, thet the woman banged you in the leg. She
could just as easy put thet lead through your head. She’s the little
lady thet can put ’em where she wants ’em to go, any old time,”
finished the driver.
“How soon will you be ready?” questioned Lieutenant Wingate. “We’ll be
on our way right smart, I reckon. Where do you figger on putting ’em?”
“Two on the floor on blankets, so it will not be so hard on them. The
other two bandits can sit up and I will do the watching. There will be
room for myself and three women inside. The other two passengers can
squeeze in on top of the coach with you. That all right, Ike?” “Shore.
Have it any way you like. Mebby they won’t be surprised back in Globe
when we come crackin’ in with these birds. I’ll bet a stockin’ full
of marbles thet the sheriff’ll be glad to get his hands on ’em. Mebby
these are the fellows that have been stealin’ things at both ends of
the trail.”
“There!” exclaimed Hippy, straightening up. “I think you two will now
stay tied until I get ready to untie you. Nora, will you watch them? If
one of them so much as speaks to you, you yell for me.”
Ike, having staked down his horses at the edge of the trail, now began
turning the coach around. Lieutenant Wingate, in the meantime, had
rejoined Grace.
“Are they behaving themselves?” he asked.
“Perfectly, Lieutenant. I can’t help feeling that it was
unsportsmanlike in me to shoot that fellow through the leg without even
giving him a chance to defend himself.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” roared Hippy. “I shall have to repeat that to Nora.
Listen to these words of wisdom from a man of wisdom. When you set
out to finish a poisonous snake, wallop him! Do not wait for him to
coil, nor strike from a letter S position. Get him! That is the method
I followed in fighting Boches in the air. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be
here, but some other fellows would be there still. Hulloa! What is
going on back yonder? Run, Grace! I believe the prisoners are trying to
get away.”
They could hear the girls uttering cries of alarm.
Grace wheeled like a flash, but she did not run. Instead, she uttered a
peal of laughter.
“Oh, that is too bad,” she cried, suddenly changing her tone.
“What is it? What is it?” demanded Hippy.
“Nothing worth worrying about. The old stagecoach got away from Mr.
Fairweather while he was turning it, and it went over the edge of the
trail into the canyon, that’s all. Listen! You will hear it strike the
bottom in a few seconds.”
“There she goes! Good-bye, old Deadwood,” added Grace as a distant
crash was borne faintly to their ears.
“Now we surely are in a fix,” groaned Lieutenant Wingate.