FOLLOWING A COLD TRAIL
“I tell you I heard Grace’s signal shots!” protested Elfreda Briggs,
in reply to Hippy’s declaration that he had heard no shots except the
three fired by Elfreda.
“Listening, as I was, I surely would have heard the signal had she
given it,” averred the lieutenant. “It’s too dark to see anything, but
of course, if you girls have anything to suggest, I am ready to act.”
“Hippy Wingate! You don’t mean that you’re going to sit down and leave
Grace and Emma in that terrible canyon all night?” protested Nora,
indignantly.
“No, not without an effort to find them. I didn’t mean that I should
sit by the campfire and wait for daylight. I’m going now.” Hippy slung
his rifle under his arm and strode off toward the creek. “Should
anything break loose, shoot,” he called back.
Reaching the creek, the lieutenant trudged along it to the canyon,
Elfreda having told him that Grace had gone in that direction. He
examined the bank of the creek with a pocket lamp that Anne had handed
to him, as Grace had done before him, but failed to find footprints.
When he arrived at the point from which other canyons radiated, the
lieutenant took the wrong one and wandered along its course for half
a mile. Finding nothing of what he sought, he returned to the creek
and searched along a second canyon, and so on until finally reaching
the dark ravine through which Grace really had gone in search of Emma.
Hippy, on the contrary, failed to find a trail.
It was long past midnight when finally he gave up his search and
started back to the camp. As he neared it, he discovered, by the light
of the campfire, that a string of ponies was being led down from the
Apache Trail.
“There comes Ike! Now we’ll see what can be done,” cried the lieutenant
in a relieved tone. Hippy started on a run for the camp. By the time he
reached there Ike had arrived and the Overton girls were gathered about
him, all speaking at once, trying to tell him of the disaster that had
befallen them.
“Them critters got Miss Dean and Mrs. Gray?” demanded Ike.
“We do not know. We know that they are missing,” replied Elfreda.
“Hippy, did you discover anything?”
“Not a thing.”
“Come here, Western. Folks, this is Western Jones thet came along with
me to help lead the string of ponies. Glad now thet I fetched him.
West, please stake down the ponies. Now you folks tell me every little
thing thet’s happened, so I can get a line on this business.”
The girls told the old stagecoach driver of the occurrences of the
night when he left for Globe, of the picnic, of Emma’s disappearance
and of Grace’s having gone in search of her.
“We’ve got to find ’em, thet’s all,” declared Ike, after a moment’s
thought. “Tell you what we’ll do. The lieutenant and I’ll take two
ponies and lead ’em until we pick up the trail, then we’ll ride as
far up the canyon as we can an’ walk the rest of the way. We’ll send
the ponies back if we have to. They’ll come right back so long as the
others are staked here.”
“What about guarding the camp?” questioned Lieutenant Wingate.
“Western Jones can do thet. West, how’d you like a little brush with
some of thet Con Bates gang?” demanded Ike, grinning.
“Sweeter’n wild honey,” grinned Western. “Is it them as has done this
trick?”
“I reckon mebby it is. We don’t know for shore. Mebby Apaches, for all
I know.”
“Leave ’em to me,” grinned Western Jones.
“Then you keep these gals right here in this camp, an’ don’t you let
a one of ’em get away till I come back. Got the makin’s of a light,
Lieutenant, or have I got to carry a torch to light the way?”
“I have a flash lamp.”
“Saddle up an’ we’ll be off right smart, an’ we’ll bring back the
missin’ girls. I don’t reckon as thet gang will have more’n a mouthful
of success with them two little ladies. They better look out thet
they don’t rile thet sweet, smilin’ Grace Harlowe too much or they’ll
discover, when it’s too late, thet they barked agin’ the wrong
cottonwood. Look for us when we get back.”
“Darling, be careful! Don’t get shot,” begged Nora, giving her husband
a good-bye kiss.
Hippy hurried along and joined Mr. Fairweather, and together they
saddled and bridled, and then strode down to the creek leading their
mounts. Ike took the flash lamp and, soon after reaching the stream, he
picked up the trail of the Overton party on their way to the picnic
grounds. He found Lieutenant Wingate’s footprints also.
Reaching the point where other trails radiated out from the main
canyon, Ike bade his companion hold the horses. Then began a
painstaking examination of the ground, along the little mountain
stream, a proceeding that excited Lieutenant Wingate’s admiration.
After a time Mr. Fairweather’s light disappeared and Hippy was left in
the somber canyon to pass the time as best he might.
Ike was gone an hour. He returned without showing a light. Hippy heard
him when he was almost upon him, and challenged.
“It’s Ike,” was the brief answer.
“What luck?” questioned Hippy.
“Struck the trail. Stands out like a boulevard in a big city. Found
somethin’ else, too.”
“What was it?”
“Found where some woman met one of ours an’ went with her up the
canyon. It wa’n’t a regular white girl’s footprint thet the woman made.
Reckon it was an Indian or some mountain woman, ’cause she had on
moccasins. There was three or four men a little further upstream an’
they had horses. I found this up there. Reco’nize it?” Ike held out
something white and turned the ray of the flash lamp on it.
“E. D.” muttered Hippy. “I should say this is Miss Dean’s
handkerchief. Well, what next?”
“All hands got on the horses and went on up the canyon. I come back
from that pint.”
“Ike, you are a wonder! How do you do it? I couldn’t read the story
of a trail the way you do, if I was to practice it all the rest of my
life.”
“An’ I reckon thet if I tried to sail one of them flyin’ machines my
name would be Dennis, right smart,” replied Ike. “Get aboard! We’re
goin’ right up thet trail and we’re goin’ to keep goin’ till either we
lose it for good, or find the gals, or get shot doin’ one or t’other.
We can’t pull off an’ wait till mornin’. Mornin’ may be too late.”
Hippy swung into his saddle, Ike being but a few seconds behind him in
mounting, Mr. Fairweather taking the lead at a slow jog trot.
“Right here’s where they took to the ponies,” announced Ike finally.
How he knew that in the darkness, Hippy was unable to imagine, but
then, Hippy Wingate had not followed mountain trails at any stage of
his career, and knew nothing of them.
Ike now began to flash his light against the mountain, first on one
side, then on the other.
“Whoa!” The command came out sharp and incisive. “Hold my nag,
Lieutenant.” The old driver dismounted, and, handing his bridle rein
to his companion, began climbing up along the mountainside, keeping the
ray of his light directly on the ground at his feet.
Ike returned in a few minutes.
“I reckon we’ve got to do some tall climbin’ ourselves. Party went
up the mountain here.” Ike mounted and started up a twisting, narrow
trail, his light now in almost continuous use, for the going was
extremely perilous.
“See them bits of white cloth alongside the trail?” Ike called back.
“I had not noticed them. I see them now,” answered Hippy.
“Them’s markers that Mrs. Gray prob’bly dropped to show us the way.
Thet’s a real gal, Lieutenant.”
Hippy marveled in silence.
Day was breaking when they reached the top, and, looking back, Hippy
found himself wondering how they ever made it, for the mountain they
had climbed looked to Lieutenant Wingate to be straight up and down.
Ike Fairweather again dismounted, was searching the ground, running
back and forth, covering wider and wider stretches of rock and earth,
continuously combing his whiskers with his fingers, and perspiring
freely. Ike finally returned to his companion, his chagrin reflected in
his face.
“What’s the matter, Ike?” asked Hippy in a cheerful voice, a tone that,
at the moment, did not reflect his real feelings.
“Matter? I’m plumb locoed, Lieutenant. I’ve lost the trail, an’ I don’t
know where to look for it. It’s a mighty big place up here, an’ mebby
we find the track an’ mebby we don’t. Leastwise, I’m sorry for the gals
who, I’ll bet, are lookin’ their eyes out for us.”
“You are excited, Ike. Sit down, consult your whiskers and perhaps you
may find an idea or something in them,” suggested Hippy gravely.
Ike promptly adopted his companion’s suggestion, and for the next
several minutes gave himself up to reflection, punctuated with an
occasional throaty growl.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it, Lieutenant!” cried Ike, springing up. “It’s
a cold trail.”
“A trail with snow or something on it?” questioned Hippy innocently. “I
haven’t seen snow in these mountains, but I presume there is plenty of
it.”
“No, no, Lieutenant. A cold trail’s a fixed trail--doctored so as to
mislead a trailer, or covered up altogether so he can’t find it. I
reckon Ike Fairweather ain’t goin’ to be fooled by no cheap mountain
trick like thet. Lieutenant, you work to the right, while I go to the
left. Take a wide circle along the top of the mountain an’ come up
with me by thet monument you can see the top of over to the north’ard.
Watch the ground like sixty, an’ watch out for broken twigs an’ crushed
clumps of grass. If you find any, sit still an’ wait for me.”
Hippy Wingate wheeled his pony and trotted off to the right, peering at
the ground, a puzzled expression in his eyes.
“I shouldn’t know a frozen trail, or whatever you call it, if I saw
one,” he muttered helplessly.