A NIGHT OF THRILLS
After a careful scrutiny of the arrow, Grace glanced up at the general,
who was regarding her inquiringly.
“What do you find?” he asked.
“That the arrow has been weakened in the middle by a cut with a knife.
It appears to have been the intention of the person who shot it, that
it should break on striking the ground. You can see that the cut is a
fresh one, probably made only a little while ago.”
“Yes, so I observe. What does that signify?”
“I am not well posted on Indian lore, but I do know that, with the
Chinese, a broken stick or twig cast before one is a warning. Mr.
Fairweather, will you please come here?”
Ike stepped over and stood frowningly regarding the shaft that Grace
was holding up for his inspection.
“This is an Indian arrow, is it not, Mr. Fairweather?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What does it mean when an Indian shoots an arrow with such a break as
this in it?”
“Trouble!” answered the stagecoach driver without hesitation. “It’s a
warning, Mrs. Gray.”
“Then it must have come from an Indian who feels kindly toward us.
What I do not understand is, why, if he wished to give us warning of
something, he did not come to us with it.”
“Indians is queer critters,” observed Ike wisely. “There’s no
accountin’ for Indians, and ’specially Apaches.”
“I think I agree with you,” answered Grace, rewarding the old man with
a smile. “Please see to it that the ponies are well staked. Nothing
more, Mr. Fairweather.”
After the driver had walked away, Grace leaned back and laughed.
“I have a feeling, General, that before this night ends you will be
wishing that you had remained at the Lodge,” chuckled Grace.
“Oh, no, nothing like that, Mrs. Gray. I should enjoy a little
excitement. It has been a long time since the armistice was signed, and
with it the real joy of trying to live, passed.”
“Yes, I agree with you.” Excusing herself, as Hippy came up and sat
down to chat with the general while the girls were entertaining Mrs.
Gordon and Miss Cartwright, Grace walked over to Ike who was restaking
the horses.
“We hope to do some mountain climbing to-morrow, and if we do so I
shall require several hundred feet of light, strong rope. Please see if
you can get it for me. What do you think?” asked Grace, nodding toward
the sky.
“Mountain squall, I reckon.”
“More than a squall, I should say. However, you know more about the
mountain weather than I do. And, confidentially, Mr. Fairweather, that
broken arrow leads me to believe that it would be good judgment for you
to take a rifle to bed with you to-night,” suggested Grace.
Ike grinned and nodded.
Returning to her guests, Grace suggested to them that it might be well
to turn in, as a busy day was before them for the morrow.
“General, you and the lieutenant will occupy the small tent to the
right; the ladies will take the middle one, and we girls will occupy
the large outside tent. I hope you will sleep well. Lieutenant, please
show the general to his sleeping place.”
Half an hour later the Overland girls were chattering in low tones in
their own tent. Hippy and the general were already snoring in theirs,
while the two women guests were having some difficulty in getting to
sleep in their strange surroundings.
Grace had thrown herself down on her cot where she lay pondering on
the mystery of the broken arrow. After half an hour of this she got
up to have a look at the weather before turning in for the night,
observing that the campfire, fanned by a breeze from the mountains, was
flickering and snapping as if in protest at being disturbed.
Shading her eyes with a hand and gazing up to the mountains, Grace saw
dark clouds swirling about the Four Peaks in the distance, and heard
a deep-throated, far away roar of thunder. A dull red flash on the
opposite side of the range of mountains reminded her of flashes from
the big guns on the battle front.
“I think we are going to catch it,” observed the Overland girl. “Can it
be that the arrow was a storm warning?” Grace dismissed the thought as
improbable, and, returning to her tent, laid aside her clothes and got
into bed. She was awakened some two hours later by tremendous gusts of
wind, accompanied by flapping canvas and a heavy downpour of rain.
Lightning flashes were outlining the black clouds, and crashes of
thunder reverberated from peak to peak, seeming finally to lose
themselves in the black depths of the canyons.
Grace got up and dressed, and, putting on her slicker, stepped out. The
raindrops beat on her face, stinging like tiny hailstones.
The ponies were whinneying and rearing, so Grace stepped over and
tried to quiet them, and there Ike Fairweather found her as she stood
revealed when a flash of lightning deluged the camp with a blinding
light.
“That you, Mrs. Gray?” he called, uncertain just which one of the
outfit it was that he saw.
“Yes.” Grace had to shout to make herself heard above the roar of the
gale. “Where is the lieutenant?”
“Sleepin’. Think the tents will hold?” questioned Ike anxiously.
“I hope so. Please look after the horses. I will rout out the
lieutenant and see what we can do to keep the tents down, especially
the one occupied by General Gordon’s wife and companion.”
Grace ran back and called Hippy. The general heard the call and
answered first.
“Heavy storm, sir,” Grace informed him. “Hippy, please hurry out. I
need you.”
“Wha--at is it? Is Jerry coming?” answered Hippy Wingate sleepily.
The general laughed.
“It is bad, isn’t it? What do you wish me to do, Mrs. Gray?” he asked.
“We must try to hold down Mrs. Gordon’s tent, but I fear we shall lose
some of our canvas.”
“There goes one already!” cried the general, as the tent he and
Lieutenant Wingate had occupied puffed out like a balloon and
disappeared in the darkness. The lieutenant made no effort to recover
it, but ran calling to Grace to know where she was.
“Sit on the stakes. Hold the guests’ tent down at all hazards,” she
cried.
Elfreda had taken charge of the tent occupied by the Overland girls,
and was hurrying her companions with their dressing. They had barely
finished dressing, when the tent pulled its stakes and toppled over.
“Grab it! Don’t let it get away!” shouted Miss Briggs.
“What was that?” cried General Gordon, when, during a brief lull in the
storm, his ears caught a familiar whistling sound.
“A bullet, sir,” answered Grace promptly. “Watch out for the next gust
of wind. It’s going to be a severe one.”
“There they come again!” exclaimed the general, as bullets began
spraying the camp.
Grace sprang to the tent occupied by Mrs. Gordon, which Hippy was doing
his best to hold down.
“Lie flat on the ground, Mrs. Gordon!” she shouted. “We’re under fire.”
At about the same instant Elfreda Briggs was uttering a similar warning
to the girls in her charge.
The gun-fire grew hotter, continued so for a few moments, then suddenly
ceased as a fresh blast of storm swept down on the camp from the
mountains, and then, despite all their efforts, the tent that Grace and
the two men were now holding, gave way under the tremendous power of
the wind.
Mrs. Gordon and Miss Cartwright, while thoroughly frightened, were too
plucky to make any outcry, and, after a few moments of lively work, the
general and Hippy, with some assistance from Grace, succeeded in saving
the tent.
About that time the rain dwindled to a sprinkle, and bullets again
began to spatter about the camp. Uttering an exclamation, Grace ran for
her rifle, which she thrust into Hippy Wingate’s hand.
“Look!” Grace pointed up at a spot on the mountains. “Look closely and
you will see the flashes of the rifles that are shooting at us. Every
time you see a flash, shoot at it!”
Hippy located the flashes instantly, and began firing at them, Grace
observing and offering suggestions.
“What is he shooting at?” questioned the general.
“At the flashes of the guns up yonder on the mountain. If your eye is
quick enough you can see them.”
General Gordon, who had reassured Mrs. Gordon and her companion by
telling them that the storm had about blown itself out, at the same
time cautioning both to keep down close to the ground so long as the
shooting lasted, watched Lieutenant Wingate’s work with the rifle with
interest.
After Hippy had twice emptied the magazine of the rifle, the fog
clouds blotted out the peaks of the mountains and slowly settled down,
drawing a mantle over the point from which the bullets had been coming,
whereupon the fire from the mountains ceased and Lieutenant Wingate
laid down his rifle.
“I hope that ends it for to-night,” said Grace. “I think the fog will
hold pretty much as it is, so the next thing is a campfire if we can
find enough fuel to start one.”
Ike was already engaged in this task. General Gordon, in the meantime,
was assisting Mrs. Gordon and Miss Cartwright over to the fire which
Ike was fanning into life with his sombrero.
“I am so sorry, Mrs. Gordon,” sympathized Grace, as the general’s wife
began shaking out her wet, wrinkled skirt.
Mrs. Gordon laughed.
“I am quite willing to suffer such slight discomfort for the privilege
of seeing this outfit at work in an emergency,” she declared.
Grace suggested to the general that it might be advisable to take the
ladies back to the Lodge for the rest of the night.
“No, no, no!” protested Miss Cartwright. “I, for one, propose to see it
through.”
“So do I,” approved Mrs. Gordon.
Elfreda, who had found the makings, was brewing tea over the fire and
Anne was toasting crackers on the other side of it.
“Storm, bullets, then tea and crackers! Isn’t this romantic?” cried
Miss Cartwright. “You young ladies surely do know how to do things.”
The warmth of the campfire, and the refreshments, put new spirits into
the party, and they were now able to laugh over their plight. The
guests, however, were at a loss to understand why any one should wish
to shoot at the camp of the Overland Riders.
“I cannot comprehend how they were able to place their bullets right in
the camp in all that darkness and storm,” wondered Mrs. Gordon.
“Their rifles undoubtedly were aimed and set before dark,” answered
Lieutenant Wingate.
“The broken arrow, General,” reminded Grace, nodding to General Gordon.
“Hm--m--m--m!” mused the World-war veteran.
The rest of the night was passed by the campers with some discomfort,
but without further disturbance, the tops of the mountains being hidden
from sight by the cloud fog until the morning sun cleared away the
mists, when a glorious day was in prospect.
“No cliff-dwelling explorations to-day, girls!” cried Elfreda next
morning. “We shall have to do our family washing and ironing this
morning.”
“If we do I know of one who will have to stay in bed during the
process,” piped Emma. “I haven’t been able to find my everyday skirt,
and I suppose that too has been blown off into the canyon, perhaps to
keep my black silk company.”
Soon after breakfast, Colonel and Mrs. Cartwright came over, they
having been much concerned for their friends upon learning that a
severe mountain storm had swept the valley in the night. The colonel
urged all hands to have dinner with him at the Lodge, but the girls
declined, saying that they had work for every minute of the day, so
their guests left after obtaining a promise from Grace that she and
her friends would attend the dance at the Lodge that evening.
“I have an idea, and to-morrow I shall try to put it to the test,”
murmured Grace, using her glasses in a long, searching study of the
mountains to the rear of the camp.
It was a hard day’s work that the Overland girls did, but when night
came they were ready for the entertainment at the Lodge, and were as
well groomed as though they had but just come from their own dressing
rooms at home.
“I do not know how you do it. It is wonderful,” exclaimed Miss
Cartwright in greeting to the Overlanders upon their arrival at the
Lodge.
The dance lasted until half after eleven o’clock, and the girls
declared that they had not had such a delightful evening since their
last hop at Overton College.
“Come out and get shotted with us,” urged Emma Dean as they were about
to take their departure for the camp.
That night the Overland party was treated to another deluge of bullets,
but the firing did no damage, beyond putting a hole through the
pup-tent occupied by Ike Fairweather. All hands, despite their loss
of sleep, were up early on the following morning making preparation
for their journey to the homes of the ancient Cliff Dwellers where an
exciting day awaited them.