Produced by Rod Crawford and Roger Frank
[Illustration: “Get back, Ye Houn’!”]
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Grace Harlowe’s Overland Riders
in the Yellowstone National Park
by Jessie Graham Flower, A. M.
Illustrated
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Akron, Ohio—New York
Made in U. S. A.
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Copyright MCMXXIII
by the Saalfield Publishing Company
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CONTENTS
Chapter I—The Overlanders Get a Shock
The arrival at Cinnabar. “It takes more than a sign to make a
hotel.” The guide is missing. Stacy goes to look for Jake Coville
and meets with a distressing experience. The stock car yields an
amazing surprise. “Those are not our ponies!” cries Nora.
Chapter II—The Wires Bring Bad News
The mystery of the missing ponies. Overland Riders left without a
guide or a horse. Hippy makes the telegraph wires “sing.” A fine
display of temper. Lieutenant Wingate, in his bare feet, chases a
telegraph messenger from camp.
Chapter III—On the Road to Wonderland
Emma Dean declines to kiss a horse. The Overland men go in search of
new mounts. Hippy delivers an oration. Stacy avers that someone is
always taking the joy out of life. Jim Badger engages himself to
guide the party.
Chapter IV—Unbidden Guests in Camp
Overland Riders are awakened by the fat boy’s yells. Grizzly bears
invade the camp. Stacy shoots and misses. Park guards descend on the
Overland camp in search of the “shooter.” “You are all under
arrest!” announces Trooper White.
Chapter V—Stacy Gets Another Shock
“Strike your camp!” orders the Park guard. Overland Riders are
arraigned before the commanding officer. Chunky admits that he
missed the bear he shot at. “Fifty dollars” gasps the fat boy. Tom
Gray delivers a brief lecture. A scene that delighted and mystified.
Chapter VI—The Infant Geyser Gets Busy
Stacy is fascinated by the baby “spouter.” The fat boy’s actions
arouse the Overlanders’ suspicions. “He’s done it! He’s done it”
wails Nora. Stacy is enveloped in a cloud of steam as the “Infant
Geyser” blows up. A thrilling message from Chunky.
Chapter VII—In the Toils
Overlanders learn that Stacy Brown is in jail. Emma thinks it will
prove beneficial to the fat boy. Accused of blowing up the “Infant
Geyser.” Elfreda Briggs appoints herself Stacy’s lawyer, and gains
some valuable information.
Chapter VIII—Hippy Pays the Piper
Emma Dean objects to “killing the fatted calf.” Overlanders hold a
family council and appoint Emma as the fat boy’s guardian. Stacy
rebells. Chunky comes a cropper. Colonel Scott hears a familiar
name. “I know you, young woman! I should say I do!”
Chapter IX—Robbers Leave a Trail
A robbery at the Springs Hotel excites the guests. Hippy and Grace
investigate on their own account. Lieutenant Wingate loses the
trail. “Even the bears have ears.” Grace forecasts a great surprise
for the Overland Riders.
Chapter X—At It Again
“There’s no accountin’ for bear,” declares Jim Badger. Grace and
Hippy complimented on their keenness. Park guards are put on the
trail of the thieves. A stroll among the steaming pools brings
disaster. Stacy disappears from sight.
Chapter XI—Stacy Gets into Hot Water
“He isn’t very badly off or he couldn’t make a noise like that.”
Rescued and laughed at. Emma regrets that the fat boy did not stay
in until thoroughly done. An adventurous climb ahead of the
Overlanders. Revolver shots and yells from Chunky disturb the
sleeping camp.
Chapter XII—“A High Crime”
Night prowlers take away the fat boy’s “pants” and his money. Jim
Badger takes a shot at the robbers. “I want my fifty cents,” wails
Chunky. Thieves miss more than they get. Lieutenant Wingate saves
his watch.
Chapter XIII—The Heart of the Tempest
Stacy not so full of scenery that he has no room for food. A hired
man who wrote “pomes” comes to grief. Elfreda objects to a snoring
Overlander. Two storms meet over the Overland camp. “Lie down,
everyone!”
Chapter XIV—Overtaken by Disaster
Tents and campfire blow away. A bolt from the clouds stuns the
Overland Riders. Lieutenant Wingate is strangely missing. A dizzy
slide down the sloping rocks. “I reckon the mountain must have
fallen on me.” The “laziest man in the Yellowstone.”
Chapter XV—A Strange Experience
Electric Peak affects the Overlanders peculiarly. Stacy’s heart
“beats all.” Grace admits to feeling “queer.” “There’s something
peculiar about this place,” cries Tom Gray. Stacy plunges over the
edge of the mountain.
Chapter XVI—A Mountain of Distress
“He’s killed! He’s killed!” A rescue that is accomplished with
difficulty. Overland Riders conclude that they have had enough of
the mysterious mountain. Jim Badger has news for his charges.
“There’s been another robbery down to the Springs Hotel,” he tells
them.
Chapter XVII—Greasing the Geyser
Suspiciously acting strangers spy on the Overland camp. Stacy
suggests that they forget their troubles in food. The guide gives
the fat boy a suggestion. Awed by “Old Faithful Geyser.” Bears hot
on the trail of the fat boy.
Chapter XVIII—Pajamas Float on High
Tom and Hippy face the angry bears and play a trick on them. Stacy
Brown, in trying to capture a cub, gets into difficulties. Laundry
work is done in the geyser basin. The fat boy up to mischief.
“Somebody help me get my ‘pants’!” wails the fat boy.
Chapter XIX—Fish Cooked on the Hook
The “Little Fountain” holds fast to Overland laundry things. Coyotes
howl all night in the Geyser Basin. The Overlanders catch trout and
cook them in a boiling spring. “I’ve just been making a monkey of
you folks,” declares Stacy.
Chapter XX—Wonders of the Grand Canyon
The rougher the time the better the Overland Riders like it. Emma
decides that there is nothing in the brain-food theory. “All girls
are ’fraid cats,” declares Chunky. In a dash down the canyon Emma
proves that they are not.
Chapter XXI—Conclusion
Signal whistles in the night. A mysterious prowler runs away. Hippy
makes a discovery, the full meaning of which he is to learn later
on. Visitors call at the Overland camp. Bandits arrested upon
lieutenant Wingate’s disclosures.
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GRACE HARLOWE’S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
CHAPTER I
OVERLANDERS GET A SHOCK
“Here we are again,” cried Lieutenant Hippy Wingate. “Cinnabar! All out
for Cinnabar, the gateway to the great Yellowstone National Park. Get
busy, you Overlanders, or you’ll be left.”
“Cinnabar! It sounds like something good to eat,” declared Stacy Brown.
“The town doesn’t look as if it could furnish much food worthwhile,” he
added, peering from the car window as he munched an apple.
“Perhaps not for an appetite such as yours,” retorted Emma Dean. “Why
don’t you try absent treatment? Just imagine that you have had a most
satisfying meal, and in a few moments you will forget all about your
hunger.”
“We had to do that many times in France, did we not?” laughed Grace
Harlowe, turning to her companion, Elfreda Briggs.
“Not ‘many times,’ but most of the time,” agreed Elfreda. “Alors! Let’s
go!”
Gathering up their belongings, the Overland Riders moved towards the
exit of their Pullman car just as the North Coast Limited roared up to
the station at Cinnabar, the point at which thousands of tourists stop
off during the summer season to visit the Yellowstone National Park, now
the destination of the Overlanders themselves. A throng of tourists
stepped down from the train to the long low platform in front of the
little station.
Among the first to leave the train were the Overland Riders—Grace
Harlowe Gray and her husband, Tom Gray, in the lead. A few moments later
the train was rumbling away, enveloped in a black cloud of smoke.
Four-in-hand Concord coaches, old-fashioned but in good repair, to which
handsome black horses were hitched, were drawn up to the platform to
carry away the tourists. There was bustle and laughter and shouting and
excitement among the tourists, in which the khaki-clad Overland Riders
took no part, for they were experienced travelers now just starting out
on their regular summer outing in the saddle. The Overlanders, however,
were interested in the busy scene at the little station. The quaint
little town with its wooden buildings built in irregular formation, like
many other far western towns, sat in a vast amphitheater formed by
surrounding mountain ranges.
“Come, girls,” urged Grace Harlowe. “We must busy ourselves, for we have
much to do. Tom, please inquire if our guide, Jake Coville, is here.”
“What concerns me most at the moment is where we are to eat,” spoke up
Nora Wingate.
“I was about to ask the same question,” nodded Stacy Brown, more
familiarly known to his companions as “Chunky,” whose appetite had never
been known to be fully appeased.
“There is a hotel sign just across the way,” volunteered Miss Briggs.
“It takes more than a sign to make a hotel,” observed Grace laughingly.
“That is especially true in this far western country, as we Riders have
had ample evidence.”
“Let’s go! No food is worse than poor food,” urged Stacy.
“Yes. Let’s do,” agreed Emma.
“No breakfast until we have unloaded and fed the ponies,” called Hippy
Wingate. “The animals need more attention than we do. Come along.”
“They don’t need it so much as this animal does,” declared Chunky.
“Feed the ponies; then we will think of food for ourselves,” was Hippy’s
reply. “Tom, what about the guide?”
“I’ll find out.” Stepping over to the station agent, who was busy with a
pile of trunks that had been unloaded from the Limited, Tom asked: “Do
you know where we may find Jake Coville?” The agent, before replying,
surveyed Tom from head to foot.
“I reckon you’ll find him at home.”
“Where is that, please?”
“Next to the last house down the street, after you have turned to your
left, first turn.”
“It is strange that he is not here to meet us,” observed Tom, turning
away.
“Perhaps he is one of the independent kind that has to be asked,”
suggested Nora.
“So are we,” interjected Stacy.
“Why doesn’t some one go fetch him?” demanded Emma.
“Tom will do so after we get the ponies out,” answered Grace.
“No, you folks take care of the ponies and leave Mr. Coville to me,”
urged Stacy. “I know how to handle these wild westerners.”
“After we have taken the animals out,” nodded Tom.
The party hurried down the platform to the stock car that the station
agent pointed out to them, and that had been shunted over on the siding
by an earlier train. In the freight house end of the station they found
a plank gangway intended for use in unloading stock. The runway was not
more than three feet wide, but this did not worry the Overlanders. Their
ponies were used to traveling over narrow places and would walk over the
narrow bridge as confidently as would the Overlanders themselves.
While Tom, Hippy and Stacy were dragging the heavy planking over to the
stock car a crowd of curious villagers gathered to witness the unloading
of the ponies.
“Troopers?” questioned a native.
“Not exactly,” answered Tom Gray.
“Thought mebby you was a new cavalry company come to do patrol work in
the Park. Heard there was a gang coming. Most of the regulars that was
on duty in the Park went to France, and some of ’em ain’t come back.”
“Say, do we look like a gang?” demanded Stacy Brown, turning on the
speaker.
“Wall, I reckon you might.”
“Then again we might not,” retorted the fat boy.
“Come, Stacy! You aren’t lifting a pound,” rebuked Lieutenant Wingate.
“He never has,” reminded Emma Dean.
“And never will if he can get out of it,” laughed Elfreda Briggs.
“Mebby he’s got all he kin do to lug himself around,” suggested one of
the villagers.
Stacy eyed him narrowly.
“That never will bother you because your head is too light to
overbalance you,” retorted the fat boy.
“Can you and Tom lift the gangway up?” called Hippy, clinging to the
closed car door.
“We can, but we won’t,” answered Stacy.
“Huh! I suppose I shall have to get down and help you,” grunted
Lieutenant Wingate.
“You will if you wish to use the gangway to-day,” retorted Stacy. “Don’t
you reckon I’d better go look for Jake Coville?”
“Yes, yes, go on,” begged Tom Gray disgustedly.
“All right, I’ll go. Say, it’s a pity some of you lazy village folks
wouldn’t turn to and give us a hand. Never saw such an indifferent lot
in my life.”
“Why should they, Stacy? They do not belong to our party,” answered Nora
Wingate.
“Oh, there isn’t any reason, of course,” grumbled the fat boy.
“Did you ever help anyone out?” questioned Emma.
“Oh, lots of times. I have been doing that all my life,” answered Stacy,
sauntering away to go in search of the guide who had failed to meet
them.
The girls offered to help put the gangway in place, but the two men
would not permit them to do so. At this juncture the agent came out and
offered his services, and a moment later the gangway was in place. The
station agent then opened the car door.
“There. Now you can get your stock out,” he said.
Hippy took one amazed look at the interior of the car and uttered an
exclamation.
“Here, here! What’s this?” he cried.
The Overlanders ran up the gangway and peered in.
“For mercy’s sake!” cried Nora Wingate. “Those are not our ponies.”
The car, instead of holding the slim-limbed, sleek ponies of the
Overland outfit, was filled with huge draft horses, such as one sees
exhibited at county fairs in the east.
“Mr. Agent, they have dropped the wrong car here. These are not our
animals,” declared Hippy.
“I can’t help that,” replied the agent.
“Young man, you march right back to your office and send out a general
alarm for one car of ponies missing, and tell your superiors that we
shall hold them responsible for the delivery of our animals before night
to-day,” warned Hippy. “Get busy.”
The agent said he could do nothing, but Hippy was of a different
opinion, and led the agent to the telegraph office where the Overlander
sent a peremptory message to the general superintendent.
This done the Overland Riders began looking about for a place to eat and
to spend the day and night. They finally found quarters at a hotel, but,
after looking the place over, they decided to go into camp. Fortunately,
all their equipment had been shipped as baggage, so, hiring a man and a
wagon, they had the equipment drawn to the edge of the little town where
they pitched their tents and began preparing camp, not knowing how long
it might be before they got their ponies.
Many of the villagers followed the party out and observed the process of
camp-making with keen interest.
“Government party?” questioned the postmaster.
“No,” answered Lieutenant Wingate shortly.
“We are out for a pleasure trip through the Park,” Grace informed him.
“Oh! Been out before, haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir. A great many times. There comes Stacy. He looks disturbed
about something,” said Grace.
“That is because he thinks he has missed his breakfast,” chuckled Emma
Dean.
“What’s the matter, Stacy?” called Nora. “We thought you were lost.”
“I was. Nobody seemed to know where you folks had gone. I’ve had an
awful experience, worst I ever had in my life, and—”
“Did you find Coville?” interrupted Tom Gray as he drove home a tent
peg.
“Find him? I should say I did. Most distressing thing you ever heard of.
I know I shall never get over the shock that I got this day.” Stacy
plainly was laboring under a severe nerve strain, as his companions
discerned, and therefore no one attempted to tease him.
“Tell us about it,” urged Grace gently.
“What’s the matter now?” demanded Hippy Wingate, returning from the
station. “Didn’t you find Coville?”
“Yes, I found him.” Stacy mopped the perspiration from his face with, a
sleeve.
“Then why is he not here attending to his business?” demanded Hippy with
some irritation.
“I’ll tell you the story, then you’ll understand,” answered Stacy
soberly. “I found the place where Coville lived and I was met at the
door by a red-eyed woman who looked as if she had been crying. I asked
her if Jake was there and she said ‘yes’ and burst into tears. Well,
would you believe me, folks—”
“Oh, we will believe anything after this horse-car mystery,” returned
Hippy Wingate impatiently.
“I told her who I was and that Jake was to be our guide, and, what do
you think—”
“Don’t stall. Get to the point,” urged Tom.
“She said, ‘He ain’t nobody’s guide now. Jake’s dead!’”
The Overland Riders gasped.
“Who—what—” exclaimed Nora.
“Uh-huh. He passed out suddenly.”
“Oh, that is too bad,” cried the girls, their voices full of sympathy.
“We hadn’t even heard that he was ill,” added Elfreda.
“He wasn’t—that is, not until yesterday when he got kicked in the head
by a horse, and that was the last of him. But never so long as I live
will I get over the shock,” muttered Stacy. “Don’t talk to me. I guess I
want to get away by myself and think,” added Stacy, sobered, deeply
affected for the first time in his life.
“We must do something for the family, provided they need it,” suggested
Grace. “Any news from our missing horses, Hippy?”
“Not a word. The railroad officials profess to know nothing about them
and insist that the car we have is the car that went out with us when we
left Denver.”
“Oh, I hope we do not lose our wonderful ponies,” cried Elfreda.
“There’s no possibility of that,” replied Lieutenant Wingate, “We may be
delayed here for a few days waiting for the railroad people to
straighten out the tangle, so let’s make the best of a bad situation and
enjoy ourselves.”
As later events proved, Hippy Wingate was not a true prophet, for the
Overlanders were face to face with a mystery that would not be solved in
many a day. Their summer’s outing had begun under the most unfavorable
conditions of any summer journey they had ever undertaken.