OVERLANDERS SUFFER A LOSS
“Shoot, Sam! Shoot, I tell you!” It was Emma Dean’s voice that
broke the silence of the room. Sam’s answer was lost in the chorus
of yells uttered by the enraged cowboys, who made a rush for the
door, with Joe Bindloss charging after them and shouting orders.
“Get the critter! Drill him! Don’t let him get away,” yelled the
rancher. “You women stay here till we find out what’s doing. There
may be some shooting, and there surely will be if I ketch sight of
the coyote who did that.”
Jim-Sam had strolled out behind the others, the least excited of the
party. They reasoned that the person who fired the shot into the
room, evidently with the intention of hitting Sam Conifer, would not
be found outside waiting to be caught. It was a pot shot and it had
missed, but the shooter, by this time, no doubt was well on his way
to safety.
Jim began snooping about, but the night was too dark to enable him
to find what he was looking for, and the girls, not to be denied,
stepped out.
“Here! Take my pocket lamp,” said Grace, thrusting it into his hand.
“Thankee, Miss,” growled Jim, and began sweeping the rays from the
lamp over the ground in front of the bunk-house door. “Here’s whar
the critter stood when he let go,” announced Jim. “Anybody recognize
them boot-prints?”
No one did, and Jim went on nosing out the trail, which he followed
for several rods down the valley, though the footprints were mixed
with the tracks of cowpunchers and ponies. Jim continued his
tracking until he reached a point where the shooter had met and
mounted a pony, on which he dashed away straight for the hills.
Those hoof-prints were of keen interest to Jim-Sam. They were the
prints of unshod hoofs, and the two men looked at each other with a
meaning gaze.
“I reckon the feller was shootin’ with his left hand, an’ that’s why
he missed,” observed Sam.
“I reckon,” agreed Jim.
“What have you got, Conifer?” called Joe Bindloss, dashing up on his
pony.
The men explained what they had found, and the old rancher raged and
stormed, declaring that he would get the fellow, that he would set
his cowpunchers on the trail at once to follow it until they did get
the man.
“Ain’t no use,” objected Sam. “Can’t do nothin’ till daylight, an’
then it’ll be too late. I’ll know that hoof-print when I see it.”
“I reckon I know it now,” spoke up Jim.
“What’s that?” demanded Bindloss.
“You do?” wondered Sam.
“Shore, I do. It’s Mrs. Gray’s pony. He lost a shoe yesterday an’
the others was loose, an’ she was intendin’ to have him shod all
around, after I’d pulled off the rest of the shoes,” was the guide’s
startling announcement.
“Come back to the bunk-house. We’ve got to find out about this,”
growled Bindloss.
On their way back they met the Overlanders coming along. Unable to
restrain their curiosity, the Overlanders had followed their guides
down the valley.
“Mrs. Gray, would you know the hoof-prints of your pony if you were
to see them?” asked the rancher.
“I am quite certain that I would,” answered Grace.
“Come and have a look at what Jim’s found,” he said, wheeling his
pony and trotting back towards the place where the Overland animal
hoof-print had been found by Jim.
“Yes,” announced Grace after a careful examination of the tracks.
“Those are Ginger’s tracks, or else Ginger has a double; but what
was my pony doing here? What does it mean, Sam?”
“I reckon it means that the feller who shot at me had your hoss.
Hark!”
A scattering fire of revolver shots was heard from farther down the
valley, and now Joe Bindloss’s cowpunchers came riding from the
ranch-house, they too having heard the shots.
“It’s down by our camp!” cried Nora.
“Go to it, fellows!” shouted the rancher. “You folks go back to the
ranch-house, I’m going to follow the boys,” he announced, spurring
his horse into a run.
Instead of following his direction the Overland Riders started at a
brisk walk for their camp.
“Aren’t we going back to finish our dance?” wailed Emma.
“Not until we find out what is going on down yonder,” answered Tom
Gray with a wave of the hand towards their camp.
“Oh, what a shame to spoil a perfectly lovely party!” wailed Emma.
“Two-gun Pete surely could handle his feet even if they are big, and
I was having such a nice talk with him about Freud, too.”
“Emma Dean, if you keep on I shall be in favor of having your sanity
inquired into,” threatened J. Elfreda Briggs.
Stacy shook his head.
“You can’t inquire into what ain’t, can you?” he demanded.
“No, and that is the reason you have never been the subject of an
inquiry,” flung back Emma sharply.
At this juncture, Jim and Sam began to wrangle, each accusing the
other of being to blame for the mess their party had gotten into,
but the Overlanders were too much concerned with their own troubles
to laugh at the argument of the guides.
A few moments later the Overland party came within sight of their
camp. Someone, probably men of the “Circle O” ranch, had built up
the campfire and could be seen moving about there.
As a matter of prudence, before leaving camp that evening, the
Riders had hidden their rifles and ammunition, as they were in the
habit of doing. Their revolvers they wore, for experience had taught
them that it was the wise thing to do in a wild country, or in
sections where there were ruffians such as they had encountered in
the Coso Valley.
“Is everything all right?” called Hippy as they came up to the camp.
“No. Everything’s all wrong,” answered Bindloss savagely. “I’ll kill
somebody for this.”
“What happened?” begged Grace.
“My night rangers discovered some fellows fooling about your camp,
and knowin’ you was at the ranch-house, because one of ’em had
watched you to see what you were doing, he looked a little closer
and saw the prowlers nosing into your property. That was Idaho
Jones. Idaho fired three shots at the fellows, and that called our
other rangers nearby, who rode in hot-foot, but the prowlers skipped
before they got in, though not before Jones had taken a few pot
shots at them. The thieves got away, but one of the fellows says
Jones was certain that he hit one of them.”
“Yes. But what about our ponies?” cried Grace.
“Not a hide nor hair of ’em left,” answered Bindloss. “The critters
took ’em all, and one had the nerve to ride yours, Mrs. Gray, almost
over to the ranch-house. You better look around and see if they got
anything else,” suggested Bindloss amid a tense silence. “Jones and
some of the others chased ’em into the hills and are after ’em now.”
“The ponies stolen!” howled Stacy Brown.
“It’s your fault, consarn ye!” raged Sam Conifer, addressing his
companion. “I told ye to stay here an’ watch things.”
“It ain’t! It’s your fault. If you’d had any brains in yer empty
head you’d stayed an’ watched this camp. You need somebody to watch
you, an’ that’s no lie!” yelled Jim at the top of his voice.
The Overlanders burst out laughing, some of them a little
hysterically.