Читать книгу Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Old Apache Trail - Chase Josephine - Страница 5

“WATCH the prisoners, Hippy! Anybody hurt?” called Grace as she came running to the scene of the disaster.

“No, but Mr. Fairweather’s feelings are considerably ruffled,” replied Miss Briggs.

Ike, after having been dragged to the very edge of the trail by the coach, had picked himself up and was brushing the dirt from his clothes, for he had been dragged right across the trail, but let go just in time to save himself.

“Why, Mr. Fairweather, what in the world has happened?” begged Grace solicitously.

“Don’t ask me, woman, or I’ll say somethin’. I’m mad clean through.”

“I do not blame you,” answered Grace sympathetically. “How did it occur?”

“The blamed thing got away from me while I was backin’ it around by hand, thet’s all. Ought to have known better’n to tackle it alone.”

“How long will it take to get the coach back on the trail so that we may go on?” questioned Emma Dean innocently.

“Get it on the trail?” Ike Fairweather groaned hopelessly. “We’ll never get it up, Miss. She shore is a basket of kindlin’ wood now, an’ I don’t know what we’re goin’ to do.”

“We can walk,” answered Grace confidently. “How far are we from Globe?”

“Nigh onto thirty mile, I reckon.”

“Walk thirty miles?” cried Emma. “I should simply expire.”

“I reckon you’ll have to walk if you want to get back,” grumbled Ike.

“Walking is most excellent exercise, and I am certain that it will do all of us good. I have a plan, Mr. Fairweather,” spoke up Grace.

“Thought you would have.”

At this juncture, Lieutenant Wingate came up leading the two wounded men who had been left down the trail. He too wished to know what the plan was for getting back to town.

“I was about to suggest something to Mr. Fairweather,” replied Grace. “We shall have to use the coach horses to help carry us.”

“Do not forget our prisoners in your calculations,” reminded Hippy Wingate. “Surely, you do not propose to let them go?”

“I have not forgotten. No, sir, we are not going to release them after all the bother they have put us to. Let me see, there are four prisoners and five girls.”

“And two men,” interjected Hippy.

“By placing two bandits on a horse, that will leave two horses to carry the rest of us. The girls can ride two on a horse, which will take care of Nora, Anne, Elfreda and Emma. You two men and myself will walk. Should we walkers get foot weary, we can change places with the girls who are riding. Does that meet with your approval, Mr. Fairweather?”

“It shore does.”

Hippy suggested, instead, that he be permitted to ride back to town for assistance, but Grace objected to this.

“The prisoners need medical attention, and we shall have to go on short rations as it is, so we have no time to lose. We will tie the four men on two horses and tie the pair of horses together; Mr. Fairweather can lead the animals; you, Hippy, will walk alongside of them and I will bring up the rear.”

“What if one of the bandits drops off and gives us the slip?” questioned Hippy.

“I shall see to it that he doesn’t get far,” answered Grace significantly.

“Huh!” grunted Ike. “I thought the lieutenant was givin’ me a fairy story ’bout your doin’s in the war. Jedgin’ from what I’ve seen to-night I reckon he hasn’t told the half of what there is to tell. Why, lady, if you was to live out here you’d be sheriff of the county at the next election. I reckon I know of one vote you’d get.”

“Thank you. Then you approve of my plan?” asked Grace.

“From the ground up.”

“And you folks?” she questioned, turning to her companions.

All nodded their heads in approval.

“I wish I had an airplane,” grumbled Hippy Wingate. “I never did like to walk when I had to.”

“We will take the rifles and revolvers of the highwaymen with us. I do not believe they will have use for their weapons. We may need them ourselves. Mr. Fairweather, if you will get the horses ready we will load up and start.”

Ike removed his sombrero and wiped his forehead on his sleeve.

“Yes, I’ll get ’em ready, but what Ike Fairweather wants to say, he can’t, ’cause somehow it sticks in his crop an’ won’t come out. You’re the real thing, all of you is, an’ any galoot that says you ain’t – well, Ike Fairweather will take care of thet critter.”

“You fellows, I have a word for you,” announced Grace, turning to the prisoners. “I warn you that if you try to get away I shall shoot.”

“Which, altogether an’ in partic’lar means thet the everlastin’ daylights will be blown out of the critter thet tries to get away,” reminded Ike. “Fair warnin’s fair warnin’.”

“But not Fairweather,” chuckled Hippy Wingate, which brought a groan of disapproval from the Overton girls.

Placing the prisoners on the horses and tying them securely was a proceeding that took some little time, so that it was fully an hour later before the procession started out, Elfreda, Anne, Emma and Nora riding on the two leading horses, Ike leading the prisoners’ mounts, Hippy in the middle of the procession, and Grace Harlowe, with a bandit’s rifle slung in the crook of her right arm, bringing up the rear.

The highwaymen were sullen, not uttering a word, so far as Grace had heard, though she had no doubt that they had quietly exchanged confidences. The one who was most severely wounded was the man whose scalp a bullet had raked, but he apparently was in no danger, though still weak from loss of blood.

“Is there a place where we can get breakfast, if still on the trail in the morning?” called Anne.

“Narry a place,” answered Ike Fairweather.

They plodded on, Grace, if anything, being the most cheerful and contented member of the party. At break of day they halted, having made about ten miles of the thirty. From the little kit pack in which each one carried emergency rations, they eked out a slender breakfast, though they had neither coffee nor tea, that part of the food supply being at the bottom of the canyon in the wreckage of the old Deadwood coach. The prisoners, however, refused to eat, maintaining a sullen silence as they watched their captors partaking of breakfast.

At the noon halt, Grace and Elfreda dressed the prisoners’ wounds, binding them up with skillful hands with pieces of cloth torn from skirts. It was not the first time that either Grace Harlowe or Elfreda Briggs had dressed bullet wounds, both having been called upon to do so in numerous instances on the western front in France. The prisoners watched the dressing operations without uttering a word of comment, but the expressions on their faces were not pleasant to look upon.

Ike, who had been regarding the wound-dressing with interest, turned, as the girls finished their work, and walked away running his fingers through his whiskers.

The prisoners were placed on the horses and secured, after which the party started on again.

“Horses comin’ up the trail,” announced Ike, a few moments later, holding up a hand for the party to stop.

Grace ran forward to halt the two horses carrying the four girls.

“Some one is coming, girls. Go back and get out of the way in case there should be trouble,” she directed.

Grace joined Ike after the girls had taken up a safe position, Hippy standing expectantly by the prisoners, the outfit, with rifles in hand, ready to meet whatever trouble might be in store for them.

Three horsemen swept around a bend in the trail, and the instant they hove in sight, Ike Fairweather uttered a shout.

“It’s Deputy Sheriff Wheelock,” he cried. “Now we’re all right. Howdy, Wheelock!”

The deputy, upon recognizing Ike, swung down from his horse, doffed his hat to Grace, and turned to Mr. Fairweather.

“What do you reckon you’ve got here!” demanded the deputy.

Ike explained who and what his outfit was, relating briefly the story of the loss of the stagecoach and the capture of the bandits.

“This little woman did the business. Deputy Sheriff Wheelock, Mrs. Gray,” introduced Ike.

“Do you know the prisoners, sir?” she asked.

After looking the bandits over closely, the deputy shook his head. He asked Ike if he needed any assistance to get the prisoners in. Grace answered the question by saying that they did not.

“We’re going out after a fellow who lives in the mountains and who has been shooting game out of season, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll send one of my men to Globe in a hurry and have him ride out to the sheriff’s ranch and get him,” offered the deputy. “That will save you waiting for the sheriff when you get in. I reckon maybe these are fellows that Sheriff Collins has been looking for. Take your men right to the jail, Ike, and Collins will do the rest.”

After starting one of his men back toward Globe, Mr. Wheelock, mounted, waved a hand, and, with his assistant, galloped on. The Overton party assumed its former formation and plodded on, weary, but encouraged by the realization that only a few hours now separated them from their goal.