Читать книгу Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Lost River Trail - Josephine Chase - Страница 3

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“Lieutenant! Lieutenant!”

“Eh? Wha—what is it?” muttered Hippy Wingate, rousing himself from a deep sleep.

“Listen, Lieutenant! There is peril in the air,” answered Ham White. “I don’t know where it is, but I do know there is trouble afoot, and that instant action is necessary. I don’t think it advisable to let the others of our party know, so long as there probably is no immediate danger.”

“Humph! You men of the forest make me weary. Everything is a mystery—a peril and so forth and so on. Ham, you’re a good fellow, but you remind me of Tom Gray—always looking for trouble. What is the big idea?”

Hamilton White placed his lips to Hippy’s ear and whispered. A little distance from them the camp was sleeping soundly. Not a sound disturbed the forest night save the faint whisperings of the tree-tops and the occasional twitter of a bird high up among the branches.

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Hippy, sitting up awake and thoroughly on the alert. “Are you positive?”

“Yes. It may be a matter of hours; then again minutes may cover the time.”

“What shall we do?” questioned Hippy.

“Move at once,” answered the guide with emphasis. “We will lay our course to the northeast and get as far away from here as possible in the shortest possible time. We’ve got to break camp now, Lieutenant!”

Hippy Wingate sprang to his feet and began dressing. While doing so he asked how they were to explain their hurried departure to the others of the party, unless the whole truth were told. White said he would attend to that.

Hippy shook his head.

“Ham, you have the Overland Riders sized up wrong. They aren’t tenderfeet, not by a long shot, nor are they shying at danger any more than you are,” declared Hippy with some heat.

“Turn them out!” ordered Ham. “We can’t afford to waste a moment.”

“All right, Buddy, I’ll turn them out. You will have to do the rest, though. Turn out, you sleepy-heads!” roared Hippy.

The response was almost instantaneous. The Overland Riders bounced out of their tents, rubbing their eyes, staggering a little, for they were not yet fully awake, and demanding to know what had happened. Ham White, who was already engaged in packing their belongings, paused long enough to reply.

“Folks, we must break camp and get out of this right smart,” he informed them.

“What! Lose my night’s sleep?” wailed Stacy Brown. “Move if you wish, but I stay right here until after breakfast, then I’ll think about seeking new and more beautiful scenes.”

“Mr. White, will you please tell me why we must break camp at this hour of the night?” begged Grace Harlowe, stepping over to the guide, and looking up into his face. “What is it? I know you must have good reason or—”

“Because, Mrs. Gray, some trouble has developed in the woods, and we are exposed to it. I don’t wish to alarm you, and for that reason I can’t explain just now, so please trust to me and don’t urge me to give my reasons,” answered the guide, resuming his work.

Grace directed a quick glance at the sky, and Elfreda Briggs, now at her side, did likewise. The stars were clear white, and a light breeze was stirring the tops of the big pine trees.

“Grace, what do you make of it?” questioned Miss Briggs.

“Nothing, J. Elfreda. Mr. White is an experienced guide, so let’s hustle and pack for a move.”

Emma Dean, who had dressed hurriedly, was now importuning the guide to tell her what it was he feared.

“If you will only tell me, I will demonstrate over it, and you will see how quickly the danger, or whatever it may be, will pass,” she said.

“Pardon me, Miss Dean, I am too busy to talk. Please get yourself ready for riding as quickly as possible,” replied Mr. White.

“Oh, very well!” Emma elevated her chin and walked away.

“Go on! Demonstrate! I know Ham is willing to try most anything once,” urged Stacy Brown.

“If Mr. White tried you once, I am quite certain a second trial would be unnecessary, Stacy,” retorted Emma.

“Wow!” muttered Stacy.

“If my Hippy says it is all right I am satisfied,” spoke up Nora Wingate, giving Hippy a playful pat as he passed her.

“How demonstrate?” wondered Hippy. “Is this another of your fads? You have been ‘concentrating,’ ‘reading nature,’ and doing goodness knows how many other crazy things, on several recent journeys.”

“Mine is not a fad, Hippy,” replied Emma with dignity. “What you call ‘fads’ are simply demonstrations of Truth.”

“Such as Arline Thayer put over on you last year,” chuckled Stacy Brown, to which Miss Dean deigned no reply.

“It is too bad that poor Arline’s health will not permit her being with us this year,” murmured Grace.

“Demonstrating,” resumed Emma thoughtfully, “is to breathe in harmony, permitting no inharmonious thoughts to enter your being.”

“Meaning what?” persisted Hippy Wingate teasingly.

“Meaning, sir, that if you will think hard in the right way, believing with all your might that certain things will come out as you wish them to, you will find that they will.”

“Good! I’ll just demonstrate a million dollars into my pocket between now and morning,” promised Stacy.

Hamilton White gave the Overlanders a quick glance of appraisal, and nodded to himself. He admitted that perhaps he had not at first formed the proper estimate of the party he was guiding through the forests and mountains of the rugged state of Washington. All hands, with the possible exception of Stacy, began work, and in less than an hour the camp had been struck and the equipment loaded on the ponies, the embers of the cook fire having been well soaked with water.

The girls of the party were still trying to solve the mystery of their hurried departure as they mounted and started away with Mr. White in the lead. They soon found themselves too fully occupied to give thought to anything other than to dodging trees and low-hanging limbs, for the forest was very dark. Hippy Wingate brought up the rear, Stacy Brown in the middle of the line of riders, grumbling and complaining with every jolt of the pony, now and then dozing off in his saddle but suddenly awakening as a tree-trunk scraped his shin or a bough smote him in the face.

After an hour of uncomfortable riding the guide called a halt, and, strapping on his climbers, began climbing a tree. He was out of sight in a few seconds. In the meantime, Grace, gazing up to the skies, noticed that the stars had now lost their whiteness and had taken on a faded tint. This puzzled her. She did not know how to interpret the change, unless, perhaps, it was caused by fog.

“Did you solve the mystery, Mr. White?” called Emma in her sweetest voice as the guide stepped to the ground and began removing his climbers, for Emma had already attached herself to Hamilton White as a man worth while. “What did you discover?”

“Principally atmosphere, Miss Dean,” was the noncommittal reply.

“I think you are real mean,” pouted Emma. “I am angry with you. Some persons think it is clever to make a mystery of everything, and—”

“Oh, demonstrate over it,” advised Stacy wearily. “It’s only light-headed persons who thus reason.”

“Indeed! That accounts for some of your peculiarities,” Emma came back quickly. By this time the Overlanders were laughing over the sparring of Emma Dean and Stacy Brown.

“Please get under way,” directed the guide, vaulting into his saddle. Grace and Elfreda took up positions behind him, and the journey through the somber forest again began. It continued on until about an hour before daybreak, when, in the faint light, the two girls observed the guide moisten a finger on his lips and hold it up, slowly turning the finger from side to side.

Grace wondered, and did the same several times, observed questioningly by her companion.

“What is it?” whispered Miss Briggs.

“I—I’m not certain,” answered Grace a little lamely.

“This suspense is killing me,” cried Emma, joining the two girls. “Unless my curiosity is gratified, I surely shall expire.”

“Why don’t you do what you threatened to do, demonstrate over the situation?” demanded Elfreda laughingly.

“Hamilton doesn’t like me to,” returned Miss Dean flushing.

“So? That is the way the wind blows,” chuckled Elfreda, and the girls laughed heartily.

“Hamilton!” murmured Grace. “It seems to me that matters are progressing rather rapidly, Emma dear. Here we have been out less than two days on our annual vacation in the saddle, and you are calling our handsome guide by his first name. I am amazed at you. I—”

Ham White threw up a hand as a signal that they were to halt. Day was dawning, and the waving plumes of the tall pines were now quite plainly visible from below.

“Stop here and take a light breakfast. Better not unpack anything. I will be back in a few minutes,” said the guide. “These are orders,” he flung back over his shoulder as he rode rapidly away.

“It seems to me that our guide is rather bossy,” observed Nora Wingate.

“He isn’t!” protested Emma indignantly. “He is the finest man I ever knew.”

The others looked at each other and burst out laughing; then they began teasing Emma as they ate breakfast standing beside their ponies. Mr. White returned ere they had finished their light meal. A quick, comprehensive glance showed him that his orders had been obeyed.

“You people think me an alarmist, I know, but the fact is I did not wish to alarm you until I was certain. Now that I have been able to get a clear observation, I know.”

“The worst is yet to come,” grumbled Stacy.

“Yes. You always bring this outfit bad luck,” retorted Emma.

“Please, please, children!” begged Grace. “What is it, Mr. White?”

“We are in the direct path of a forest fire!”

There followed a moment’s silence, then Hippy spoke up.

“What is the chance of our getting away from it?” he asked.

“I am coming to that, and—”

“Then the question seems to be, how much time have we to get out of the way of this fire?” questioned Grace.

The guide said that neither he nor any one else could answer that question.

“A forest fire is a sneaking demon,” he declared. “Sometimes one sees no fire at all, then again it seems as if the whole universe were ablaze. As a rule, persons who are caught in forest fires never realize it until the fire has leaped upon them. This fire, so far, is the kind you do see. Look up!”

All eyes were turned upwards. They saw that the sky was covered with a yellow haze. The haze seemed low. Birds were winging their way northward, flying swiftly, and there were rustlings farther out in the forest, and sounds of unseen creatures hurrying.

“I wish Tom were here,” breathed Grace. Tom Gray, her much-loved husband, now a well-known forestry engineer, was somewhere off in that vast forest, making a survey for the government. Grace uttered a fervent prayer for his safety.

“I believe the fire is still some hours away, but the breeze is in our direction, and bids fair to hold all day. By striking off to the eastward and making good time, we have an excellent chance of getting to higher rocky ground where we shall probably be safe,” was the guide’s prediction.

“Alors! Let’s go,” urged J. Elfreda Briggs, with a touch of her old-time lightness of spirit.

“That is what I am getting at. I can direct you so that you folks ought to make it, but I dislike leaving you,” added Mr. White.

“Leaving us!” exclaimed Emma.

“Yes. More than half a day’s ride from here is a village, a forest mountain village, with women and children, who, perhaps, will never know their peril until too late. It is known as Silver Creek, named from the stream that flows through it, a stream that for about half of the year is a swollen torrent—water icy cold, coming from the mountain peaks in the north. In any event, they will need help, and it is my duty to get there as quickly as possible. Lieutenant, will you take it upon yourself to lead your party to safety, and let me go on?”

“That—that is for the girls to answer,” replied Hippy gravely, turning to Grace and her companions.

“Help will be needed at Silver Creek, you think, Mr. White?” questioned Grace.

“Yes. All they can get.”

“Girls, I think we, too, know where our duty lies, do we not?” she asked evenly.

“Yes!” was the quick reply from Elfreda and Nora and Emma.

“We are going with you, Mr. White,” announced Grace.

“Oh, help!” wailed Stacy.

A moment later the Overland party was riding at top speed, following closely on the heels of the guided pony, knowing that upon their speed in reaching their destination many lives might depend.