Chapter 9 THE POWER OF MIND

"What do you suppose it can mean, and who threw it into our camp?" wondered Elfreda Briggs, folding up the newspaper that contained the message to them.

"It must mean that a friend is interested in our welfare," replied Grace. "Whoever and whatever he may be, his advice is good, and here we stay until we find Hippy. I am going out right after breakfast and make an effort to pick up the trail. Surely the outlaws, or whatever they are, will not be waiting all that time for us to follow them. I will make a quiet scout. I do not look to be interfered with, for they surely will have gone away by now."

"Shall I call the girls and tell them? The knowledge that a helping hand has been held out to us surely will comfort Nora," said Elfreda.

"Yes. I will rout out Washington and have him start the fire. It has been a trying night and I am glad it is at an end," replied Grace.

"I knew it," cried Emma Dean when she learned what had taken place. "I didn't con-centrate for nothing."

"You what?" frowned Elfreda.

"I have been con-centrating all night long-con-centrating on Hippy to call him back to us."

"Oh, you darlin'," cried Nora, throwing her arms about Emma.

"I should advise you to continue to 'con-centrate,'" suggested Anne. "If you were to stop now you might break the mental string; then we should lose Hippy for good."

"You just wait. You'll see whether or not he comes back," retorted Emma indignantly.

Nora's face was flushed that morning and her heart was filled with a new hope-the hope that Hippy might be with them before the close of that day.

After breakfast, as planned, Grace took up her rifle and went away, leaving Elfreda and the others to guard the camp and, incidentally, to keep Washington busy and out of mischief. He was, too, forbidden to play his harmonica lest the noise attract attention to the camp of the Overland Riders.

Proceeding cautiously, Grace reached the stream, and followed it until she found where the kidnappers of Hippy had left it. After waiting and watching for a full hour, Grace stepped out boldly. For six hours the Overland girl employed all her knowledge of the open in an effort to pick up the trail of the mountaineers, but the trail appeared to end abruptly at the bank of the creek. Not even the hoofprints of horses could be found on the softer ground a short distance back from the stream.

There are tricks in masking one's trail that the Kentucky mountaineers had learned from generations of feuds and attacks by revenue agents, which Grace Harlowe knew nothing of.

At noon she gave up the attempt to find the trail over which Hippy Wingate had been taken, and started back towards the camp.

"What luck?" called Nora, as she appeared at the edge of the clearing where the camp was pitched.

"None. As a trailer, I am a miserable failure, a rank amateur."

"If you were to spend as much time con-centrating as you do tearing about over the landscape, you would be more successful," declared Emma wisely, at which there was a laugh at Grace's expense.

"I surely could not be more unsuccessful than I have been," replied Grace smilingly.

The afternoon was passed in discussing their situation. While the girls were eager to be out trying to find Hippy, they believed that they were doing the wise thing in following the advice of their unknown friend, whose message had been tossed into their camp, so they remained in camp and waited.

When night came and still no Hippy, the depression of the Overlanders increased and there was little conversation, each one appearing to be listening, Emma, with a faraway look in her eyes, now and then relapsing into deep thought. Emma was "con-centrating."

The same arrangement for guarding the camp, as had been carried out the previous night, was again followed. This time, Grace took one side of the camp and Miss Briggs the other. Both hid in deep shadows, each with a rifle at her side and a revolver in its holster. Thus prepared they settled themselves for the night, all the other members of the party being in their tents and, supposedly, asleep.

It was late when Grace and Elfreda were aroused by Washington talking, muttering in his sleep, then the nerves of the two girls leaped to attention as, out of the bushes on Miss Briggs' side of the camp, a twig snapped. It was accompanied by a sound that indicated the presence of a human being.

"Who goes?" demanded Elfreda sharply.

Bang!

Without giving the maker of the noise out there time to answer, she fired a shot from her revolver into the trees in that direction, but high enough to be certain that one underneath them would not be hit.

Miss Briggs' shot brought instant results.

"Hey there! Cut the gun!" howled Hippy Wingate.

"It's Hippy!" breathed Grace, springing to her feet. "Don't shoot, Elfreda!"

The two girls sprang up and waited. They were still cautious, but their companions, awakened by the shot, were not. Nora, Anne and Emma rushed out, demanding excitedly to know what the trouble was.

At this juncture Hippy walked into the clearing.

"Meet me with a pail of food! I'm starving!" he wailed.

For the next few minutes there was excitement in the camp, Nora clinging to Hippy's neck laughing and crying, Emma standing a little aloof from them with a superior smile on her face, Anne, urging the wide-eyed Washington to start the fire and prepare coffee, and Grace seeking to quiet Nora so that they might hear Hippy's story.

When the campfire blazed up and they saw his condition, Nora wept again. Hippy was hatless-his hat was out in the bushes where Grace, after finding it, had secreted it-his clothes were torn, he was hollow-eyed, and his head wore a lump that stood out prominently.

"Never mind the trimmings. Give me food," he begged. Then between mouthfuls he told the story of his capture so far as he knew it, told it to the moment of his reaching the Overland camp. Hippy said he intended, if possible, to creep in quietly without awakening any one and give the girls a big surprise in the morning, when Elfreda threw a wrench into the machinery, "and tried to wing me," he added amid laughter.

"I could not afford to wait," answered Miss Briggs.

"You sure are some quick on the trigger," declared Hippy. "The fellow who was with me ducked, and I heard him chuckling and laughing as he sneaked away."

"Yes, but, had it not been for me, you might not have been here, Lieutenant Wingate," interjected Emma Dean.

"Eh? How's that, Emma?"

"Why, I-I con-centrated on you and brought you back," answered Emma solemnly.

"What a pity," murmured Hippy sadly. "And she so young."

"Who was the man who rescued you?" questioned Grace, after the laugh at Emma's expense had subsided.

"I don't know. I never saw him before. He is a slick article, whoever he may be."

"Are you certain that it was not our Mystery Man?" asked Anne.

"I am. Say! We must get out of here right smart, for there is going to be trouble," urged Hippy.

"I should say that we already have had our share of it," complained Elfreda.

"Yes, but this is different, child. The mountaineers are after us-after me especially," he added, throwing out his chest a little.

"After you-after you, Hippy, my darlin'?" cried Nora. "Why should they be after you?"

"I don't know any more about it than you do. Perhaps the little mix-ups we had with those two fellows may have something to do with it."

"It must be something more serious than revenge for your having bounced one and driven the other one away," offered Grace. "Will you please tell me why we should move in such a hurry?"

"Because the fellow who got me out of my scrape said we must. He says we have got to make Thompson's farm as quickly as possible and stay there until the storm blows over," insisted Lieutenant Wingate. "Of course, I don't give a rap for myself, but I have a great moral responsibility."

"A what?" interjected Emma.

"Moral responsibility. I am responsible for the safety of you girls and my powerful body shall stand between you and all harm."

"Ahem-m-m," piped Emma Dean.

"To what storm did he refer?" asked Grace. She was regarding Hippy narrowly, not yet sure that he was not joking, though she did not believe he was.

"I don't know, Brown Eyes. That depends upon which way the wind blows. It feels like snow to me. He did not say what kind of storm, but he strongly advised what I have told you," answered the lieutenant.

"It doesn't sound reasonable to me. I do not see how we should be any safer on the farm you speak of, than we shall be by following the trail to Hall's Corners, all the time attending strictly to our own business," observed Elfreda.

"Nor do I," agreed Grace.

"I will tell you why, Elfreda," answered Hippy. "We shall be safer there, where, for some reason, my informant doesn't seem to think those ruffians will bother us. Whereas, if we remain out and continue on our way to our destination, I shall probably be shot. Those mountaineers are bound to get me."

"What?" gasped Nora Wingate. "Hippy, my darlin', do you mean it?"

"Yes I do. There is a price on my head up here! That's the whole story."

"A price! Huh! If there is, I'll wager that it is a cut-rate price. Good-night! I am going back to bed." Emma Dean turned her back on them and flounced off to her tent.

* * *