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CHAPTER V
ON THE TRAIL OF THE MISSING

“Have the train draw up here and wait for us,” Sheriff Ford directed, as the trainmen were about to return to their train after the bandits had finally been driven off. “Those ruffians have had enough, and won’t come back. Some of them are wounded, too.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked a trainman.

“No. I’m going to look for Lieutenant Wingate. He may be on the train, but, if he is not, have the engineer give us three whistles.”

“Hippy wouldn’t go back without us,” declared Tom Gray with emphasis.

“Go back to your train, men, while we look for our friend,” urged Sheriff Ford.

The train crew lost no time in following Ford’s advice, being eager to get away from that locality. Stacy Brown was sent back with them to put on his clothes. Stacy was shivering in his pajamas, but the fat boy had done his duty as steadily as any of his companions, and fully proven his courage, thus winning the admiration of Sheriff Ford and Tom Gray. The two other volunteer passengers, one a salesman for a Chicago grocery house, the other a Colorado ranchman, announced their intention of remaining with the sheriff to assist him in his search.

Shortly after the departure of the trainmen, three long blasts of the locomotive whistle told the party that Lieutenant Wingate had not returned to the train.

“That settles it, men. It is up to us to get to work,” declared the sheriff. Ford divided his forces and sent parties in various directions to search for the missing Hippy Wingate, hoping, and partly believing, that the lieutenant had probably met up with the bandits on their retreat into the mountains after abandoning their attack on the train, and secreted himself somewhere in the vicinity of the attempted hold-up.

The Overlanders were now in the Sierras, and the country all about them was wild and uninhabited. After surveying his surroundings with critical eyes, Ford took to the ravine up which Hippy had gone in attempting to get back to his companions, and soon found the place where the bandits had staked down their horses.

Two warning whistles, the engineer’s regular signal that the train was about to start ahead, caused the sheriff to run down the ravine to the railroad, at the same time firing three shots to recall his companions.

“Get aboard in a hurry!” shouted the conductor, leaning from the engine cab as the train came back to the scene of the attempted robbery.

“Wait! Has Lieutenant Wingate returned?” demanded Ford.

“No!” shouted Stacy Brown from the platform of the smoking car. “Didn’t you find him?”

“Are you positive, Stacy?” called Tom Gray, running up at this juncture.

“He is not on the train, Tom,” answered Grace Harlowe from a vestibule doorway. “The engineer said he dropped off just as the engine began backing down. Tom, you must search for Hippy. Nora is nearly wild from worry over him.”

“We are going to find him, little woman,” answered Captain Gray.

“Are you folks going to get aboard?” demanded the conductor insistently.

“No. We’re not going to leave that man here by a long shot,” retorted Ford.

“All right. Stay if you want to. We’re going ahead,” snapped the conductor.

“Stop!” ordered the sheriff. “You hold this train until I give you leave to move it. I am an officer of the law, and in command here for the present. Captain Gray, what do you wish to do?”

“Find the lieutenant, Sheriff.”

“Then, would it not be a good idea to unload your ponies?” asked Ford. “We may have to be here until tomorrow, and perhaps make a long journey into the interior, which we cannot well do on foot.”

“Yes. We will unload enough animals to carry your party,” answered Tom.

“Pull your train up to the mouth of the ravine and stop,” commanded Ford, clambering aboard the locomotive. “Get aboard there, boys.”

The train promptly pulled ahead while the sheriff had his final argument with the conductor in the locomotive cab. The argument was brief, but heated, the sheriff laying down the law to the angry conductor, who, by the time his train had reached the mouth of the ravine, was wholly subdued.

The Overland Riders stepped off the train to watch the unloading of the ponies and to get instructions from Tom and Mr. Ford.

“We are about twenty-five miles from Gardner,” said the sheriff, addressing Grace. “You people, I believe, intend to detrain there. Have someone unload your stock and then wait until we return. You will find a very fair little hotel at Gardner.”

“We will wait,” answered Grace composedly.

Ford called upon the train crew to assist in unloading the ponies. Unloading boards were obtained from the baggage car with which a rather substantial gangway was constructed, and down it the light-footed ponies – five of them – were led without the least difficulty. Rifles and light equipment for the party were unloaded, the rest of the Overlanders’ property and two ponies being left on the train.

While the unloading was in progress Tom Gray went to the dining car and purchased provisions, consisting of canned goods, pork and beans and a side of bacon. Stacy Brown, who had gone back to the sleeping car for something he wanted from his suitcase, dropped in while Tom was bartering, and helped his companion carry back their purchases. By the time they reached the head of the train all was in readiness for the departure.

Ford waved the lantern that he had borrowed from the conductor.

“Go ahead,” he called to the conductor. “Mrs. Gray, don’t forget to report to Gardner what has become of us. If we are not back in two days have them send a posse for us.”

“I understand,” answered Grace Harlowe.

“I say, you! You might have Emma do a little transmigrating for us while we’re away. I reckon we’ll be needing it,” called back Stacy.

As the train pulled out, the passengers, including the girls of the Overland party, were gathered on the platforms cheering. The searching party now consisted, besides Sheriff Ford, of Tom Gray, Stacy Brown and the two passengers who had been with them from the first, making five in all.

“Now, sir, what is your plan?” demanded Tom after they had saddled and made ready to start.

“I think we will follow up the ravine for a little way,” answered the sheriff. “Your man went this way. I know because the fireman saw him take to the ravine. One of you lead my horse; I’m going ahead on foot with the lantern.”

“If you have no objection, I will go with you,” offered Tom.

Ford nodded, and the two started away, the others, on the ponies, keeping well to the rear.

The two men in advance finally reached the point in the ravine where Lieutenant Wingate had been struck down. With lantern held close to the ground, the sheriff went over it on hands and knees, examining every foot of the ground.

“Stand where you are until I come back,” he directed, addressing Tom Gray. “Do you recognize this?” he asked, holding up a hat, upon his return a few moments later.

“It is the lieutenant’s hat,” answered Tom promptly, and Stacy Brown agreed with him.

“What’s the use of a hat without a head to wear it?” demanded Stacy.

“This!” replied Ford. “I have proved one thing. Our man came this way, but beyond this point the only trace of him is the hat. Unless I am much mistaken, he left here on the back of a horse, and he went that way.” The sheriff pointed up the ravine. “It is fair to assume that he did not go voluntarily. The only inference possible, then, is that he has been taken.”

“Captured by the bandits!” exclaimed Tom.

Ford nodded.

“For what reason?”

“Candidly, I don’t know, Captain. We have got to find out, and it is advisable for us to go in search of the answer to that question as fast as we can. We will mount and move on.”

“I suppose I am the one who will have to furnish the brains for this party and find the missing man,” declared Stacy pompously, but no one laughed at his sally.

A minute later they were mounted and on their way up the ravine, the sheriff still carrying the lantern, which he held low, keeping his gaze constantly on the trail, which still was fairly plain and easy for an experienced man to follow. Stacy dropped behind a little way and produced a plum pudding can from his pocket. Opening the can, he calmly proceeded to eat the pudding.

“What’s that you’re eating?” demanded one of the two passengers.

“Pudding. A plum one.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Oh, back there in the diner,” answered Stacy carelessly.

“You stole a pudding, eh?” laughed the questioner.

“Oh, my; no, sir. How could you think such a thing? Don’t you know I wouldn’t do anything like that?”

“Oh! You paid for it,” nodded the passenger.

“I did not. Captain Gray did. You see it was this way. The captain paid for six cans of baked beans, but they gave him only five cans. The colored gentleman in the diner cheated us out of one can, and probably pocketed the difference, so I sort of helped myself to a pudding to even things up.”

“Humph! You are a young man of unusual ability. You should have been a lawyer.”

“I know it,” admitted Chunky.

An exclamation from Ford interrupted the conversation. The sheriff had picked up a handkerchief which Tom thought belonged to Hippy Wingate. They believed that the lieutenant had dropped it purposely, knowing full well that pursuit would follow promptly when his friends discovered that he was missing.

“We are on the trail all right,” cried the sheriff. “Look sharp and don’t make much noise about it, either.”

Daybreak found the outfit still in the saddle. Now that they could see, Ford threw away the lantern, and, after watering their ponies at a mountain spring, they pressed on with all speed. The men ate a cold breakfast in the saddle, there being no time to waste in halting to cook breakfast. Further, the smoke from a camp-fire would be a danger signal to the men for whom they were searching.

About nine o’clock in the morning the sheriff and Tom found a split-trail. The two trails led up a steep incline to a small plateau. There they discovered the remains of a camp-fire. Ford dismounted and ran his fingers through the ashes.

“There has been a fire here within a few hours,” he announced.

“And the trail has gone to pieces,” added Stacy Brown who had got down from his pony and begun nosing about.

“The bandits have taken different directions from here, haven’t they?” questioned the sheriff, glancing up.

“Yes. I’ll tell you what let’s do. Let’s shut our eyes and let the ponies decide which trail to take,” suggested Chunky gravely. “My Bismarck can follow the trail of a squirrel.”

“This is not a squirrel trail,” answered Ford briefly. “There are five of us men here. Four will take separate trails while one remains here. Let each man follow his trail for, say, three hours, then, whether or not he has discovered anything, he will return to this point. We can then decide upon further action.”

“I have an idea that the bandits discovered that they were being followed,” suggested one of the two passengers. “Otherwise, why should they split up and take different trails?”

“Yes. I agree with you,” nodded the sheriff. Mr. Ford decided that one of the passenger volunteers should remain behind, then assigned the other passenger and Tom, Stacy and himself to follow the bandits’ trails, Ford selecting what seemed to be the most promising trail for himself.

Full understanding of what each one was to do was had, then the four rode away, leaving their guard where he could see, yet remain hidden.

The four trails led on for five miles without a break. Stacy, full of importance because of the duty assigned to him, was watching his trail closely, and, had he been less observant, he might have missed the point where the trail again split. Discovering this, he halted and sat regarding the two trails with solemn eyes.

“Sharp trick,” he nodded. “It doesn’t fool Stacy Brown, though.” He decided that the left-hand trail swung over towards the one that Tom Gray was riding, perhaps joining it a short distance from the junction where Stacy was at that moment. Having come to this conclusion, the fat boy had a bright idea. He would take a short cut across country. He knew that this was a risky thing to do, but he had several mountain peaks for landmarks and did not believe that he could go astray, so he started full of confidence, leaving both trails behind him.

An hour-and-a-half passed. Stacy still had thirty minutes to ride before it would be time for him to turn back towards the starting point, as he learned by consulting his watch, and he decided to make the most of those thirty minutes.

“There! Didn’t I tell you?” he cried as he rode out into an open space and instantly discovered the hoof-prints of several horses on the soft ground. “I was positive that I couldn’t be wrong. My time is up, but I have found the spot where the rascals got together. Now I’ll just turn about and follow it home. This is the trail we must follow to find Uncle Hip. Yes, I’ll go back and report.”

Stacy Brown’s intentions were good, and, well satisfied with what he had accomplished, he rode along humming softly to himself, now and then confiding his opinions to his pony. The little animal wiggled its ears as if it understood.

“Hulloa! There goes the sun. Seven o’clock! Who would have thought it? According to my watch I’ve been back at the forks for a quarter of an hour. I wonder if I really have?” Stacy regarded his surroundings narrowly. “No. I never saw any of you mountain-peak fellows before. I must have made a mistake in my reckonings, but I’ve got a biscuit in my pocket, and we’ll be able to go quite a distance on one biscuit, especially on this kind of a biscuit. Some biscuits go a great deal farther than others. This is one of the farther kind,” finished Chunky, performing a series of contortions as he tried to break off a piece of biscuit with his teeth.

The pony was laboring up a steep incline, the stirrup straps creaking in rhythm with the animal’s quick, short steps, Stacy’s body, from the belt up, bobbing upwards and backwards with monotonous regularity. The reins lay over the saddle pommel, thus giving the pony’s head full play and enabling it to snatch a mouthful of greens here and there.

Suddenly the little animal threw its head up and snorted. Stacy Brown ceased munching and sat staring wide-eyed.

“Suffering cats! You’re IT, Stacy Brown!” he gasped.

Jerking his rifle from the saddle-boot he fired three quick shots over the head of his pony.

CHAPTER VI
CHUNKY MEETS THE BANDITS

The pony had nosed its way around the base of a high rock, fetching up on a meadow, when Stacy made the discovery that startled him. What he saw was a group of men sitting about a cook-fire, hurriedly eating a meal while their ponies grazed on the mountain grass some distance from the fire.

The boy knew instantly that he had stumbled upon the bandits. He realized, too, in those brief seconds, that he must be a long way from the place where he was to meet his companions.

The desperadoes saw the intruder about the time that Chunky saw them. Used to emergencies and quick action, the men sprang for their rifles, which were standing against a boulder near at hand. Chunky also saw that Lieutenant Wingate was not with them. Had the boy thought twice he would have held his fire, but, as it turned out, his shots served a good purpose. It startled the bandits, causing momentary confusion, which gave Stacy an opportunity to head in an opposite direction, which he was not slow in doing.

“Ye-o-o-o-ow!” howled the fat boy in a shrill, piercing voice. The shots and the yells startled the bandits’ ponies as it had their owners. The horses threw up their heads, snorted and galloped into the mountain meadow, fully twenty rods from the camp, while the boy threw himself on the neck of his pony, fully expecting a shot or a volley from them, and dashed around the base of a high rock at a perilous pace. He had no more than reached the protection of the rock than the pock, pock of rifle bullets, as they hit the rock to his rear, reached his ears.

“Oh, wow!” howled Chunky. “I lost my biscuit.” In ordinary circumstances he would have gone back to look for the biscuit, but just now Stacy was in somewhat of a hurry. Fortunately for the boy, it took the bandits fully twenty minutes to round up their horses, by which time the fat boy was far in the lead, riding like mad. He had lost all sense of direction, but perhaps the pony had not. The little animal had taken affairs into its own control and was laying out its own trail.

The bandits, instead of following, rode with all speed farther into the mountains, but Chunky continued on at his same perilous pace, even though darkness had now overtaken him.

“Whoa, Bismarck!” commanded Chunky finally, reining in his pony. “Do you know where you’re going, or don’t you?”

The pony rattled the bit between its teeth, tossed its head up and down, and uttered a loud whinny.

“You said ‘yes,’ didn’t you? All right, if you know where you are, go along. You surely can’t know any less about it than I do.”

Rider and mount resumed their journey at a somewhat slower pace, and rode on until Stacy was brought to a sudden stop by a sharp, gruff word of command.

“Halt!” ordered a voice just ahead of him. The pony gave a startled jump that nearly unhorsed its rider.

“Oh, wow!” howled Chunky, and on the impulse of the moment he fired two quick shots at the sound.

“Stop it! It’s Tom Gray. Haven’t you any more sense than to blaze away before you know at what you are shooting?”

“Oh, fiddlesticks! Had you been through what I have you would shoot at the drop of the hat. Are you lost, too?”

“Lost? I am not lost. Don’t you know where you are?”

“No. I might be in the suburbs of Chillicothe for all I know.”

“The camp is only a few rods away,” Tom Gray informed him.

“You don’t say?” wondered Chunky.

“We heard you coming, and thought it might be Mr. Ford. How did you happen to come in over that trail?”

“Ask Bismarck. He knows all about it. I don’t. Got any news about Uncle Hip?”

“No. Of course you saw nothing of either him or the bandits.”

“I not only found the robbers, but I had a battle with them,” answered Stacy.

“What’s that? Don’t trifle, Brown. This is a serious matter,” rebuked Tom.

“I’m telling you the truth. It was this way. I was riding along, peaceful like, when, all of a sudden, biff, boom, bang! It seemed to me that fifty or a hundred men burst from the bushes.”

“So many as that?” laughed Tom.

“Well, something like that. I may be a dozen or so out of the way, but you see I didn’t stop to count them. I raised my trusty rifle and – well, to make a long story short, I fired right into that howling bunch of bandits. I suppose I emptied as many as twelve saddles.”

“Wait a moment,” urged one of the travelers who had joined them. “How many times did you reload?”

“Not at all. I didn’t have time.”

“Captain Gray, he emptied twelve saddles, so he must have shot two men with each bullet, as his magazine holds only six cartridges. I call that some shooting.”

“Is that so? Then I must have done as you say. Wonderful, wasn’t it?”

At this juncture, Sheriff Ford rode into camp and was quickly told of what Stacy had discovered. Mr. Ford, after a few quick questions, realized that the boy really had stumbled on the right trail and discovered the bandits.

“You did well, young man,” he complimented. “I thought I had struck a lead, but the trail pinched out. Can you take us to the place where you came on those ruffians?”

“No, but the pony can, or you can follow my trail. I reckon I left a pretty plain one. I know Uncle Hip better than you do, and if he has been able to get away from the fellows who captured him I’ll guarantee that he will find us. He would know we wouldn’t go away and leave him. For that reason I suggest that we build a fire to attract Uncle Hip’s attention, should he be in this vicinity.”

One of the men protested, saying it would be dangerous, but the sheriff agreed with Stacy.

“We will have a fire and will post guards to protect ourselves,” he said. “We shall not be bothered by the bandits to-night; I am positive of that. They know that the alarm has been given and that, in all probability, a posse is already on their trail. If nothing develops during the night – if we get no news from Lieutenant Wingate – we will start for Gardner in the morning and organize a big searching party to comb the mountains for him.”

After all phases of the situation had been discussed, the sheriff’s plan was agreed to, and a fire was built up. It had been blazing for some time when, in a lull in the conversation, Stacy was reminded that he had not finished telling about his meeting with the bandits.

“Yes. You left off with shooting two men with each bullet,” laughed Tom Gray.

“In the excitement of meeting up with the villains,” resumed Stacy, without an instant’s hesitation, “I wheeled the pony – spun him about on his hind feet like a top, set him down on all fours and dashed away. We didn’t gallop, we simply dashed. You know it wasn’t that I was afraid. Anyone who knows me knows that nothing can scare me. I – ”

“Bang, bang, bang!”

“Oh, wow!” howled the fat boy, diving head first into a clump of bushes where he crouched wide-eyed, the chill creepers chasing up and down his spinal column. The others of the party sprang up and snatched their rifles, Ford kicking the blazing wood of the camp-fire aside, and Tom Gray dousing it with a pail of water.

“Lie low, everybody, till I find out what this means!” commanded the sheriff sharply.

“Are – are we attacked? Have the scoundrels come back?” chattered Chunky.

“Be quiet!” Mr. Ford crept out into the darkness, the others waiting in tense expectancy listening for a rifle volley.

Tom thought the shots they had heard were signals, but no one else believed such to be the case.

The flash of a revolver, a sharp report close at hand, was followed by a shout from Stacy Brown and two shots from his own weapon at a shadowy moving figure skulking behind a clump of bushes.