Read Ebook: Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers by Chase Josephine

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Ebook has 1763 lines and 50777 words, and 36 pages

"I fear that boy is not going to do at all," said Grace's husband with a shake of the head. "As I have remarked before, you should have a man for a guide, a man who knows these mountains and who is able to protect and look out for you girls in the event of your getting into trouble."

"But, Tom dear, don't you think the Overland girls by this time should be quite able to look out for themselves?" begged Grace.

"Ordinarily, yes. You are, however, going into territory that is rather wild, going among people that do not value human life or liberty according to our standards. My friend, Colonel Spotsworth, of Louisville, strongly advised against you folks crossing the eastern end of the range, which would take you through mountains where moonshiners and feudists hold forth. I agree with him."

"We have Hippy," suggested Elfreda. "In an emergency he is worth half a dozen of the ordinary kind."

"Yes, but Hippy is not a woodsman. He knows nothing at all about woodcraft, a necessary accomplishment in one who is going to pilot a party of girls across such mountain territory as you propose to travel."

"What's that you say, Tom Gray?" called Lieutenant Wingate from the campfire where he was observing Washington fan it into life.

Grace laughingly repeated what Tom had said.

"Humph! I know all I need to know about woodcraft," declared Hippy with emphasis. "When I smell wood burning in the kitchen stove I know it is time to eat. What more knowledge of woodcraft does a fellow need?"

"Amply sufficient for you, Hippy. But what about the rest of the party?" grinned Tom Gray.

"As I was about to say," resumed Grace, "we shall be up with you in a few weeks. How long do you reckon it will take you to finish your government contract to survey that tract in the Cumberlands?"

"Possibly four weeks. Not longer."

"Call it three weeks--three weeks from to-day. That will make it the twenty-fifth. We will try to be in the vicinity of Hall's Corners on that date, and if you are not there we will wait for you. You will do the same provided we are late in reaching the Corners. Let's have a look at the contour map," suggested Grace.

While the others of the party were busy setting the camp to rights, Washington having removed the packs from the mules, Grace and Tom pored over the map of the eastern section of the mountains. Not only were they planning their routes, but they were critically examining a portion of the map that was encircled with a ring of red ink. The space within the circle represented a tract of mountain land that belonged to Lieutenant Hippy Wingate, property that he had inherited.

Hippy had never seen this property, it having been left to him by a wealthy uncle whose large fortune Hippy had inherited while fighting the Germans in the air in France. He now proposed to look it over. In fact, this journey of the Overland Riders had been planned with that object in view.

Following their return from France, where they had served in the Overton College Unit, Grace having been an ambulance driver at the front, the girls had decided to seek recreation in the saddle each summer. Their first vacation was spent in an exciting ride over the Old Apache Trail in Arizona, following this with a venturesome journey on horseback across the arid waste of the Great American Desert. Lieutenant Wingate's determination to visit his property in the Kentucky Mountains led the Overland Riders, as Grace Harlowe and her friends called themselves, to make those mountains the objective of their third vacation in the saddle.

After Tom Gray had finished his government survey, it was their purpose to proceed with him to Lieutenant Wingate's tract, where Tom was to make a survey and examination of it, so that Hippy might learn whether or not the property possessed any particular value.

"Hippy says his uncle took the property in payment of a debt, but that the uncle never had considered it to be worth much of anything," said Tom reflectively. "From what little I know of that section of the country, I am inclined to agree with him. However, we shall see when we get there."

"Who knows but that Hippy may find still another fortune awaiting him there?" suggested Grace.

Tom shook his head and smiled.

"It would be Hippy's luck, wouldn't it? He doesn't need it; he already has more money than he knows what to do with. Nor have I the slightest hope that he will find anything of value there. The twenty-fifth, then, it is. I shall make Chapman's my base and work from there. If necessary to communicate with me in the meantime you may address me there. I--"

"What's this? Henpecking your husband again, Grace Harlowe?" teased Hippy, coming up to them at this juncture.

"Yes, Hip. I am a shining example of a much henpecked husband. What would you do were you a henpecked husband?" questioned Tom quizzically. "Come, now!"

"Well," reflected Hippy, "I think that would depend largely upon the hen."

"You are right," agreed Tom Gray laughingly. "I shall be leaving in the morning, old man, and I have agreed with Grace to meet the Overland outfit at Hall's Corners three weeks from to-day, or as near to that date as possible. We will then make a pilgrimage to the lands of one Lieutenant Wingate and see what we shall find there. Probably nothing more than some wild game, a few rattlers and--and some mountaineers," added Tom significantly.

"I have been thinking, Tom and Grace, that, should we discover anything of real value there, the Overland Riders should share in it. This is a sort of exploration party, and to the discoverers should belong the spoils," declared Hippy.

Tom shook his head.

"No, no," protested Grace. "It is fine of you to make the offer, but I could not permit it for myself, and I am positive that the other girls will not even listen to it."

"You see, Tom, how they spurn me. The instant I get a brilliant thought they promptly duck it in ice water," complained Hippy.

"We will do this much, we will be your guests when we reach your domains, and, if you insist on being liberal, you may cook our meals for us three times a day. However, so far as sharing in your good fortune is concerned, we can do so only in our hearts," decided Grace with emphasis.

Grace immediately acquainted her companions with Hippy's unselfish offer to share with them whatever good fortune might be in store for him in the Kentucky Mountains.

"That is splendid of Hippy," declared Anne, smiling and nodding.

"I tell him, however, that when we are his guests in the Hippy Mountains, he can give us three good meals a day, cooked by his own fair hands, but that is all," announced Grace. "Do I echo your sentiments, girls?"

They said she did. That is, all except Emma Dean agreed with Grace Harlowe. Emma warned them that Hippy had better not offer her a share in anything unless he were prepared in his heart to lose it.

"Very good then, I won't. I withdraw the offer," declared Hippy airily. "I will agree to cook a meal for you over on the range. Mark the words, 'cook a meal for you on the range!' Ha-ha. How is that? I reckon I can stand it to cook a meal for you if you can stand it to eat it. Speaking of food reminds me that I smell bacon frying, so suppose we fall to and devour it, provided it is fit to eat. Personally I am not overloaded with confidence in Laundry's ability as a chef."

Night had settled over the mountains when they finally sat down on the ground by the campfire to eat their supper, the first warm meal they had had since starting out on their journey at daylight that morning.

Washington had done very well with his first meal, considering that he so recently had been kicked out of camp by an irate mule, and the Overland girls admitted that the little colored boy did know how to cook after all, for the bacon, the coffee, and the potatoes, baked in their jackets in hot ashes, were delicious.

The girls, however, had already found it necessary to read Wash a lecture on the beauties of neatness and cleanliness, it having been discovered that, in this direction, Wash-Wash was not all that his nickname implied.

Wash, having been given permission, retired to the edge of the laurel to resume his harmonica exercise. Lying back in the shadows, only the whites of his eyes and the reflection of the light from the campfire on teeth and harmonica were visible to the Overlanders, giving merely a suggestion of a human countenance.

"A nature sketch in black and white," observed Anne Nesbit. "I should think he would weary of blowing that thing so much. He has been doing so all day long."

"Blowing? You are wrong," corrected Hippy. "A harmonica is played with a grunt and a sigh. I could make a brand new pun on that if I wanted to, but--"

"Don't you dare," begged Miss Briggs. "I am long-suffering, but I cannot tolerate the ancient quality of your puns."

"Most spinsters are that way," retorted Lieutenant Wingate. "Tom, have you any orders for me? I suppose I shall have to act as guardian for your wife while you are absent from this outfit. If you have half as difficult a time managing her as I do, I don't envy you your lot. The only bright spot in the situation is that I have to put up with her peculiarities for the duration of this journey only. You are in for life."

"Hippy, I am ashamed of you," rebuked Nora Wingate.

"Thank you. You see, Tom, what a helpmate my little Nora is. I don't have to feel ashamed of any act of mine; I don't have to feel embarrassed after I have put my foot in it, nor anything. Nora does all of that for me. Really, Tom, you ought to train Grace to be ashamed for you for your shortcomings, or to be embarrassed for you. You have no idea what a lot of bother over nothing it relieves a fellow of."

"Nora Wingate is a very busy woman," observed Emma, whereat there was a laugh at Hippy's expense.

"Tom Gray's wife doesn't have to apologize for him," laughed Grace. "Folks, don't you think this conversation is growing rather personal? I would suggest that we all put on the brakes and start something less personal."

The brakes were instantly put on in one direction, but wholly released in another. The music from Washington's harmonica ceased suddenly in the midst of a lofty flight, ending in a gurgle and a gasp. The Overlanders heard it and laughed.

"He's swallowed the music box!" cried Emma.

Wash, finding his voice, uttered a shrill scream of fright that brought the Overland Riders to their feet in alarm. They were amazed to see the colored boy charging across the camp, his feet barely touching the ground, his eyes wide and staring. In his flight he bowled over Grace Harlowe who measured her length on the ground on her back.

"Stop!" shouted Tom Gray, making a grab for the boy, and missing him by an inch or so.

Emma Dean stuck out a foot and succeeded better than she had hoped, for Washington tripped and plunged floundering into the campfire.

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