Nora explained that Emma wished to drive away in style.
“Wait! Just wait, Emma, until we return from this trip of ours. If we do not show the Globites something new in styles after we have passed through the refining influences of the Apache Trail, I shall admit that I am not a prophetess,” laughed Elfreda. “I just now saw Hippy with his coat off working on that old ark, that he calls a stagecoach, before an admiring audience of natives. He was making himself conspicuous. Are we expected to trust life and limb to that ancient craft, Grace Harlowe?”
“We are and we shall,” answered Grace.
“Then I think those of you who have property had better make your wills before embarking. Nora, this applies especially to you and Hippy who so recently have come into a fortune. Grace made her will before going overseas to drive an ambulance on the French front, but Emma, having spent all her money on finery, had no need to make a will.”
“How about yourself?” questioned Grace teasingly.
“I am merely a struggling young lawyeress who isn’t supposed to have money to will, and who most assuredly has no clients to pay her any. Isn’t it about time for luncheon?”
Grace said it was, but that they were waiting for Hippy so that all might sit down together.
Lieutenant Wingate came in shortly after that, covered with dirt, and a beauty spot on one cheek.
“You are a sight, Hippy Wingate,” chided Grace. “How did you get yourself in such a condition?”
“Helping the man grease the wagon.”
“You go right up to our room and make yourself fit to sit down with civilized persons,” ordered Nora. “I am ashamed to own you as my husband.”
“Isn’t that a fine way to order around a fellow who has fought the Boche on high, and who will go down in history as a brave air fighter?” teased Anne.
“Some husbands have to be ordered. Mine is one of them,” answered Nora, giving Hippy’s ear a tweak. “Now run along, little man.”
Hippy kissed Nora and ran upstairs laughing to himself. Nora’s scolding did not even penetrate skin deep with Lieutenant Wingate, nor did she intend that it should.
Soon after that the Overton College girls filed into the dining room where a number of tourists were having luncheon. The girls, in their overseas uniforms, attracted attention at once, many of the guests having been told who the young women, with the tanned faces and familiar uniforms, were. The guests also had been informed that the man with the party was Lieutenant Wingate, a noted American air fighter who stood high up in the list of those who had downed more than twenty enemy planes.
As she took her seat at the table, Grace bowed smilingly to two ladies who had come in on the train with them that morning.
“Girls, what shall we eat?” she asked.
“Speaking for myself as a modest person, I think I shall begin at the top of the menu and eat my way all the way down to the bottom,” observed Hippy solemnly amid the laughter of the others.
Luncheon finished, the party went out sight-seeing, and for a look at the ponies that Hippy had hired for the trip over the Old Apache Trail, on which journey they would have started on the following morning had Grace not chanced to discover the old Deadwood stagecoach.
At three o’clock that afternoon the party of Overton girls loaded their belongings, such as would be needed for a twenty-four hour jaunt, into an automobile, and drove to the stable where the stage driver, Ike Fairweather by name, was preparing to harness up the four horses that were to draw the coach.
Hippy removed his coat and assisted in the operations, while the girls inspected the stagecoach and stowed away their belongings.
Emma’s nose went up ever so little when she peered into the interior of the vehicle, observing the old rickety wooden seats, the tattered curtains and the cracks in the warped flooring.
“If this old ark lasts until we get out of town, I am no prophet,” she declared. “What if it breaks down?”
“We can walk, just as some of us have had to do in France when an ambulance went out of commission,” answered Grace laughingly. She then placed blankets on the hardwood seats and packed their provisions underneath.
By this time Ike was hooking up the four horses. That he was an experienced man Grace saw after observing him critically for a few moments, and she was certain that they could safely trust themselves to his driving.
“I have a lurking idea that the girls of this outfit are in for a ride that they will not soon forget, even though things look favorable,” she thought, smiling to herself.
“Grace Harlowe, what are you laughing at?” demanded Anne.
“I was thinking of something very, very funny,” replied Grace.
“Let me in on the joke, please,” begged Emma.
“Not now. Perhaps later on.”
Elfreda regarded her frowningly.
“If you play any tricks on us, Loyalheart, you will be sorry,” warned Miss Briggs.
“How can you even suggest such a thing?” cried Grace. “Did you ever know me to play pranks on my friends?”
“There have been occasions when suspicions assumed real shapes in my mind,” retorted Elfreda.
“See to it that this is not one of those occasions. I believe we are about ready to make our start. Mr. Fairweather, where is there a good place for us to make camp to-night? I do not think we should try to make the Lodge this evening. All we desire is to take the coach into the mountains, make camp, and come back in the early morning. It doesn’t matter whether or not we go so far as the Lodge.”
“Squaw Valley or just beyond I reckon is as good as any place on the trail,” observed the driver, reflectively stroking his whiskers.
“How far is that from here – I mean Squaw Valley?”
“Nigh onto thirty mile, I reckon.”
“That, I think, will be about as much of a trip as my companions can stand, so we will say Squaw Valley, or the next available point. I leave the selection of the camping place to your judgment. What time do you think we shall reach the Valley?”
“’Bout ten o’clock. Have to go slow when we get into the hills, an’ we bump ’em right smart after leavin’ Globe. Sharp turns and narrow trail in spots, but it ain’t much like the days when I driv a coach an’ four in the hills an’ carried the mail an’ kep’ a weather eye out for bandits. Since then them buzz wagons has took all the starch out of livin’. Ever drive one?”
“I drove an ambulance at the front for nearly a year of the war,” answered Grace quietly.
“You don’t say?” Ike regarded the slender figure of the young Overton girl, his gaze finally coming to rest on her well-tanned face. “Come to look you over, you’ve got a mighty steady eye an’ a good jaw. I’ve seen thet kind before an’ sometimes behind a gun. Thet kind is fine till you get them riled, then look out for the lightnin’. Where you goin’ to ride?”
“Outside with you until we reach Squaw Valley, if I may,” answered Grace smilingly.
“Glad to have you. All aboard thet’s goin’!”
“Please get in with the girls, Hippy. Later on you and I will change seats, if that will suit you,” said Grace.
The lieutenant stood aside until the four girls were safely stowed away in the stagecoach, Grace, in the meantime, having swung herself up to the front seat with the driver. The door slammed, Ike cracked his whip, and the coach started with a jolt that brought strong protest from the passengers down below.
“Hey there, you!” shouted Hippy, thrusting his head out. “I haven’t got my safety belt on, so don’t take off like that again or you will