The lieutenant drew in his head and they heard nothing more from him for some time.
The Deadwood stagecoach swept out with a rattle and a clatter and a groaning in every joint, that aroused the apprehension, not only of its passengers, but of persons on the streets who paused to see the outfit wheel past them, the four horses at a brisk trot.
Leaving the town quickly behind them, the stagecoach swept out into the open. The smoke of the Old Dominion and Inquisition smelting furnaces hung gray against the sky, but the Overton girls were soon past the tall black buildings of cooling copper, riding away toward the west at a pace that caused the stagecoach to complain even more bitterly than before.
It was to be a mere outing, a jaunt in an historic old stagecoach, over an equally historic trail, but that was all, so far as Grace Harlowe and her friends had planned it. What the “jaunt” developed into was an exciting adventure, which had in it all the elements of a real tragedy. Grace already was glorying in the fresh air, the roll of the vehicle under her, and the uncertainty of what the next moment held for her.
“Will our wagon stand a lively run down the grade?” she questioned, as they topped a rise and she saw a stretch of about half a mile of trail falling away and disappearing in the valley below them.
“I reckon it will,” grinned the driver.
“How about the horses?”
“Thet’s all right. Don’t you worry ’bout the nags, Miss.”
“Then shake them out. Let’s stir up those people in the coach and show them what riding in a Deadwood stagecoach really means,” eagerly urged Grace Harlowe.
Ike did. He gave the reins a shake and cracked the long-lashed whip that sounded to Grace like the report of a pistol.
The horses responded instantly, starting down the steep grade at a lively gallop, accompanied by encouraging yelps from Ike Fairweather.
“Thet’s the way we driv when we thought the Redskins was after us,” he called to Grace without turning his head.
Twenty seconds later the coach was rolling like a ship in a heavy sea, accompanied by a medley of shrieks and shouts of protest from the jumbled cargo of passengers inside.
“Faster! Faster, Mr. Fairweather,” urged Grace.
Ike’s yelps grew louder and closer together, and the gallop of the four-horse team became a run. About this time the occupants on the inside of the coach, having reached the limit of their endurance, registered a violent protest.
CHAPTER III
A THRILLING HALT
“HI, up there! Cut the gun!” bellowed the voice of Hippy Wingate, using an aviator’s term for shutting off the power. “Stop it, I say! You will have us all in the ditch!”
Grace grinned at Ike and Ike grinned at his team. Neither made any reply to Hippy’s wail of distress. Grace’s hat was now off, her hair was blowing in the wind, and her eyes were snapping.
“Oh, that was glorious, Mr. Fairweather,” she cried as the stagecoach reached the bottom of the grade and lurched around a sharp curve on two wheels, a proceeding that brought another series of shrieks from the occupants of the coach.
Hippy was still protesting and threatening, then suddenly Grace and Ike were startled at hearing the lieutenant’s voice close behind them, right at their ears, it seemed.
Grace turned and found herself looking into the flushed face of Hippy Wingate whose head and shoulders were above the top of the coach. He was standing on the window sill of the door and clinging to the edge of the roof of the stagecoach.
“Get down, Hippy! You will be thrown off and hurt,” begged Grace.
“I can’t be any worse injured than I am now after being played football with inside of this old box. What’s the matter? Isn’t there a brake on this bundle of junk?”
“I don’t know. Sorry, but I thought you might enjoy a few sideslips to remind you of France. Please stop, Mr. Fairweather. He will break his neck if he tries to get down while we are in motion.”
Ike applied the brake and pulled up the horses, whereupon Hippy sprang down to the trail and swung aboard again.
“If you do that again I’ll walk,” was his parting threat.
“How’d you like it, Miss?” grinned the driver.
“Splendid! I have not had such an exciting ride since one time when I was racing with my ambulance in France to clear a cross-roads ahead of a shell that was on the way there,” declared Grace.
“I was goin’ to ask you ’bout the war. You must have seen some big ones – big shells?”
“Many of them.”
“Never got hit, did you!”
“I was wounded three times.”
“You don’t say!” Ike gazed at her with new interest. “Was he in the war, too?” referring to Hippy.
“Yes, as an aviator, and fought many battles in the air. All the young women who are with us on this drive also saw service in the war zone in France. They were a part of the Overton College Unit that went overseas for the Red Cross.”
“Must have been purty bad business, thet.”
“It was, but I would not have missed it for anything. Did many men from your city go to the war?”
Ike nodded.
“Some didn’t come back, neither. S’pose your ambulance got hit once, anyway?”
“I lost four cars during the time I was driving. Two were blown up and the others were wrecked in accidents,” Grace informed her companion on the driver’s seat. “My husband is still in the service. He is now in Russia where he was sent after the armistice was signed.”
“Your husband? You don’t say! I wouldn’t think it. Why, you don’t look like more’n a school girl. I’ll bet he’d like to be here right this minute.”
“And I’ll bet I should like to have him here, too,” answered Grace smilingly. “Do you think we shall be able to stir up any excitement on the trail? We propose to do the entire journey on our ponies, you know, starting the day after to-morrow.”
“Mebby, mebby,” reflected Ike.
“Are there any Apaches left in the mountains?” questioned Grace.
“Yes. Too many of ’em.”
“Friendly?”
“Sometimes when they want to beg or steal somethin’ from you. Don’t trust ’em, Miss. An Indian’s an Indian, ’specially when he’s an Apache. They’d do a heap lot more than they do if they dared. Can you shoot?”
“Some,” admitted Grace.
“I’ll bet you’re a dead shot. If them eyes was behind a gun thet was pinted at me, I’d put up my hands without bein’ asked a second time.”
“Were you ever held up by bandits?” asked Grace, eager to get the old stagecoach driver started talking of his experiences.
“Regular thing in the old days.”
“What did you do in those emergencies?”
“Ginerally put up my paws when I was invited to. Such fellows can shoot and most always does.”
“But, Mr. Fairweather, did your passengers never venture to defend themselves!”
“Once a man did. He’s down there now, near where we’re goin’ to stop for chuck – in Squaw Valley.”
“He was not quick enough! Is that it, sir!”
“You said it. Was the Germans quick on the trigger?”
“Their