Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Old Apache Trail. Chase Josephine
may need them ourselves. Mr. Fairweather, if you will get the horses ready we will load up and start.”
Ike removed his sombrero and wiped his forehead on his sleeve.
“Yes, I’ll get ’em ready, but what Ike Fairweather wants to say, he can’t, ’cause somehow it sticks in his crop an’ won’t come out. You’re the real thing, all of you is, an’ any galoot that says you ain’t – well, Ike Fairweather will take care of thet critter.”
“You fellows, I have a word for you,” announced Grace, turning to the prisoners. “I warn you that if you try to get away I shall shoot.”
“Which, altogether an’ in partic’lar means thet the everlastin’ daylights will be blown out of the critter thet tries to get away,” reminded Ike. “Fair warnin’s fair warnin’.”
“But not Fairweather,” chuckled Hippy Wingate, which brought a groan of disapproval from the Overton girls.
Placing the prisoners on the horses and tying them securely was a proceeding that took some little time, so that it was fully an hour later before the procession started out, Elfreda, Anne, Emma and Nora riding on the two leading horses, Ike leading the prisoners’ mounts, Hippy in the middle of the procession, and Grace Harlowe, with a bandit’s rifle slung in the crook of her right arm, bringing up the rear.
The highwaymen were sullen, not uttering a word, so far as Grace had heard, though she had no doubt that they had quietly exchanged confidences. The one who was most severely wounded was the man whose scalp a bullet had raked, but he apparently was in no danger, though still weak from loss of blood.
“Is there a place where we can get breakfast, if still on the trail in the morning?” called Anne.
“Narry a place,” answered Ike Fairweather.
They plodded on, Grace, if anything, being the most cheerful and contented member of the party. At break of day they halted, having made about ten miles of the thirty. From the little kit pack in which each one carried emergency rations, they eked out a slender breakfast, though they had neither coffee nor tea, that part of the food supply being at the bottom of the canyon in the wreckage of the old Deadwood coach. The prisoners, however, refused to eat, maintaining a sullen silence as they watched their captors partaking of breakfast.
At the noon halt, Grace and Elfreda dressed the prisoners’ wounds, binding them up with skillful hands with pieces of cloth torn from skirts. It was not the first time that either Grace Harlowe or Elfreda Briggs had dressed bullet wounds, both having been called upon to do so in numerous instances on the western front in France. The prisoners watched the dressing operations without uttering a word of comment, but the expressions on their faces were not pleasant to look upon.
Ike, who had been regarding the wound-dressing with interest, turned, as the girls finished their work, and walked away running his fingers through his whiskers.
The prisoners were placed on the horses and secured, after which the party started on again.
“Horses comin’ up the trail,” announced Ike, a few moments later, holding up a hand for the party to stop.
Grace ran forward to halt the two horses carrying the four girls.
“Some one is coming, girls. Go back and get out of the way in case there should be trouble,” she directed.
Grace joined Ike after the girls had taken up a safe position, Hippy standing expectantly by the prisoners, the outfit, with rifles in hand, ready to meet whatever trouble might be in store for them.
Three horsemen swept around a bend in the trail, and the instant they hove in sight, Ike Fairweather uttered a shout.
“It’s Deputy Sheriff Wheelock,” he cried. “Now we’re all right. Howdy, Wheelock!”
The deputy, upon recognizing Ike, swung down from his horse, doffed his hat to Grace, and turned to Mr. Fairweather.
“What do you reckon you’ve got here!” demanded the deputy.
Ike explained who and what his outfit was, relating briefly the story of the loss of the stagecoach and the capture of the bandits.
“This little woman did the business. Deputy Sheriff Wheelock, Mrs. Gray,” introduced Ike.
“Do you know the prisoners, sir?” she asked.
After looking the bandits over closely, the deputy shook his head. He asked Ike if he needed any assistance to get the prisoners in. Grace answered the question by saying that they did not.
“We’re going out after a fellow who lives in the mountains and who has been shooting game out of season, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll send one of my men to Globe in a hurry and have him ride out to the sheriff’s ranch and get him,” offered the deputy. “That will save you waiting for the sheriff when you get in. I reckon maybe these are fellows that Sheriff Collins has been looking for. Take your men right to the jail, Ike, and Collins will do the rest.”
After starting one of his men back toward Globe, Mr. Wheelock, mounted, waved a hand, and, with his assistant, galloped on. The Overton party assumed its former formation and plodded on, weary, but encouraged by the realization that only a few hours now separated them from their goal.
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