Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods Part 24

"So?"

"Yes, we did, Mr. Horse. And some one shot a hole through his wooden leg. Who do you suppose could have done that?"

"Big Friend, huh?" he questioned, looking up at Hippy.

"Not guilty," answered Hippy with a shake of the head.

"How come?" demanded the Indian.

Emma Dean told him the story, w.i.l.l.y listening gravely, puffing slowly at his pipe, eyes fixed on the campfire. He smoked on in silence for some time after the conclusion of her narrative.

"Mebby w.i.l.l.y find out," he grunted.

"You suspect, don't you?" demanded Elfreda, who had been narrowly observing the Indian.

"Make breakfast. We go soon. w.i.l.l.y show where make camp." With that the Indian rose, turned his back on them and loped into the forest. They saw no more of him for fully two hours, and were already packed up and on their way when they saw him standing with shoulder against a great tree, watching their approach.

"You come along. w.i.l.l.y show," he directed as Hippy came abreast of him.

"How long will it take to reach this camp?" asked Lieutenant Wingate.

"Long time. Next sundown."

"To-morrow's or to-day's sundown?" demanded Emma.

"To-morrow."

w.i.l.l.y resumed his Indian gait, shoulders leaning forward, toes pointed inward, his center of gravity well forward, and in this position he trotted along for hours. The party halted at noon, but w.i.l.l.y Horse jogged on ahead and was soon out of sight. He rejoined them after they had resumed their journey and did not again stop until just before dark when he announced that they would camp where they were. The Indian then made browse-beds in the open for the Overland girls, and again disappeared.

"What's the matter with that pesky savage?" demanded the forest woman.

"He's wuss'n the bear."

Hippy suggested that perhaps the Indian had gone off by himself to listen to the voices of nature.

"Perhaps he has gone away to shoot somebody's wooden leg," suggested Emma demurely.

Elfreda nodded, and said she too was convinced that w.i.l.l.y Horse had fired the shots that shattered Peg Tatem's wooden leg, and the girls agreed with her. They never got any nearer to the truth of that occurrence, for, when questioned later about it, w.i.l.l.y Horse seemed unable to understand what they were talking about.

The Indian did not reappear until the following morning. That day he led them a long chase and kept the Overlanders at a fast jog. How he ever stood up under it they could not imagine, and when they stopped he was breathing naturally, and did not appear to be in the least fatigued.

"Come camp to-night," he told them when asked how near they were to their destination.

The woman guide had little to say, but her sour expression told the Overlanders that she was not pleased that the Indian was leading them.

The skies clouded over late in the afternoon, and later a drizzling rain set in, but they continued on, well protected by their waterproof coats, the hoods of which covered their heads. Henry, however, was a disconsolate-looking object, but Hindenburg, riding in Hippy's saddle bag, was dry and cosy, sleeping soundly as the rain pattered on his sleeping quarters.

Night found the party still some little distance from its destination, and w.i.l.l.y Horse was appealed to for encouragement. Emma wanted to camp where they were but the others outvoted her, so on they rode.

From then on the journey was an unpleasant one. The s.h.i.+ns of the riders were barked from contact with trees. Low-hanging limbs of small second-growth trees slapped their faces and deluged the riders with water, and altogether they were experiencing about the most unpleasant ride that they had ever taken, except possibly that across the Great American Desert earlier in their vacation riding.

Grace, perhaps, was the only exception, in that she found herself enjoying the unusual experience and the excitement of it, for the stumbles of the ponies were frequent; here and there a tree was heard to fall cras.h.i.+ng to earth, and, high and piercing on the soggy night air, they occasionally heard the mournful howl of a wolf.

"There goes seven dollars and a half," Emma would wail every time a wolf howled.

w.i.l.l.y Horse finally shouted and indicated by a gesture, which was revealed to the riders in the rear by Hippy's lamp, that he was about to change his course. The Indian turned sharply to the right, proceeded in a direct line for half a mile, as nearly as the Riders could judge, then threw his arm straight up into the air.

"Be we there?" yelled the forest woman.

"We be. That is, we're here, but whether here is there or somewhere else you will have to search the Indian for the answer. I don't know,"

answered Hippy.

"Wait! Me make fire," directed w.i.l.l.y.

The Overlanders, having sat their saddles so long, were literally sticking to the leather, but wrenched themselves loose, slid off and leaned against the steaming sides of their ponies, while water from the trees filtered over them and ran in rivulets down their coats.

The flame of a cheerful campfire showed through the mist and was greeted with a hoa.r.s.e cheer by the cold Overland Riders.

"Is this the place where we are to stay until Mr. Gray joins us?" called Grace.

"Yes," answered the Indian.

"Land sakes! I never could have found it," exclaimed the forest woman.

"Leastwise not in the dark. Reckon I might a follered the river and got here somehow, but not the way that pesky savage took us, and ter think I had ter be showed by a heathen how to get here."

The fire flamed into a snapping blaze, and then to the delight of the party, they saw near at hand a large lean-to and two smaller ones.

"w.i.l.l.y, did you make them for us?" wondered Anne.

"Yes. Me make 'em."

"But, they must be soaked through," protested Nora. "How shall we be able to sleep in a lean-to on a night like this."

"No leak. Bark on roof," the Indian informed her.

"Come, girls. Let us stake down and get close to that fire. I am s.h.i.+vering," urged Elfreda.

"I expect my pup is too," said Hippy. "And the bear. Oh, where is he?"

Henry had disappeared and his master was too busy to bother about him.

After building a cook fire, w.i.l.l.y ran out into the forest, returning soon thereafter with several large slices of bear meat, from stores that he had safely cached, which he proceeded to fry over the fire while Mrs.

Shafto was boiling water for tea and opening cans of beans. The girls threw off their wet garments and sank luxuriously into the browse floor of their lean-to.

"Oh, girls, this is worth all the discomforts we have been through, isn't it?" cried Anne enthusiastically.

"I don't know whether it is or not," answered Emma sourly. "Any port in a storm, you know."

Hippy came in wet and dripping after caring for the ponies, with Hindenburg tucked safely under his coat.