CHAPTER XIII
THE CAMP AT THE "LAZY J"
Stacy sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"What did you wake me up for?" he demanded. "Hulloa, Tom!"
"I awakened you by transmigration of thought," answered Emma. "Oh,girls, girls, wake up! Tom is here," she cried.
The camp was instantly aroused. Tom was discovered sitting calmly by alittle fire that he had built, waiting for the sleepers to awaken. Tomhad done exactly what Grace said he would. When he lost his bearings inthe darkness, he lay down to wait for daylight. When daylight came hefound no difficulty in picking up his trail and returning to camp.
"Did you find water?" demanded Hippy.
"Not a drop. For that reason, we must take a quick breakfast and hurryon. I think we shall find water beyond the next low range, and it isnecessary that we do so before the sun gets high and hot. We can standit for some time longer, but the horses cannot."
The start was made soon after that, Tom and Hippy packing theirbelongings while Woo and the girls were getting breakfast. The trailthey followed took them up a gradual slope for several miles and thenpitched giddily into a deep canyon, a canyon that covered all of fiftyacres, from which the hills rose in great swells into the far distance.The climb down the side of the mountain was tiresome and difficult, butthey forgot their discomfort when finally they came upon a stream ofcold, sparkling water that came down from the snow-capped tips of theHigh Sierras.
"Oh, look!" cried Emma. "Cows! Now we can have some milk."
"Cows!" groaned Stacy. "Those aren't cows, they are cattle."
There were loud exclamations of wonder when the Overlanders saw a lot ofcattle, in charge of several herders, grazing less than a mile away.After permitting the horses to drink all that was good for them, andafter the Overlanders themselves had drunk and filled their waterbottles, they galloped on towards the herd. From the herders theylearned that the cattle belonged to the "Lazy J" ranch. The animals wereon their summer grazing grounds, having come up into the hills for thesummer months.
The herders informed the Overlanders that the ranch-house was about fivemiles due east of there, and that the boss would be glad to see them.
"My horse has a loose shoe. Is there a blacksmith outfit over there?"asked Hippy.
"Sure," answered a herder. "You'll have to do your own smithing,though."
"I reckon I can do that all right," answered Lieutenant Wingate. "We canmake camp there and have a rest before we undertake the next hardclimb."
After waving good-byes to the herders, the Overland Riders resumed theirjourney, arriving at the "Lazy J" ranch about mid-afternoon. They werewarmly welcomed by Mr. Giddings, the foreman, who showed his amazementthat a party of young women should have made the rough ride into themountains.
"Help yourselves to anything in sight. It's all yours," he offered."Glad to have you take pot luck with me in my shack. There isn't much,but what there is you are welcome to."
"No. You sit down with us and have a snack," urged Grace.
Mr. Giddings did so, and after a late luncheon he conducted Hippy to theblacksmith shop, where Lieutenant Wingate removed the loose shoe fromhis pony and straightening it on the anvil proceeded to nail it back inplace, observed interestedly by the Overlanders and several cowboys whowere resting up at the ranch-house. Even the cowboys' cook came out,frying-pan in hand, to see how the tenderfoot would go about it to shoea horse.
The cowboys looked on with solemn visages, expressive of neitherapproval nor disapproval. Their interest quickened, however, when StacyBrown announced that he was going to remove a loose shoe from the offhind foot of the white mare, Kitty, and set it properly in place.
Kitty was led in, and Chunky made his preparations with sundryflourishes to show the spectators that he knew what he was about. Kittywas not unobservant, and every move of the Overland boy was narrowlywatched by her.
"I should advise you to watch her ears," urged Grace.
"It isn't her ears, it's those hind feet that I am interested in,"replied Stacy. "Ears can't hurt a fellow--feet can," he said. "Whoa, youbrute!" added Stacy, running a hand down one of the pony's hind legs,then lifting the foot from the ground.
What followed was almost too swift for the human eye. Barely had thefoot been lifted than Kitty kicked the boy clear out of the shop. In hisflight, Chunky was catapulted against the cook, and both went down in aheap.
The faces of the cow-punchers relaxed. They howled, fired theirrevolvers into the air and went fairly wild with joy, while Grace andElfreda disentangled Stacy and the cowboys' cook and stood them on theirfeet.
"Are You Hurt?"]
"Are you hurt?" begged Grace solicitously.
"Of course I am. I'm killed, but the white mare is going to get worsethan I did," threatened the fat boy.
"Cool off. Don't punish her now," advised Elfreda.
"I don't want to cool off. I want to shoe that beast." Stacy strodebelligerently to the now meek little animal. "I ought to break yourmiserable neck, but I haven't time to do it to-day. Besides, the weatheris too warm. If I did, this outfit would make me dig a hole and buryyou. I always get the worst of it when trying to do a good turn forothers. Now you stand still or I'll surely forget myself."
This time Kitty made no objection to having her loose shoe removed, butonce off Stacy did not know how to put it on again, and Tom Gray had tofinish the job to the great enjoyment of the cowboys. The job finallyfinished, Stacy and Hippy perspiring from their efforts, the Overlanderswent out to watch the range men come in, uttering wild whoops as theydiscovered that there were women in camp.
Throwing themselves from their saddles, the range men soused their headsin the creek that flowed near the ranch-house, and were ready for theevening meal. After supper, all hands lounged out to the green in frontof the bunkhouse, smoked their pipes and told thrilling stories ofadventure in the Sierras--told them for the benefit of the tenderfeetwho were their guests.
The Overland girls chatted with the rough but big-hearted cow punchers,who, that night, declared that they never had come up with such a likelybunch of young women.
When Mr. Giddings learned from Tom Gray that the party was bound for theHigh Sierras, he shook his head dubiously.
"No place for white folk, especially women," he warned.
"Why not?" questioned Tom.
"Trouble! It's the Devil's country up there."
"We are used to roughing it under all sorts of conditions," replied Tom."We learned how to do that during the Great War. All these young womenwere in the service, at or near the front in France; Mr. Wingate was anaviator, and I was a Captain of Engineers, so you see we aren't afraidof trouble."
"That's all right. I take off my hat to you, especially to the youngladies. This country is another breed of cats, however, and they tellstrange stories about men going up there and never being foundafterwards, or, as is sometimes the case, found dead in the Crazy Lakesection. Aerial Lake, they call it."
"Where is this mysterious lake?" asked Miss Briggs.
"I don't rightly know. I don't know anything about it. I reckon I don'twant to know. Neither would you if you had been up here long and hadheard as much about it as I have. Did you ever hear of the Jones gang?"
"I reckon we have. We had a little mix-up with them. At least, weunderstand that was the outfit," Hippy informed them.
"Yes, and we drove them off and gave them a good walloping," addedStacy.
"Let's hear the yarn," called a cowboy.
Hippy related the story of the hold-up and of the skirmish thatfollowed, resulting in the driving off of the train robbers. The cowboyslistened attentively, their expressions showing an increasing respectfor the "tenderfeet" who had dropped in on them for a friendly call.
"Why should this band of outlaws have reason to interfere with us?"asked Tom.
"Why do they bother other folks?" answered Mr. Giddings. "For what theycan get out of it, of course," he said, answer
ing his own question.
"They will not get much if they hold us up," Grace Harlowe informedtheir hosts.
"No. I reckon that would not likely put you in peril, for the reasonthat they are after bigger game, like that treasure on the Red Limited.There's another thing, though, that might make it equally bad for youpeople."
"What is that, Mr. Giddings?" asked Elfreda.
"The railroad has had Pinkerton detectives after that gang for a longtime, on account of an express robbery, which makes the gang rathertouchy about strangers being in the mountains."
"Where does this Jones crowd make its headquarters?" questioned Hippy.
"That's just the point. Nobody seems to know, but they are supposed tohang out to the eastward of this place. We have never seen any of themsince I have been on this range, which is going on five years."
"Then we do not have to bother our heads about them at all," announcedTom. "We are not going in that direction."
"You're going to the peak, aren't you?" asked Giddings.
"Yes," replied Grace.
"Hm-m-m-m-m! I'll bet I know what you folks are after. You're aftergolden trout. You're not the first parties to come up here looking forthose shiny fellows."
"Eh? What's that?" questioned Hippy, instantly on the alert.
"Where are they? I'm the boy that is looking for gold," spoke up Stacy.
"Maybe there ain't any such thing," laughed Giddings. "But they do tella story about a prospector coming across a stream up Farewell Gap way,where the golden trout were as thick as pollywogs in a mud puddle."
Tom said he had never heard of them. Giddings replied that he reckonedno one else ever had in reality.
"They do say," resumed the foreman, "that when the fisherman discoveredthose fellows basking in the sun at the bottom of the stream, he surethought he had struck it rich. He believed that he had found sure-enoughgold nuggets, but when he went to gather them, the nuggets just up anddusted."
"That's the way nuggets usually do," answered Stacy wisely.
"I hope we find them," said Hippy. "I have a rod and a book of flieswith me."
"It's enough to give a fellow heart disease, anyway," continuedGiddings. "So, between the Joneses, the lake and the movable nuggets,you folks have plenty of entertainment ahead of you."
"There is generally excitement and some trouble where we hang up ourhats," laughed Nora Wingate, "but we manage somehow to get along allright."
"I wish you luck, pardner," nodded Mr. Giddings. "I'll have a bunk-housecleaned out for you folks to-night, so you can sleep indoors," heoffered.
Thanking him, but declaring that they preferred to sleep in the open,just as they had been doing for several seasons, the Overlanders madecamp out of doors just beyond the corral. The night was hot and theflies very thick. The night's rest was not at all satisfying for thisreason, and for the added one that the cowpunchers' ponies in the corralwere restless. Hippy said it indicated that a storm was coming, butStacy differed with him. He averred that the ponies were restless forthe same reason that he was--because the flies bit them--and theOverlanders laughingly agreed that there might be something in the fatboy's reasoning after all.
Next morning they were out with the earliest of the punchers. Afterbreakfast, packs were made up and lashed with firm hitches thrown aboutthem. Then bidding good-bye to their hosts and shaking hands all around,the Overland Riders set out for their long journey over the mountains--ajourney that would occupy some weeks and be filled with exciting as wellas enjoyable experiences.