"After I get something we will return to camp. We must hold a consultation. I do not feel like deciding this problem alone." "I know you have made a discovery, but beyond the fact that some one has trampled down the bushes beside the trail, and that a horse has been standing where we are now, I must confess that I am no wiser than before." "You have done very well," smiled Grace. "Come with me and I will enlighten you further." They walked briskly back to the edge of the trail where they had first found the bushes disturbed. "Two men have stood here. If you will scrutinize the ground you will see the imprint of their hobnailed boots. They stood facing each other, just as you and I are doing at this moment. All at once they turned facing the trail and took a step toward it." "Wait a moment! Wait a moment! You are going too fast for me, Grace Harlowe. Are you gifted with second sight that you know all this?" "J. Elfreda, for goodness' sake use your eyes. The footprints are so plain that all you have to do, to understand, is to look at them. They tell the whole story up to a certain point," answered Grace. "Go on." "They unhorsed Hippy at that point, and I should not be at all surprised if they hit him over the head with a club or the butt of a revolver. You see how easy it would be to do that without being discovered, the foliage being so dense over the trail. After unhorsing him they at least dragged him back for some little distance before they picked him up. I found the marks of his heels where they had dug into the soft earth as he was being dragged." "You--you said you wished to--to get something," reminded Miss Briggs, somewhat dazed by her companion's rapid recital. "Yes. I discovered it when I was on my knees examining the trail here." Grace stooped over and, thrusting a hand into the bushes, brought forth an object which she held up for Elfreda's inspection. "Do you recognize it, J. Elfreda?" [Illustration: "Hippy's Hat!" Gasped Miss Briggs.] "Hippy's hat!" gasped Miss Briggs. "Yes. Let us examine it. Look at this! Am I right?" demanded Grace triumphantly. "Hippy was whacked over the head with the butt of a revolver, and the blow cut right through the felt. No wonder he made no outcry. He is a lucky fellow if he hasn't a fractured skull. Elfreda, this is serious." "Both serious and marvelous--serious so far as Hippy is concerned, and marvelous so far as your visualizing the incident is concerned," declared Miss Briggs. "Do you think we should tell Nora?" "We must tell her something, and we cannot tell her an untruth," replied Elfreda after brief reflection. "I should advise telling her all except about the hat. We can conveniently forget about the hat. He was taken prisoner by two men, probably in the belief that it was some one else they were capturing." "I don't think so," interrupted Grace. "I do," insisted Miss Briggs. "All right, then you tell the story to Nora. Let's go back."