Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky MountaineersChase, Josephine
General
Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers
Chase, Josephine
Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction; Kentucky -- Juvenile fiction
It was Elfreda Briggs who made the discovery. She called to Grace, who
was near by, to come to her. Grace uttered an exclamation as she ran up
to Miss Briggs, who stood pointing to a little tent nestling at the
base of a rocky peak.
"Is that Tom's tent?" asked Elfreda.
"No, but we will have a look at it."
The two girls ran eagerly to the little tent, proceeding more cautiously
as they came up to it. The blankets, they found, were rolled neatly, and
a pair of boots stood in one corner, while some clothing hung from hooks
on a tent-pole.
"This _is_ Tom's tent. Oh, I am so glad," cried Grace.
"Yes. But where is Tom?"
"It is all right. He may be away from here for days, sleeping in the
open, living as only a woodsman knows how to live. You know he is making
a survey of this tract, and, I presume, doesn't find it convenient to
take his equipment with him. Now I am content to settle down and wait
for him. In the meantime we can do some exploring on our own account. I
wonder who Tom has with him?"
"What do you mean?"
"Tracks of two different persons right there," answered Grace, pointing
to the ground. "Where are your eyes, J. Elfreda?"
"Let's go back," suggested Miss Briggs, sighing deeply. "We must let the
girls know at once."
All the Overlanders, except Nora Wingate, were quickly rounded up and
told the good news. Nora was nowhere in sight, but Hippy said she was
picking mountain berries about a quarter of a mile to the south of the
camp, and that she had probably forgotten what she had been sent out
for. He said, however, that he would go out and look for her.
In the meantime, Nora had been sitting eating the hatful of berries that
she had gathered, gazing off over the rugged landscape and enjoying the
mountain scenery bathed in the early morning sunlight. The mountains, in
that softening light, lost their hideousness and were really beautiful
to look upon. Nora's eyes, slowly absorbing the scene before her,
suddenly paused in their roving and fixed their gaze on a point some
twenty yards below her. Nora was looking down on the crown of a
sombrero. Below it, the figure that the hat belonged to was invisible in
the dense growth of vine and bush.
"Faith, and what's that?" murmured Nora, half humorously. "I know. It's
that husband of mine wanting to give me a scare. Wait! I'll make the
rascal jump."
Nora Wingate groped for and found a small piece of rock, chuckling
softly to herself. Rising cautiously she aimed the rock to fall several
feet to one side of the man below her, then reaching her hand far back
she let fly, just as she had seen bombers do in France when practicing
bomb-throwing.
Nora stood shaking with silent laughter at the fright she was going to
give Hippy Wingate. To her horror, the rock, instead of landing to one
side of the man, dropped fairly on the top of his head. As the stone hit
him, the man uttered a grunt, but the Overland girl was too shocked to
utter a sound.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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