Chapter 6 INTO THE GREAT SILENCE

Hi Lang had reached the scene just as the last shots were being fired by Grace and her adversary. The guide had seen neither of the combatants, but he had seen the flashes of their revolvers.

At first he was not certain which was which, but in a moment the man who had been shooting at Grace revealed himself for a second. It was then that the guide took a hand.

Hi Lang was a quick and accurate hand with both revolver and rifle, and he feared no man, nor collection of men. At his second shot he heard his man utter an exclamation and knew that he had scored a hit. For the next several minutes the two indulged in snap-shooting, firing at the slightest sound or movement; then the mysterious stranger suddenly ceased firing.

The guide was cautious. He did not take advantage of the lull in hostilities for some little time, and when he did he crawled to one side and crept noiselessly around to the position that the stranger had occupied when he had fired his last shot. The man had disappeared.

Mr. Lang was anxious about Grace Harlowe, but it might be equivalent to suicide to search for her until he had satisfied himself that his adversary was either wounded or had gone away. Finally, having searched all the surrounding bushes and rocks and finding no one, he returned to the scene of the shooting, softly calling to the Overland girl.

There was no response.

Hi stood still for a moment trying to recall where he had seen the flash of her weapon.

"It must have been about where I am standing now. I-"

Hi Lang suddenly disappeared from sight. The guide had fallen into a crevice in the rocks, a crevice that had been hidden by dwarf shrubs and mountain grass, and it seemed a long way to the bottom. Hi bumped his way to the bottom at the expense of some bruises and a badly ruffled temper.

"Hulloa!" he exclaimed. "What's this?"

He had touched something that was not rock-something that felt like a human form. The guide struck a match and peered down at Grace Harlowe, who lay face down at the bottom, and, as he turned her face up to the light, he saw flecks of blood on it.

"The hound! He hit her! I'll kill him for that, whoever he may be!"

Placing a hand over Grace's heart, Hi Lang found that she was alive.

"Thank God for that! Give me the luck to meet the critter that did this thing," breathed the desert guide.

Hi lifted the unconscious Overland girl in his arms and began scrambling toward the top of the big crevice. Finding that he could not make it without freeing one hand, he slipped an arm about Grace's waist, holding her with it while he used his free hand to assist him in climbing to the top. He reached it a little out of breath.

Without giving a thought now to the peril he was inviting by showing himself so boldly, Hi stepped out into the open space, raised his revolver and fired three shots into the air, the signal of recall for Lieutenant Wingate. Then, gathering Grace in his arms, he started for the camp in long strides, raging silently at the ruffian who had tried to kill her.

Elfreda, who was on watch just outside of their camp, heard him coming and challenged.

"It's Hi. I've got Mrs. Gray."

"Is-is she hurt?" questioned Elfreda more calmly than she felt.

"She's been shot, but she's alive."

Miss Briggs ran to meet the guide, and, walking along at his side, she placed a finger on Grace's pulse and held it there until they reached the camp. Nora, Anne and Emma paled as they caught sight of the limp figure in Hi Lang's arms.

"Who shot her!" asked Elfreda.

"The critter who tried to kill Ping, I suppose."

"Oh, this is terrible!" wailed Emma.

"Get water," directed Miss Briggs, after the guide had placed her where the light from the fire would shine in her face.

Nora fetched water from the spring near which the camp had been pitched, and Elfreda bathed the wound that she found on Grace's head. Elfreda's hospital training during the war, in France, had already stood her in good stead on several occasions since her return from Europe.

"This is not a gunshot wound," she announced after a critical examination of the patient's head.

"Not-not a gunshot-" exclaimed Hi.

"No. It is a severe scalp wound, however."

"What made it, then?" demanded the guide.

"Either she has been struck over the head or she has fallen and bumped her head against the sharp edge of a rock," answered Miss Briggs.

The Overland girls drew long breaths of relief.

"I found her in a hole in the ground. Fell into it myself. That's where she got hurt," said Hi. "She and that critter were shooting at each other when I came up, then all at once the shooting stopped. I got in a few shots on him myself. Reckon I winged him for he quit pretty soon after I got there. What do you think?"

Elfreda, still noting Grace's pulse and peering into her face, nodded encouragingly, and placed her smelling salts under Grace's nostrils.

"I feared it might be a fracture, but I believe it is not that bad. Concussion is the word. She must have struck hard, and it is a wonder she did not break her neck. You see how the neck is swollen. Her pulse is getting stronger, and I think she will be out of her faint in a few moments."

Grace regained consciousness shortly after that, but she was still dizzy and weak from the severe shock of her fall and the loss of quite a little blood.

"Where-where was I hit!" was her first question, weakly asked.

"You were not hit anywhere," replied Elfreda. "You fell into a hole and landed on your head. Mr. Lang, will you carry her to her tent? She must be quiet for the rest of the night, and it won't do for us to start across the desert until she has had a good rest."

"That suits me. I've got a little job on hand for the morning. Here's the lieutenant," he added, as Hippy came in, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

"What's this! Brown Eyes knocked out again?" he demanded.

"She fell down and hurt herself," answered Elfreda.

"What was the shooting, Hi?"

"Mrs. Gray and that critter out there were doing it. I reckon she pinked the pirate, for he was shooting with his left hand when he opened up on me. I reckon I touched him up too, and, getting enough of it, he cleared out. I'll get him for that," added Hi, gathering Grace up and carrying her to her tent. "To-morrow we'll go out and see if we can't round up that critter. Can't do anything to-night except to see that he doesn't do any more damage to this outfit."

"I think I'd like to get a shot at him myself," observed Hippy.

"There, Mrs. Gray! You keep quiet. If there's any more scouting to be done this evening, the lieutenant and I will do it," directed the guide, laying down his burden.

Hippy nodded.

"Lieutenant, what do you think of this business? Are you certain that you folks haven't any enemies!" asked Mr. Lang when the two had walked out beyond the camp and sat down to talk over the affair.

"Not that I know of, in these parts, Hi."

"It's mighty queer. I can't figure it out," pondered the guide.

"Have you any?" asked Hippy carelessly.

"Reckon I have plenty. They know better'n to cross my trail, though."

"It strikes me, Hi, old man, that one of them crossed your trail this evening," chuckled Hippy Wingate.

The guide made no reply then, and for some moments thereafter occupied himself with his own thoughts.

"You asked me just now if I had any enemies. I'll say this, Lieu-"

BANG! BANG!

Two quick shots were fired from behind Hippy and the guide. One bullet passed between the two men, the other clipped the crown, of Lieutenant Wingate's sombrero.

The answer came, it seemed, within a second after the two shots. Hippy and the guide leaped to their feet, drawing their revolvers as they did so, and emptying them into the bushes, firing low and trying to cover all the ground where a man might be lurking.

"As you were about to say," drawled Hippy, slipping another clip of ammunition into his revolver.

"That there is one man who might and would get me if he thought he could get away with it. But why should he wish to shoot a woman? Crawl out to the left and then go in and let the folks know everything is all right now. I'm going to hang around a bit and try to tease that cayuse into shooting at me again."

"They're at it again," complained Grace Harlowe in her tent. "Go out, Elfreda, am see if any one is hit."

Hippy was reassuring the girls when Elfreda came out.

"Humph!" exclaimed Miss Briggs. "We surely are making a brilliant start. I think I shall be glad to get on the desert. One can see such a long way there. Grace is anxious to know about those shots, so I will run in and tell her. Are you going out again, Hippy?"

"Not unless I get a word from Hi. You see I do not know where he is, and it would not be safe for either of us were we both to be out there without either knowing where the other is."

Ping, wide-eyed, was an eager listener to what Lieutenant Wingate had to say, but he made no comment, and no song that fitted the situation found expression on his lips.

An hour passed, and the guide had not returned. The girls were getting anxious, but Hippy said that, no shots having been heard, it was safe to assume that no one could have been hit.

No one had, and all this time Hi Lang, almost within sound of their voices, had been lying flat on top of a rock, listening with every faculty on the alert. For two hours the guide remained in one position, watching, waiting and eagerly hoping.

"One shot-just one second when I can see my mark, is all I ask," he muttered. "I'll get that shot yet!"

A few moments later Hi crept down from his hiding place and returned to camp, on the alert every second of the way for the report of a revolver and the whistle of a bullet.

"This beats me," he declared in answer to Hippy's question as to whether or not he had discovered anything. "You folks turn in, How's Mrs. Gray?"

"Asleep," answered Miss Briggs. "I think she will be ready for a start some time to-morrow."

The guide told Lieutenant Wingate to turn in also, saying that he would watch the camp through the night, so the Overland Riders went to bed for what sleep they could get, but they passed a restless night, starting up at every sound, listening for the report of rifle or revolver or a call for help. Nothing disturbing occurred. Shortly after daylight, Grace got up and dressed and went out to breathe in the invigorating, sweet mountain air. She felt strong and able to meet whatever emergency she might be called upon to face.

Hi Lang was nowhere in sight. Ping, who was fussing with a cook fire preparatory to getting breakfast, shook his head when Grace asked him where the guide was.

"No can tell," he said, caressing his injured hand.

Breakfast was served at seven o'clock, but long before that Grace had been out looking for trail signs and finding some, though she could not tell whether they had been left by a prowler or by one of her own party.

It was eleven o'clock that forenoon when Hi Lang strode into camp, his rifle slung under one arm, a heavy revolver on either hip.

The greeting of the girls brought a smile to the face of the guide. They were relieved and glad to see him, and he saw it. He also was glad to be with them once more, for, in the brief time he had known them, he had grown to feel a genuine affection for these bright-eyed, plucky young women who preferred to spend their vacation on his beloved desert rather than dance away the weeks of their vacation at some fashionable summer resort.

"Mr. Lang, where have you been?" cried Emma Dean.

"Out looking for game," he answered briefly, laying aside his rifle.

"Did you find it?" asked Grace smilingly.

"No. Ping, bring me some chow. How you feeling this morning, Mrs.

Gray?" he asked after he had begun eating his breakfast.

"Fit and fine, sir. You found a trail, I take it," she added in a lower voice.

"Yes." Hi gave her a quick look of appreciation for her keenness. "You hit your man all right. I found blood where he was standing when you two were shooting at each other. I also found the trail, further on, the trail of the same man and another. There were two of them."

"I wonder which, one it was that put a hole through my perfectly new hat," grumbled Hippy.

"At least one of them has left the range," resumed the guide. "I found the trail of a pony and footprints of one man on the other side of the range, but what became of the other fellow, I don't know. I'm going out again after breakfast and look further. Do you feel like making a start to-day?"

"Yes. I think we should be moving," replied Grace.

"We'll leave after chow this evening. Better get what rest you can to-day. Lieutenant, I wish you would stick around and see that the camp is not bothered."

"If you need him, Mr. Lang, we can protect ourselves. Do not worry about us," interjected Grace.

"Don't need him. Ping, put some grub in my pack, then I'm off."

After the guide's departure time dragged rather heavily for the girls. Later in the day Grace took her pony out for a gallop and felt better for the change. At four o'clock Mr. Lang came in, and, though he had been up all night and had been hiking in the mountains all day long since early morning, he appeared fresh and alert.

"Pack up and get out!" he ordered, nodding to Ping Wing. "Serve the grub on our mess kits first. Follow the foothills and we will catch up with you. I give it up, folks. This mystery has got to solve itself. It's too much for me."

"Don't worry, Mr. Lang. If our friend the mystery man keeps at us long enough we shall catch him. I wish we knew why he is bothering us so," said Grace. "I should prefer to stay here until we solve the mystery, but we must be on our way, and perhaps he may follow us."

"That sounds interesting," observed Miss Briggs.

Ping and his lazy burros started about an hour before the rest of the party got under way, and when they did get under way they jogged along slowly through the foothills of the range, where the going was fairly easy. The guide said they should come up with Ping before dark, and that they would, after having mess, then continue on at a slower pace until they reached a suitable camping place for the night.

Dusk was upon them when they finally overtook the Chinaman, who was sitting on the rump of a burro chattering to his mount to get him to go faster, but without much success. The ponies of the party then took the lead, which, Hi Lang said, would induce the burros to move faster in an effort to keep up, but it was a much slower pace than the Overland Riders were in the habit of traveling, that they now dropped into.

Night enveloped the outfit suddenly, it seemed to them, and with the cool of the evening their spirits rose. Even Ping's spirits rose, until he forgot his aching thumb and broke into song.

The ground began to slope away under the hoofs of the horses, for they were now moving down a sharp descent, and the air seemed to take on a strange new quality, a new odor. No longer could the girls hear the rustling of foliage. A great and impressive silence settled over them, in which even the footfalls of the ponies were soft and subdued. Glancing up, they saw the stars shining with a brilliancy that none of the party had ever observed before.

The chatter of the Overland Riders died away, and Ping Wing's song died away, also, in a throaty gurgle.

"What is it?" cried Emma Dean. "I feel queer, and my pony is trembling. Oh, Grace, I'm afraid of something."

Grace knew what it was that was disturbing Emma, for she felt something of the same sensation that Emma was experiencing, but she made no reply.

"It is the desert!" answered the guide solemnly. "It is the mystery of the desert, a mystery that no man can solve. Perhaps it is the mystery of centuries; perhaps it is the spirits of the thousands who have perished here on this sweet, cruel sea of burning sand, that have come back to warn us living ones of the fate that may be in store for us who dare."

"The mystery of the desert," murmured Grace Harlowe, but Hi Lang spoke no more. His lips seemed sealed, though could they have seen his face they would have observed a new and more tender expression there, and seen him inhale in deep breaths, heavy draughts of the faintly scented air of the desert that he both loved and hated.