Grace Harlowes Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers | Page 7

added, giving Wash a playful push. "What can I do for you, folks?"
"I suppose you know this country well?" questioned Grace.
Long shrugged his shoulders.
"Sometimes I think I do, then I discover that I don't," he replied soberly. "No one knows it. I know the people, on the surface, and know my way around."
"Perhaps you know something about the moonshiners and the feudists?" suggested Nora.
Jeremiah Long gave her a quick glance of inquiry.
"Take a word of advice from the Mystery Man. The less you know about anything up here in these hills the better off you are in the end. Some folks have made the mistake of knowing too much for their own good, and some of them are here yet, but they ain't saying anything."
Grace thanked him and agreed that his advice was good, at the same time speculating in her own mind over their guest. She was not wholly satisfied that he was what he pretended to be, but what he was in reality, she could not even guess.
In the meantime, Washington, lost in admiration of his new possession, was drawing harmony, and some discord, from it and rolling his eyes soulfully. In the ecstasy of the moment he had forgotten his recent fright. Tom and the Mystery Man were engaged in conversation, Hippy now and then interjecting a question, for the topic under discussion was the tract of land owned by Hippy, though not since Emma's remark had any reference been made to Hippy's ownership of it. The guest's talk was largely about the lay of the land there and its possibilities.
"I'll see you folks if you are going there," he promised finally. "I shall be in that section of the range about three weeks from now, and maybe I can do you some good."
"Thank you," smiled Grace. "We shall be pleased to see you then or at any other time. Mr. Gray leaves to-morrow morning for the Cumberlands where he has business, and we hope to join him, or rather to have him join us, in about that time. I think--"
"Hulloa the camp!" shouted a voice from the bushes on the opposite side of the camp from that by which Mr. Long had entered.
"Hulloa yourself!" bellowed Hippy Wingate. "Come in. The door's wide open."
An instant later a man stepped into the camp, a rifle slung under one arm, a revolver hanging from his belt in its holster. He was tall, gaunt and raw-boned, a typical Kentucky mountaineer, and, as he stood there surveying the Overland Riders from beneath his broad-brimmed hat, not a word was spoken on either side. The mountaineer was studying the members of the Overland party, and the Overland Riders were regarding him inquiringly.
"Why, where is--" began Emma Dean, but a gesture from Grace checked her. Not so with Washington Washington, however.
"Whar dat man?" he cried, referring to their first visitor.
A quick glance about the camp revealed to the amazed Overlanders that Jeremiah Long, the Mystery Man, had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. No one had seen or heard him go. He had simply melted away.
CHAPTER III
HIPPY BOUNCES THE "SHEREEF"
Still the newcomer stood peering into the faces of the Overlanders. Hippy began talking to the man with his fingers in the deaf and dumb system. The stranger regarded him frowningly, then shifted his rifle into his right hand.
"Who be yuh?" demanded the man.
"Oh! I thought you were a dummy," apologized Hippy. "A thousand pardons, old man."
"May I ask who you are and what you wish?" questioned Grace pleasantly, as she stepped forward.
"Ah asked yuh first. Who be yuh?"
"We are a party from the north, riding through the Kentucky Mountains partly for pleasure, partly for business reasons."
"Whut business?"
"That is a personal question, is it not?" smiled Grace. "Won't you sit down and rest before you go on? We shall be glad to have you do so."
"Be yuh goin' to answer mah question?"
"I think not, sir."
"Ah'll tell yuh who Ah be, then, an' mebby yuh'll answer. Ah'm the dep'y Shereef of this 'ere deestric'. Ah kin land yuh all in the calaboose if Ah wants to."
"Deputy Sheriff! Mercy to goodness!" murmured Emma. "Next thing we know, the Lord High Executioner will be calling on us looking for victims to decapitate."
"Yes?" questioned Grace.
"Let me speak with the man," urged Tom Gray, whereupon Grace waved her hand behind her to warn Tom to keep quiet.
"Who be yuh?"
"Presumably the man means to ask 'Who are you?' but unfortunately he doesn't speak English," said Emma in a voice loud enough for the mountaineer to hear. He glared at her and Emma glared back.
"I think, sir," replied Grace Harlowe, "that this has gone far enough. We have no information to give. I am sorry, sir. Our purpose in visiting these mountains is a proper one. We are violating no law, have committed