Grace Harlowes Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers | Page 8

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 no crime, and therefore can have no interest for a deputy
sheriff. Besides, I do not believe you are a deputy sheriff!"
The stranger shifted uneasily. Hippy had risen and was stretching
himself and yawning.
"All Ah've got to say is, yuh-all git out o' these mountings right smart
or Ah'll take yuh-all in. T'morrow mornin' yuh git!"
"Thank you." Grace smiled sweetly.
Hippy strolled up to the mountaineer, also smiling, with right hand
extended as if about to shake hands with their caller, but as he neared
the man the smile suddenly left his face, and he inhaled a long full
breath.
"Beat it!" exploded Lieutenant Wingate in the mountaineer's ear, at the
same time turning the man about and running him out of camp in
bouncer fashion.
"Run, Mr. Man! Run as if the Old Harry were after you, and don't
forget to keep that rifle pointed away from the camp. If it goes off
you're liable to get hurt. Get out!"
The mountaineer, as Hippy released him, sprang away a few paces,
then, suddenly whirling, fired point blank at Hippy.

Expecting this very move, Lieutenant Wingate had dropped down the
instant he saw the man turning, and the bullet went over Hippy's head,
and incidentally over the heads of the Overland Riders in the camp a
few yards to the rear.
Lieutenant Wingate was unarmed, his revolver being in its holster on
his saddle, so all he could do was to duck. His experience as a fighting
aviator in France had made Hippy somewhat callous to bullets, as well
as an expert in ducking. In the present instance, Lieutenant Wingate
made so many ducks and dives, side-slips and Immelman turns that the
mountaineer, crack shot that he was, found himself unable to score a hit.
The darkness, too, prevented his getting a good sight at the man he was
trying to shoot.
Back in the camp the rest of the Overland outfit were lying flat on the
ground, just as they used to do in France when they heard a shell
coming, which might be due to land somewhere near them. Not one of
them had a weapon handy, nor would they have dared use them had
weapons been at hand, because there was no telling where Hippy
Wingate was at any given second. That, too, was what was troubling
the mountaineer.
At the first shot, Washington Washington had forsaken the harmonica
and dived head first into the bushes where he lay, face down, a finger
stuck in either ear.
Hippy's floundering finally ceased and the mountaineer could not find
him. Believing, perhaps, that he had hit his victim, the fellow began
shooting into the camp of the Overlanders.
"I'm not going to lie here and let that fellow kill us all," declared Grace
Harlowe, springing up and starting away on a zigzagging run. "Keep
down, all of you. I'll fetch weapons," she called back.
Tom Gray, however, had forestalled her, and, leaping to his feet, had
run back to the tethering ground, where the ponies and their equipment
had been placed for the night, to fetch rifles.

Tom and Grace were back in a few moments, but instead of stepping
out into the open space where the tents were pitched and the campfire
was burning, they separated and crept around opposite sides of the
camp, over which bullets continued to whistle at intervals.