A JOKE ON THE OVERLANDERS
"Help!" murmured Elfreda Briggs.
"The game constable!" repeated Lieutenant Wingate. "Oh! Glad to know you, old man. Glad to know you. This is a genuine pleasure, I assure you. How is business? Are you arresting any game—rabbits, possums, or anything of that sort?" went on Hippy jovially, to hide his real feelings.
Grace Harlowe laughed in a low tone.
"Ah may be. Ah asked, where is the bear?"
"Bear, bear?" questioned the lieutenant, glancing about him inquiringly. "I—I didn't know that you had lost one. What sort of a looking bear was he, and did he wear a license tag on his collar or—"
"Oh, shet up!" growled the constable. "That was bear meat Ah had fer mah supper. No one ain't allowed to have bear meat till December."
"Then why did you eat what you say was bear meat?" demanded Miss Briggs in her severest legal tone. "You say no one is allowed to have bear meat until December, but it appears to me that you have had your share of it this evening."
"Whut's that over thar?" he exploded, pointing to where the carcass of Elfreda's bear was faintly discernible, hanging by its hocks from a pole suspended between two trees. The constable strode over and peered at what was left of Mr. Bruin.
"So, that's what yer up to in these 'ere mountings, eh?"
Hippy shrugged his shoulders.
"You win," he said. "What is the answer?"
"Wall, Ah reckons as if you'd pay me fer the bear an'—an' settle fer the damages, Ah might—"
"Settle nothing!" roared Hippy in a tone calculated to frighten the visitor, but which failed to have that effect. "Why, I could have you arrested for trying to accept a bribe from a former United States officer. You will get no bribe from me."
"Ah'll arrest the whole pack of ye. Officer, eh? Ah reckoned as ye was that. Ah did, an' seein' as ye admit it, ain't nothin' more to be said 'bout that, but Ah'll take ye in and clap ye in the calaboose jest the same. Yer under arrest! All of ye is under arrest onless ye'll agree t' git out o' the mountings t'-night."
Hippy shrugged his shoulders, and the Overlanders, with the exception of Grace, looked serious. Grace was trying hard not to laugh out loud.
"See here, Mister Man!" demanded Lieutenant Wingate gruffly. "My great grandfather was from Missouri. You have got to show me. How do I know you are a constable? Where is your authority?"
"This 'ere's mah authority," replied the mountaineer, patting his revolver holster.
Hippy stepped a little closer to the constable.
"And 'this 'ere's my authority' for saying that you are no more a constable than I am!" retorted the Overlander.
Whack!
Hippy's fist landed on the point of the mountaineer's jaw, and the mountaineer went over backwards, landing heavily on the ground unconscious from the blow.
"Hippy! Oh, Hippy darlin'! What have you done?" wailed Nora.
"Hit him! Hit him again before he can get up!" cried Emma excitedly.
"Be quiet, you little savage," admonished Anne.
"You surely have done it this time, Hippy Wingate. Now we are in for trouble," rebuked Grace Harlowe.
"Brown Eyes, this fellow is a rank fraud. He isn't a constable, and I will wager that, were he to think there were such an animal within a mile of him, he would hit out for the bushes right smart."
"I agree with you. But, Hippy, you shouldn't have done that. The man was only bluffing. I saw that, or thought I did."
"So was I bluffing. The difference is that he and I do not bluff in the same way. Wait!" Hippy snatched the mountaineer's revolver from its holster, removed the cartridges and tossed them away, after which he returned the weapon to its holster. He then unbuckled the man's ammunition belt, shook all the cartridges out of that and rebuckled the belt about the fellow's waist.
"Laundry!" called Lieutenant Wingate.
"Yassuh! Yassuh!"
"Fetch me a pail of water. On the run!"
"I reckon this will wake him up," chuckled Hippy as he dashed the pailful of water that Washington brought, full into the face of the unconscious "constable."
It did. The man gasped and choked and struggled, and sat up, brushing the water out of his eyes with a sleeve. His blinking eyes slowly swept the camp, finally coming to rest on Hippy Wingate's face.
"Question him," suggested Grace.
"Who sent you here to try to bluff us?" asked Hippy sternly.
"Ah'll show ye." The mountain man's revolver was out of its holster in a flash as he leaped to his feet, and aimed it at Hippy. He pulled the trigger, but there was no report, only the click of the hammer as it struck the rim of an empty chamber of the revolver.
Five times did the fellow pull the trigger of his weapon, but with no better result, Hippy standing at ease before him, a smile on his face.
"I have a perfect right to shoot you for that, Mister 'Constable.' I may yet decide to do so. Who sent you here to play tricks on us?"
Uttering an exclamation of disgust, the mountain man thrust his revolver into its holster, one hand having crept about his ammunition belt and found it empty. He appeared to be dazed, but whether from the rap Hippy had given him, or because of the mysterious disappearance of his cartridges, they were not certain.
"Are you going to answer my question?"
The fellow shook his head.
"Do you know Jed Thompson?"
The mountaineer regarded his questioner sullenly, scowlingly, and without much change of expression. The scowl had been there ever since he woke up from the blow on his chin.
"Perhaps you know Bat Spurgeon?" This was one of the two names that Hippy had heard mentioned when he was the captive of the mountaineers. The other name was Jed Thompson, the man, undoubtedly, on whose farm the Overland Riders were then encamped.
A sudden change of expression flashed into the eyes of the "constable."
"So? You do know him, eh?" chuckled Lieutenant Wingate. Hippy drew his own weapon from its holster, fingering it absently while frowningly regarding the man before him.
"Why are you ruffians so eager to have us get out of the mountains? What have we done to you that you should be so dead set on getting rid of us?"
As before, there was no answer.
"I see it is useless to question you. Of course I could make you talk, and I would were there no ladies present to criticize my methods. However, I am going to let you go. You go back to the fellow who sent you here. Tell him for me that, if he bothers us further, we will take matters into our own hands. As for you, you poor fish, if ever I see you hanging about this or any other camp I am in, I'll shoot you on sight."
"Do it now while you have the chance," urged Emma.
Grace rebuked her with a stern look.
"I will give you ten seconds, after you have faced about, to get out of sight in the bushes," resumed Hippy. "Turn around! Go!"
Bang!
Hippy fired a shot over the head of the mountaineer who had fairly leaped for the bushes and disappeared in them.
"Quick! Follow him, darlin'. He may have other cartridges in his pockets," urged Nora.
"Anyway, the joke is on us. We fed the man and put evidence against us right in his stomach," wailed Emma Dean.