After breakfast, as planned, Grace took up her rifle and went away, leaving Elfreda and the others to guard the camp and, incidentally, to keep Washington busy and out of mischief. He was, too, forbidden to play his harmonica lest the noise attract attention to the camp of the Overland Riders.
Proceeding cautiously, Grace reached the stream, and followed it until she found where the kidnappers of Hippy had left it. After waiting and watching for a full hour, Grace stepped out boldly. For six hours the Overland girl employed all her knowledge of the open in an effort to pick up the trail of the mountaineers, but the trail appeared to end abruptly at the bank of the creek. Not even the hoofprints of horses could be found on the softer ground a short distance back from the stream.
There are tricks in masking one's trail that the Kentucky mountaineers had learned from generations of feuds and attacks by revenue agents, which Grace Harlowe knew nothing of.
At noon she gave up the attempt to find the trail over which Hippy Wingate had been taken, and started back towards the camp.
"What luck?" called Nora, as she appeared at the edge of the clearing where the camp was pitched.
"None. As a trailer, I am a miserable failure, a rank amateur."
"If you were to spend as much time con-centrating as you do tearing about over the landscape, you would be more successful," declared Emma wisely, at which there was a laugh at Grace's expense.
"I surely could not be more unsuccessful than I have been," replied Grace smilingly.
The afternoon was passed in discussing their situation. While the girls were eager to be out trying to find Hippy, they believed that they were doing the wise thing in following the advice of their unknown friend, whose message had been tossed into their camp, so they remained in camp and waited.
When night came and still no Hippy, the depression of the Overlanders increased and there was little conversation, each one appearing to be listening, Emma, with a faraway look in her eyes, now and then relapsing into deep thought. Emma was "con-centrating."