"Meet me with a pail of food! I'm starving!" he wailed.
For the next few minutes there was excitement in the camp, Nora clinging to Hippy's neck laughing and crying, Emma standing a little aloof from them with a superior smile on her face, Anne, urging the wide-eyed Washington to start the fire and prepare coffee, and Grace seeking to quiet Nora so that they might hear Hippy's story.
When the campfire blazed up and they saw his condition, Nora wept again. Hippy was hatless—his hat was out in the bushes where Grace, after finding it, had secreted it—his clothes were torn, he was hollow-eyed, and his head wore a lump that stood out prominently.
"Never mind the trimmings. Give me food," he begged. Then between mouthfuls he told the story of his capture so far as he knew it, told it to the moment of his reaching the Overland camp. Hippy said he intended, if possible, to creep in quietly without awakening any one and give the girls a big surprise in the morning, when Elfreda threw a wrench into the machinery, "and tried to wing me," he added amid laughter.
"I could not afford to wait," answered Miss Briggs.
"You sure are some quick on the trigger," declared Hippy. "The fellow who was with me ducked, and I heard him chuckling and laughing as he sneaked away."
"Yes, but, had it not been for me, you might not have been here, Lieutenant Wingate," interjected Emma Dean.
"Eh? How's that, Emma?"
"Why, I—I con-centrated on you and brought you back," answered Emma solemnly.
"What a pity," murmured Hippy sadly. "And she so young."