“Leave Stacy all that time without doing anything to help him?” wailed Nora.
Grace explained that all was being done that could be done, and that a few days more or less probably would be none the worse for the missing Overland boy. She said the delay would enable them to perfect their plans for the proposed man-hunt, and that in the meantime the ruffians might make a slip and place themselves in the hands of the men of Circle O. Bindloss nodded his approval, and there the matter was left.
Conifer improved much more rapidly than Elfreda had thought possible and two days later Hippy, on his feet again, was walking about, limping ever so little, his head swathed in bandages and his face lined and pale.
“I’ve been down long enough,” he told Bindloss. “It is time that I was out and looking for that nephew of mine, Chunky Brown. Conifer declares that he is going out tomorrow and I’m going with him.”
“You are not,” replied the rancher. “Man, it’ll kill you! Conifer wasn’t hit like you and he has his right hand as good as ever. There’s lots of fight left in the old man yet, and if we don’t let him go he will worry himself and the rest of us to death. No, Lieutenant, you keep your hosses staked down and get lazy for a few days more. I promise you there will be plenty of excitement and activity for you and the rest of us when we start that man hunt.”
The Overlanders were as emphatic as Bindloss had been, and Hippy, much against his will, submitted to their demand that he stay at the ranch. Conifer, too, was ordered by Miss Briggs to defer his departure, so that it was the latter part of that week before she gave him permission to take the trail on the following day.
That night, however, something occurred to change the plans of Bindloss and his guests. Two-gun Pete, who had come in late from the range, had discovered a man prowling about the stable. Pete hailed him and the man ran, whereupon the cowboy fired six shots at him, but in the darkness all his bullets went wild.
The firing awakened the occupants of the ranch-house and the Overland camp, and in a few minutes all hands were on the scene, armed and ready for whatever might be required of them. Guards were thrown out to protect the place from a surprise attack. The prowler had disappeared, but he had left a plain trail to a point where his mustang had been staked down. From there his tracks led into the foothills, but the direction he took upon entering the hills was no indication of his probable destination.
“I found something,” shouted Idaho who had just come around the corner of the corral with his lantern and passed down at the rear of the stable. The Overlanders and Bindloss found him carrying a large basket at arm’s length. Idaho plainly was suspicious of that basket, and he proposed to take no chances with it. For all he knew it might be full of rattlers.
No one made a move to investigate the basket’s contents as Idaho put it down on the ground and backed away.