“No. Not yet. However, in case it means trouble for us either I or one of the others will get a reaction in advance and—”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Hippy. “A reaction in advance! That surely is a new one. Were Freud to hear that he himself surely would have a bad attack of nightmare.”
“I mean that one of us will feel that imponderable quality stirring within us,” explained Emma, her color rising. “We shall know. No harm can come to us without our being warned in advance. I—”
A volley of revolver shots punctuated the silence of the desert night—shots close at hand, accompanied by yells, hoots and howls, and the thudding of many unshod hoofs.
CHAPTER II
ON THE ROAD TO TROUBLE
“Merciful heaven! What is that?” cried Nora Wingate, the color rushing to her cheeks, then instantly receding, leaving them blanched with fear.
The Overland Riders were, for the moment, too startled to move, and it was Jim and Sam who first sprang to their feet.
“Look out! They aire comin’!” warned Sam.
The girls ran for the protection of their tents, with the exception of Emma Dean, who appeared to be too frightened to stir. Tom and Hippy were on their feet a second or so behind Jim-Sam, each with a hand on his revolver holster, while Stacy had disappeared on the dark side of his tent. Stacy Brown always believed in safety first, and he seldom lost many seconds in applying that principle.
All this occurred within the space of a few seconds, during which the shooting and the shouting had ceased, but the hoof-beats of ponies sounded much nearer to the camp. Then the Overlanders saw them. Wild riders they were, shadowy figures in the night, keeping just beyond the flickering rays shed by the campfire, but circling the camp, racing their mustangs. Once more their shrill penetrating yells split the silence, followed by a rattling fire of revolver shots.