Shortly after the departure of the trainmen, three long blasts of the locomotive whistle told the party that Lieutenant Wingate had not returned to the train.
“That settles it, men. It is up to us to get to work,” declared the sheriff. Ford divided his forces and sent parties in various directions to search for the missing Hippy Wingate, hoping, and partly believing, that the lieutenant had probably met up with the bandits on their retreat into the mountains after abandoning their attack on the train, and secreted himself somewhere in the vicinity of the attempted hold-up.
The Overlanders were now in the Sierras, and the country all about them was wild and uninhabited. After surveying his surroundings with critical eyes, Ford took to the ravine up which Hippy had gone in attempting to get back to his companions, and soon found the place where the bandits had staked down their horses.
Two warning whistles, the engineer’s regular signal that the train was about to start ahead, caused the sheriff to run down the ravine to the railroad, at the same time firing three shots to recall his companions.
“Get aboard in a hurry!” shouted the conductor, leaning from the engine cab as the train came back to the scene of the attempted robbery.
“Wait! Has Lieutenant Wingate returned?” demanded Ford.
“No!” shouted Stacy Brown from the platform of the smoking car. “Didn’t you find him?”
“Are you positive, Stacy?” called Tom Gray, running up at this juncture.
“He is not on the train, Tom,” answered Grace Harlowe from a vestibule doorway. “The engineer said he dropped off just as the engine began backing down. Tom, you must search for Hippy. Nora is nearly wild from worry over him.”
“We are going to find him, little woman,” answered Captain Gray.