When he again opened his eyes the sun was shining down into them, and his cheeks felt as if they were on fire.
“Morning! Who would think it?” he exclaimed.
Without wasting time, he made his way back to the stream where he drank and bathed. Now came the question as to the course he should follow.
“It is probable that some of my outfit will remain by the railroad where the hold-up occurred,” he reflected. “That’s where I am going.”
After a final look at the sun, Hippy started back briskly. He did not follow the trail, believing that he could find a more direct course, and that such a course eventually would lead him to the railroad a short distance to the west of where he had been the previous evening.
It was nearly noon when Hippy first began to realize that he was hungry. He had not thought of breakfast, nor would it have done him any good had he thought of it. An hour later he found a berry bush and ate all the fruit it held. That helped a little and he again plodded on. About four o’clock that afternoon he reached the railroad, and, not long after that, he was trotting around the bend to the scene of the hold-up. The place was deserted. Hippy fired a signal from his revolver and listened. There was no reply. A rabbit hopped across the tracks. He fired twice at it, missing each time.
“There goes my supper!” he exclaimed ruefully. “Next time I sight game I’ll throw a stone at it. I reckon I can throw stones better than I can shoot. I should have thought my friends would wait for me.”
Hippy did discover where the Overland ponies had been unloaded, then he understood that his companions had gone in search of him. This knowledge heartened him up a great deal, and he immediately set himself to work to discover which way the party had gone. What he was looking for was the trail of his own pony, whose shoeprints he believed he would be able to identify instantly. Hippy picked up the trail in a remarkably short time.
“Here I go. I’ve got to travel some if I am to catch them before dark,” he cried, starting away.
Darkness found Lieutenant Wingate wandering aimlessly near the place where the trail forked and where his companions were now discussing their further plans for the morrow. He concluded that he would have to spend another night in the open and alone, and had just ensconced himself on the highest ledge he could find when he caught sight of the light from Sheriff Ford’s camp-fire. Hippy gazed at it for some moments, then raised his revolver and fired three shots.