Tears trickled down Elfreda’s cheeks. A thin gray bar of daylight was now creeping across the cabin floor, and with it came the memory of the old prospector’s warning: “The Murray gang will be here soon after daylight”—and then—“Get rid of the horse!”
Realizing that perhaps her own life might hang on following Petersen’s advice, Miss Briggs sprang up and ran out. Standing a few yards from the cabin, there was a fine bay mare browsing on the tender leaves of the hedge. The animal regarded her solemnly, and, she thought, with a friendly approving look.
“You poor horse! Shoot you? I couldn’t do it, but I am going to try to hide you,” declared the Overland girl.
Gripping the bridle she led the animal off to the right of the cabin until she reached a stream. Into this she led the animal for some distance, and secreted him in a narrow pass that was well hidden.
“I think I will take the saddle and hide that,” reflected Elfreda. Upon second thought she decided to carry it back and hide it near the cabin, for she recognized it as a fine Mexican saddle. The saddle she did secrete in a thick growth of bushes about fifty yards from the shack.
As she approached the cabin her footsteps became halting.
“What if they should come and find him here? Oh, this is terrible. Where, where can Stacy be? Why doesn’t he come back?”
It was not a pleasant task that confronted Elfreda Briggs, but she went to it with lips set, face pale, and heart beating nervously. She covered the thin old frame of Sam Petersen, and over it laid the blankets.
“Oh, this is terrible,” moaned the girl, then grew suddenly rigid. The sound of approaching horses reached her alert ears as she stood in the middle of the floor, every faculty on the alert.
They galloped up to the shack and halted.