The Apache Trail lay a short distance above the Overton camp; the creek, near which the ponies were tethered, being about an equal distance below the camp. The shooting, she discovered, was occurring somewhere between the camp and the trail.
Grace stepped out into the open, facing the trail, just in time to hear a bullet whistle over her head. She ducked instinctively.
“You watch the camp, Lieutenant,” she heard Ike Fairweather call.
“No, I’m going with you,” answered Hippy.
“Are we attacked?” called Elfreda Briggs from her tent. “Grace! Are you there?”
“I don’t know what the trouble is, Elfreda, but—” She broke off abruptly as a sudden thought came to her. “Look out for the camp, Elfreda!” Without a word of explanation, Grace whirled and sped toward the spot where the horses were staked. To her rear, somewhere in the vicinity of the Apache Trail, she heard two more rifle reports, but whether from the weapons in the hands of Ike Fairweather and Lieutenant Wingate, or from other sources, she was unable to determine.
Nearing the tethering ground Grace proceeded with more caution, not knowing what new menace she might find confronting her there, but the murmur of Pinal Creek was the only sound that interrupted the mountain stillness, a stillness that, on this occasion, seemed heavy with significance.
At the edge of the tethering ground, Grace halted sharply and peered about her.
“Gone! Every one of them gone!” she gasped. “I suspected this very thing. This is too bad.” Grace started to return to camp and tripped over a tethering stake, measuring her length on the ground. Before rising she fingered the stake and the short piece of rope still attached to it. She finally untied the rope, and, with it, started for the camp at a brisk trot. As Grace neared the tents, Ike and Hippy came in from the trail side.
“I winged one critter,” cried Ike as he espied Grace. “He was sneakin’ towards the camp when I discovered him. You see I kinder thought somethin’ was wrong, so I picked up a rifle an’ went out scoutin’ for trouble. Well, I s’prised the critter an’ let him have it hot, thet’s all.”