Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers

--a Friend in Need 87

Hippy, awakening, finds himself a captive. A grilling ride on horseback. Captors question and threaten their prisoner. Sight of food makes Hippy sad. "Don't make a sound, Lieutenant," warns a friendly voice. "There's a price on your head!"

--the Power of Mind 99

"I didn't con-centrate for nothing," declares Emma Dean. Grace finds and loses the trail. Elfreda fires at a noise. "Cut the gun!" howls Hippy Wingate. "The mountaineers are after us!" Lieutenant Wingate's rescuer advises the party to move at once.

--"they've Got the Boy!" 107

"Two skips an' er jump" to their destination. Washington's howls arouse the Overland camp. The colored boy suddenly disappears. The night vigil of the Overland Riders is broken by a shock.

--"a Marked Man" 114

"Hold your fire!" orders Lieutenant Wingate. Washington Washington flounders into camp. "All this scare for a black nightmare," groans Emma. The "rural free delivery man" makes an early call. Another mystery for the Overland Riders to solve.

--a Mountain Mystery 121

A message and a postscript. Miss Briggs says she will show her companions. Camp is made on the Thompson farm. Julie calls to look the Overlanders over. Invited to a mountain dance. Hippy makes a trouble-forecast.

CHAPTER XIII--THREE MEN IN THE CORNFIELD 132

Washington says he "sawed" a man. Jeremiah makes a call on the Overland camp. How the Spectacle Man "fits" glasses. The "benefactor of all mankind" suddenly changes his mind. "Two dollars, please."

CHAPTER XIV--ELFREDA DISTINGUISHES HERSELF 140

The Mystery Man makes a pun. Jeremiah "rolls" out of camp. Elfreda discovers a bear. "He is eating up our food." With the bear's assistance Miss Briggs succeeds in lassoing him. The Overland camp turned into turmoil.

--when Emma Said Too Much 148

Young Bruin upsets the entire Overland party. "Quick! Get her loose!" Hippy kills and dresses the bear. Footprints in the cornfield. A stranger comes to call and fills up on bear meat. "I'm the game constable! Where's the bear?" he demands sternly.

CHAPTER XVI--A JOKE ON THE OVERLANDERS 162

"No one ain't allowed to have bear meat till December." Overland Riders are told that they are under arrest. Hippy knocks out the "constable" and brings him to with a pail of water. "I'll give you ten seconds to get out of camp!"

CHAPTER XVII--THE DANCE AT COON HOLLOW 168

Hippy declares he is not getting sufficient nourishment. Gay mountain folk gather at the schoolhouse. Washington's music not appreciated. Emma Dean lays the foundation for a "riot." Hippy makes a disheartening discovery.

--an Interrupted Party 180

Julie introduces her "feller" to the Overlanders. Lum Bangs threatens Lieutenant Wingate. Weapons drawn in the schoolroom. A mysterious shot cripples the "constable." Knocked out by a blow. Washington has a bad fright.

--a Call for Help 189

Emma "con-centrates" on Hippy and "saves his life." The Overland camp found destroyed. "Dey done got de mule!" wailed the colored boy. Julie's warning is recalled. Grace and Elfreda summoned to the Thompson home to care for sick children.

--hippy as a Roughrider 199

Lieutenant Wingate goes for a doctor. The Overland girls sleep in a barn. Julie refuses to tell tales. The doctor arrives alone. "We were attacked from ambush!" Jed Thompson orders the Overland nurses from his cabin.

CHAPTER XXI--AN APOLOGY AND A THREAT 209

"The lieutenant is down there yet and may be dead!" The doctor reads Jed Thompson a severe lecture. Thompson goes to Hippy's rescue. Hippy accused of being Jim Townsend. "If he looks like me, he's a lucky man."

CHAPTER XXII--JULIE BRINGS DISTURBING NEWS 216

Lieutenant Wingate informs Jed that the Spurgeons are coming to "shoot him up." On the trail again. Julie overtakes the Overland Riders, bearing a warning. "Bat Spurgeon an' his gang is waitin' fer you-uns on the White River Ridge," she tells them.

CHAPTER XXIII--THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 228

Grace learns that Tom Gray is in the feudist country. Tom's tent found, but he is missing. Nora's missile hits the wrong man. The Overland Riders seek refuge in a cave. Fresh disasters befall them. Fighting out a mountain feud.

--trail's End 245

The Mystery Man found a captive in a cave. He "fits" Grace Harlowe with "magic glasses." Through her new specs she sees Tom Gray. Jeremiah Long says his farewell. What Tom found on Hippy's claim.

GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS

Excitement in the Foothills

The foothills of the Kentucky Mountains echoed to the strains of a rollicking college song, as Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders rode into a laurel-bordered clearing and dismounted to make their first camp of this, their third summer's outing in the saddle.

Only one of the party remained on his mount. This one was Washington Washington, the colored boy that they had taken on at Henderson to be their man of all work, guide and assistant cook, for Washington had declared that, "Ah knows more 'bout de mountings dan any oder niggah in Kaintuck." On his own recommendation, Grace and her party had accepted him.

Washington, however, already had shown a love of leisure that was not wholly in keeping with his further recommendation for activity, and, instead of assisting the girls of the Overland unit to unload their ponies, the boy sat perched on the pack mule that he had been riding, playing a harmonica, swaying in his saddle in rhythm with the music, and rolling the whites of his eyes in ecstasy.

"Just look at him, girls," urged Grace Harlowe Gray laughingly. "If that isn't a picture!"

"I call it a nightmare," objected Emma Dean. "Oh, if I only had a nice ripe tomato, and could throw straight enough."

"Impossible!" declared Elfreda Briggs, whereupon Anne Nesbit and Nora Wingate broke forth into merry peals of laughter.

"Laundry!" roared Hippy Wingate. "We didn't hire you for a moving picture. Shake your lazy bones and get busy. If you don't hustle you'll get something harder than a tomato."

"Laundry?" wondered Tom Gray. "Why Laundry, Hippy?"

"That's his name, isn't it? Doesn't he call himself Washington Washington on Sundays and holidays, and Wash-Wash, for short, on weekdays? I have his word for it. Wash is laundry and laundry is wash in the neck of the woods where I was reared," explained Hippy, at the same time narrowly observing the colored boy, who, following Lieutenant Wingate's threat, had permitted himself to slide to the ground, and there he sat, still mouthing his harmonica, lost to everything but the music he was creating.

"Your logic is unassailable," nodded Miss Briggs. "I was wondering why, while we are about it, we don't hire a brass band. We at least would not be obliged to listen to the same tune all the time. Does any one know of a way to put a mute on a harmonica?"