into our camp?"
wondered Elfreda Briggs, folding up the newspaper that contained the
message to them.

"It must mean that a friend is interested in our welfare," replied
Grace. "Whoever and whatever he may be, his advice is good, and here we
stay until we find Hippy. I am going out right after breakfast and make
an effort to pick up the trail. Surely the outlaws, or whatever they
are, will not be waiting all that time for us to follow them. I will
make a quiet scout. I do not look to be interfered with, for they surely
will have gone away by now."

"Shall I call the girls and tell them? The knowledge that a helping hand
has been held out to us surely will comfort Nora," said Elfreda.

"Yes. I will rout out Washington and have him start the fire. It has
been a trying night and I am glad it is at an end," replied Grace.

"I knew it," cried Emma Dean when she learned what had taken place. "I
didn't con-centrate for nothing."

"You what?" frowned Elfreda.

"I have been con-centrating all night long--con-centrating on Hippy to
call him back to us."

"Oh, you darlin'," cried Nora, throwing her arms about Emma.

"I should advise you to continue to 'con-centrate,'" suggested Anne. "If
you were to stop now you might break the mental string; then we should
lose Hippy for good."

"You just wait. You'll see whether or not he comes back," retorted Emma
indignantly.

Nora's face was flushed that morning and her heart was filled with a new
hope--the hope that Hippy might be with them before the close of that
day.

After breakfast, as planned, Grace took up her rifle and went away,
leaving Elfreda and the others to guard the camp and, incidentally, to
keep Washington busy and out of mischief. He was, too, forbidden to play
his harmonica lest the noise attract attention to the camp of the
Overland Riders.

Proceeding cautiously, Grace reached the stream, and followed it until
she found where the kidnappers of Hippy had left it. After waiting and
watching for a full hour, Grace stepped out boldly. For six hours the
Overland girl employed all her knowledge of the open in an effort to
pick up the trail of the mountaineers, but the trail appeared to end
abruptly at the bank of the creek. Not even the hoofprints of horses
could be found on the softer ground a short distance back from the
stream.

There are tricks in masking one's trail that the Kentucky mountaineers
had learned from generations of feuds and attacks by reve