shed
out, demanding excitedly to know what the trouble was.

At this juncture Hippy walked into the clearing.

"Meet me with a pail of food! I'm starving!" he wailed.

For the next few minutes there was excitement in the camp, Nora clinging
to Hippy's neck laughing and crying, Emma standing a little aloof from
them with a superior smile on her face, Anne, urging the wide-eyed
Washington to start the fire and prepare coffee, and Grace seeking to
quiet Nora so that they might hear Hippy's story.

When the campfire blazed up and they saw his condition, Nora wept again.
Hippy was hatless--his hat was out in the bushes where Grace, after
finding it, had secreted it--his clothes were torn, he was hollow-eyed,
and his head wore a lump that stood out prominently.

"Never mind the trimmings. Give me food," he begged. Then between
mouthfuls he told the story of his capture so far as he knew it, told it
to the moment of his reaching the Overland camp. Hippy said he intended,
if possible, to creep in quietly without awakening any one and give the
girls a big surprise in the morning, when Elfreda threw a wrench into
the machinery, "and tried to wing me," he added amid laughter.

"I could not afford to wait," answered Miss Briggs.

"You sure are some quick on the trigger," declared Hippy. "The fellow
who was with me ducked, and I heard him chuckling and laughing as he
sneaked away."

"Yes, but, had it not been for me, you might not have been here,
Lieutenant Wingate," interjected Emma Dean.

"Eh? How's that, Emma?"

"Why, I--I con-centrated on you and brought you back," answered Emma
solemnly.

"What a pity," murmured Hippy sadly. "And she so young."

"Who was the man who rescued you?" questioned Grace, after the laugh at
Emma's expense had subsided.

"I don't know. I never saw him before. He is a slick article, whoever he
may be."

"Are you certain that it was not our Mystery Man?" asked Anne.

"I am. Say! We must get out of here right smart, for there is going to
be trouble," urged Hippy.

"I should say that we already have had our share of it," complained
Elfreda.

"Yes, but this is different, child. The mountaineers are after us--after
me especially," he added, throwing out his chest a little.

"After you--after you, Hippy, my darlin'?" cried Nora. "Why should they
be after you?"

"I don't know any more about it than you do. Perhaps the little mix-ups
we had with those two fellows may have something to do