s. Let's have a look
at the contour map," suggested Grace.

While the others of the party were busy setting the camp to rights,
Washington having removed the packs from the mules, Grace and Tom pored
over the map of the eastern section of the mountains. Not only were they
planning their routes, but they were critically examining a portion of
the map that was encircled with a ring of red ink. The space within the
circle represented a tract of mountain land that belonged to Lieutenant
Hippy Wingate, property that he had inherited.

Hippy had never seen this property, it having been left to him by a
wealthy uncle whose large fortune Hippy had inherited while fighting the
Germans in the air in France. He now proposed to look it over. In fact,
this journey of the Overland Riders had been planned with that object in
view.

Following their return from France, where they had served in the Overton
College Unit, Grace having been an ambulance driver at the front, the
girls had decided to seek recreation in the saddle each summer. Their
first vacation was spent in an exciting ride over the Old Apache Trail
in Arizona, following this with a venturesome journey on horseback
across the arid waste of the Great American Desert. Lieutenant Wingate's
determination to visit his property in the Kentucky Mountains led the
Overland Riders, as Grace Harlowe and her friends called themselves, to
make those mountains the objective of their third vacation in the
saddle.

After Tom Gray had finished his government survey, it was their purpose
to proceed with him to Lieutenant Wingate's tract, where Tom was to make
a survey and examination of it, so that Hippy might learn whether or not
the property possessed any particular value.

"Hippy says his uncle took the property in payment of a debt, but that
the uncle never had considered it to be worth much of anything," said
Tom reflectively. "From what little I know of that section of the
country, I am inclined to agree with him. However, we shall see when we
get there."

"Who knows but that Hippy may find still another fortune awaiting him
there?" suggested Grace.

Tom shook his head and smiled.

"It would be Hippy's luck, wouldn't it? He doesn't need it; he already
has more money than he knows what to do with. Nor have I the slightest
hope that he will find anything of value there. The twenty-fifth, then,
it is. I shall make Chapman's my base and work from there. If necessary
to communica