more shots were fired, followed by a succession of startling whoops and yells.
“What does it mean? I’m afraid!” cried Emma.
The Overlanders ran out of the dining room to the veranda, but no one was in sight.
“Chunky has arrived. Don’t be afraid, girls,” laughed Hippy Wingate. “He is on the other side of the house. There he comes!”
A short, fat young fellow, riding a gray bronco and perched high on his saddle, at this juncture dashed around the end of the house, firing two shots into the air as he passed the amazed group. Just as he swept past, his sombrero fell off, but Chunky did not stop. In a minute or two he was back, and, making a graceful dip from the saddle, reached down for the hat. As he did so, the pony swerved and Stacy Brown landed on the grass of Haven Home, flopped over on his back, and after a few dazed seconds got up and shook himself.
Stacy made a low bow to the spectators gathered on the veranda.
“Oh, my dear, my dear! Are you hurt?” begged Nora, running to him.
“Hurt? Of course not. I always fall off before dinner. It puts a keen edge on my appetite. Hulloa, folks! Glad to meet ye. Hey, Bismarck! Come here,” he ordered.
His dusty gray pony trotted to him and nosed Stacy’s cheek affectionately.
“Got anything loose around the house? I’m half starved,” urged Chunky. “Uncle Hip, introduce me to these beautiful young ladies. I’ve heard of you folks, and so has Bismarck. You’ll find him right friendly, especially the front end of him, but I shouldn’t advise you to get too close to the tail end. He is very light there. Let him browse in the yard while I feed the inner man.”
“Indeed not,” objected Grace. “I am not going to have my flowers trampled down after all my hard work on them this spring. Tom, please lead Stacy’s pony around to the stables. I will put something on the table for you at once, Stacy. Come right in. We were just finishing dinner when you arrived so violently. Oh! Pardon me. You haven’t yet been introduced to the girls.”
“Thanks!” bowed Stacy. “Thanks for the invitation, but come to think of it don’t introduce me until after dinner. I never like to meet strangers on an empty stomach.”
“This is Miss Elfreda Briggs, a rising young lawyeress, and here is the life of our Overland party, Miss Emma Dean. We address each other by our first names, so you may call her Emma. Come now, Stacy.”
“You’re a funny fellow, aren’t you?” said Emma, surveying the newcomer curiously as they walked towards the house.
“Then we are a pair of ’em, eh?” chuckled the fat boy.
“I am not a boy, thank my lucky stars and all the saints,” objected Emma. “I’ll have you understand that, sir.”
“Let the dove of peace rest over your touchy spirit, Emma,” laughed Grace chidingly.
“It isn’t a dove. It’s a crow,” corrected Chunky. “A thousand pardons, Emma dear. I – ”
“I’m not your dear,” answered Emma with considerable heat.
“Yes, you are, but you don’t know it. To realize it you will have to emerge from the unconscious state in which you now so sweetly repose,” teased Stacy, amid the laughter of the others.
“I should prefer to be unconscious all the time,” flung back Emma.
“Ah! The food does smell good. Food always has a strange effect on me, and really, I haven’t smelled any in almost a thousand years – not since breakfast this morning. By the way, where do we go and when do we start?”
“To the Sierras,” answered Tom Gray. “How are you, Chunky?” he added, extending a hand.
“Starved. How’s yourself?”
“I think after we go back to the dining room and after I have my dessert that I shall feel fit as a fiddle,” replied Tom. “To answer the rest of your question, we expect to start tomorrow forenoon. The ponies will be shipped in a car that is now on the siding at Oakdale.”
“Girls, what do you think of my nephew?” cried Hippy jovially, as they again seated themselves at the table.
“So far as I am concerned, I think that he is another of those bungalow fellows just like yourself, Hippy,” answered Emma. “Mr. Brown, may I ask if you ever have had any experience with mental transmigration?” she asked, turning to Chunky.
Chunky, his mouth full of food, surveyed her solemnly.
“Uh-huh!” he replied thickly. “I met one of those animals once in the Rocky Mountains. You see it was this way. We had been riding far into the night to find a suitable camping place, when we were suddenly halted by a savage growl just ahead of us. I went on ahead, with my trusty rifle ready, to slay the beast whatever it might be. Suddenly I saw him. He was the most terrible looking object that I’ve ever come up with in all my mountain experience. I threw up my rifle and shot the beast dead in his tracks.”
“Wonderful!” breathed Emma. “But what has that to do with mental transmigration?”
“I’m coming to that. It is wonderful – I mean it was. Will you believe it, that terrible beast came to life. Yes, sir, he rose right up and made for us. My pony bolted, and I fell off – just as I ordinarily do before meal time. My feet at the moment chanced to be out of the stirrups and I fell off. Well, I might have been killed – I surely would have been killed, but I wasn’t, just because of that stunt that you mentioned. I transmigrated myself out of that vicinity with a speed that left that terrible object so far behind that he just lay down and died again,” finished Stacy Brown solemnly, amid shouts of laughter, in which all but Emma Dean joined.
Stacy gave her a quick sidelong glance, and Hippy Wingate, observing the look, knew that war had been declared between Stacy Brown and Emma Dean.
CHAPTER II
AN INTERRUPTED SLEEP
“Right at this point,” said the traveling salesman impressively, “a train left the track and plunged into that ravine down there.”
“Any loss of life?” questioned Tom Gray.
“A great many. I was in that wreck myself. I was shaken up a bit, that’s all. You see I know how to take care of myself. We commercial travelers have to or we should soon be out of business. Nearly the whole train went into that ravine, and the car in which I was riding stood on end. I clung to the air-brake cord and thus was miraculously saved.”
“Humph!” muttered Stacy, hunching his fat shoulders forward. “You don’t look to be light enough to perch on an air-brake cord.”
The Overland girls glanced amusedly at Chunky and the traveling salesman. The entire party was enjoying the late afternoon mountain air from the rear platform of the observation car on the transcontinental train known as the Red Limited. Just inside the door sat other passengers, who had been enjoying the frequent passages-at-arms between Stacy Brown and Emma Dean. The train had been rumbling over bridges and lurching through narrow cuts, affording the passengers brief views of a swiftly moving scenic panorama of interest and attractiveness.
“As I was saying, the rope, in all probability, saved my life, as I was the only
