CHAPTER I
THE CALL OF THE WILD

“I HAVE asked you to visit me for a twofold reason,” announced Grace Harlowe to her friends of the Overton Unit. “In other words, I have a vacation proposal to make to you.”

“Which, translated into plain English, means that you wish to lead us into new fields of adventure,” interjected Emma Dean.

“Perhaps,” smiled Grace.

“I suspected as much when I received your invitation to come here,” nodded Elfreda Briggs.

“Curiosity has taken full possession of me, Grace. What is the big idea?” urged Anne Nesbit eagerly.

“So far as I am concerned, no plans have been made,” replied Grace. “The original suggestion may have been mine – that is, the suggestion that we get together for a real outing. From that nucleus, Hippy says he has worked out a plan that promises entertainment, health and adventure for the jaded Overton girls after their strenuous war service. Hippy and Nora will be here in a few moments. He will tell you all about it.”

“Dark mystery,” murmured Emma.

“Let me ask you girls something,” resumed Grace. “Since we returned from France, where we all did our bit, has each of you been perfectly contented with the simple life, well content to remain at home without feeling one little moment’s yearning to see something stirring? Search your innermost consciousness and tell me what you find there in answer to my question.”

For a moment no one essayed an answer; then Elfreda spoke up.

“To be frank with you, Loyalheart, I have been perfectly miserable,” declared Miss Briggs thoughtfully.

Grace nodded and smiled.

“In France, amid the activity and excitement of war, not to speak of the peril, I was positive that once out of it, once back in my peaceful home, I never again should feel the slightest inclination to wander,” continued Elfreda. “For a few months, following my return from the war zone, I really was contented, delightfully so, luxuriously so, I might say, for I was ‘living the lazy life of Reilley,’ as the doughboys say.

“Well, finally I awakened from my dream. I was restless, ill at ease. While away to war my law practice of course had gone to smash. It had not met me at the train upon my return, either, and the way I felt I didn’t care; but upon awakening I realized that what I needed was activity. However, the sort of activity that my particular ailment demanded was not at hand, and I was on the verge of doing something desperate when your letter came asking me to join our friends at your home to talk over a vacation trip. Grace Harlowe, you are a life saver. That is the honest-to-goodness truth and the whole truth,” finished Elfreda amid laughter.

“That is what I say, or rather what I probably should have said had I the eloquence of our legal friend, Elfreda Briggs,” bubbled Emma. “Give me excitement or I die!”

Grace glanced at Anne, who nodded and smiled.

“I follow where you lead, Loyalheart,” said Anne. “Too bad that the rest of the Unit are unable to be with us, but those not otherwise engaged are mostly roaming over the face of the earth, just as we are proposing to do. By the way, what are we to do – where are we to go and how?”

“We are all suffering a reaction from the war, but a strenuous few weeks in the open surely will settle us down,” said Grace. “There come Hippy and Nora. Now you will know all about it,” she added, stepping to the veranda to greet the newcomers. “Welcome, Nora Wingate. How are you, Lieutenant?”

“All present or accounted for,” answered Hippy jovially. “Happy to meet you, ladies,” he greeted, bowing profoundly as he entered the house. “I haven’t been so pleased over anything since I downed my first Boche plane in France. There, there, Nora darling, don’t monopolize the girls. Give your hero husband a chance. I take it that you are to join out with us in our big mid-summer vacation?” questioned Hippy, addressing himself to Emma Dean.

“Are you going to lead the party?” demanded Emma.

“I may have that honor.” Hippy bowed humbly.

“Count me out!” emphasized Emma.

“No, no, no,” protested Anne and Elfreda laughingly.

“Before jumping at conclusions perhaps it would be as well for us to listen to Lieutenant Wingate’s plan,” suggested Grace, rising. “Dinner is being served. Come! We can talk while we eat,” she added, leading the way to the dining room whose windows overlooked the sloping green lawns of Grace Harlowe’s much-loved home.

Elfreda, Anne and Emma had, within the hour, arrived at Haven Home where Grace had been living quietly and restfully since her return from France, in which country she and her friends of the Overton Unit had been serving with the Red Cross during the closing year of the war.

Grace’s husband, Captain Tom Gray, was still in Russia where he had been sent from France on a military mission, and Yvonne, her adopted daughter, was a pupil in a private school in New England, so she felt free to invite the girls of her Unit to join with her in a summer’s outing that would offer both recreation and adventure.

Anne Nesbit, Elfreda Briggs and Emma Dean were the only members of the Unit who had not already made their plans for the summer.

While Grace would have been pleased to have all the girls of the Overton Unit join in her proposed outing, she was just as well pleased that her invitation had not been more generally accepted. The present party was of about the right size, as she reasoned it. Then again, the members of the party had been close associates for many years; they had shared their girlhood joys and sorrows; they had suffered together in those desperate days in France when it seemed to them that the very universe were rending itself asunder, and from all this had been born a better understanding of each other and a greater love and respect.

It was, therefore, a happy gathering that sat down to dinner in Grace Harlowe’s Oakdale home on that balmy mid-summer afternoon. For a time there was chatter and laughter, the reviving of old college and war memories, intermingled with occasional chaffing of Hippy Wingate, always a shining mark for the Overton girls’ teasing.

“Girls,” finally announced Grace, “Hippy has a dark secret locked in his heart, to be brought to light only when we girls are present.”

“I could see the moment he came in that he had,” interrupted Elfreda. “Hippy always was a poor dissembler.”

“Yes, that’s what Nora says,” replied Hippy sheepishly.

“I believe that you girls are not all aware of the fact that Hippy is now a man of affairs,” resumed Grace. “Therefore, his words must be given weight accordingly. Hippy, being too modest to tell you about it himself, I would have you all know that, upon his return from the war, he found himself a rich man, following the death of a wealthy uncle who was so proud of our Flying Lieutenant’s great achievements in the war that he left Hippy all his worldly possessions. Our Hippy, it is rumored, is now lying awake nights trying to devise new ways to spend his fortune.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” protested Hippy Wingate, with a disapproving shake of the head. “What I really am trying to figure out is how not to spend it – that is, not all at once. Of course, so far as my dear friends are concerned, that is another matter,” added Hippy quite seriously.

“My ancestors originated in Missouri. You will have to demonstrate,” observed Emma Dean amid much laughter.

“What we are at the moment most interested in is the dark secret. You have something to say to us,” reminded Miss Briggs.

“Yes, Hippy, do not keep us in suspense,” urged Grace.

“Go on, darling. They will walk out and leave you if you don’t start pretty soon,” warned Nora.

“Ahem!” began Lieutenant Wingate.

“Are you going to make a speech?” demanded Emma apprehensively.

“What I am about to say will answer your question. Grace has been suggesting that this outfit get together and spend the latter part of the summer in the open. That set my brain in operation.”

“Your what?” interrupted Emma.

Grace laughed merrily, and then begged Hippy’s pardon.

“Upon my return from the war,” resumed Hippy, unheeding the interruption, “my friend, Captain Jamieson, of the State Constabulary, asked me to volunteer to serve in the troop with him on strike duty. I did so. Girls, you have no idea of the joy I found in ‘packing leather,’ as the horsemen call it – horseback riding. After that experience with the troop, when Grace was speaking about an outing in the open, it occurred to me that the Overton Unit might work off its surplus energy in the saddle, and at the same time have a glorious outing. Brown Eyes, tell them of your experience in the saddle.”

Grace related how, after having been made an honorary member of the troop, she had taken up horseback riding and what a wonderful revelation it had been to her.

“Take my word for it, too, Brown Eyes already is as fine a rider as there is in the troop. The captain says she is a natural born horsewoman,” declared Hippy with enthusiasm. “Even my Nora promises that, hereafter, riding horseback is to be her own principal recreation. How many of you girls ride?”

Elfreda and Anne said they had ridden some when younger, but not recently. Emma Dean owned a pony, she said, but had not been on its back in more than two years.

“Good!” exclaimed Lieutenant Wingate. “You all at least know how to stick on leather, so we will proceed to the next stage of the journey. My great secret is no longer a secret. You already know what I am about to propose. Do you girls wish to join out with us for a month or so in the saddle?”

“To go where?” questioned Elfreda.

“That is for us girls to decide upon,” interjected Grace. “The first question to be settled is, who will go?”

“All in favor of taking a horseback trip say ‘aye’; contrary ‘no,’” cried Hippy.

The answer was a chorus of ayes.

“The ayes have it! We go,” announced the lieutenant, smiling his pleasure at the decision.

“Have you a suggestion to offer as to where we might go?” asked Anne.

“It was my thought that we might tour New England,” answered the lieutenant.

“New England!” cried Emma Dean. “There isn’t any fun in doing that. When I go out for adventure I wish the real thing. Adventure in New England! Huh! It hasn’t existed in New England since the Indians put down an arrow barrage on the Pilgrim Fathers. You will have to think of something more exciting than New England if you expect me to go with you.”

“Where do we get the saddle horses?” was Elfreda’s query.

“Hippy will arrange for that,” Grace informed her. “I agree with Emma that, so long as we are going out for adventure, we should get as far from the beaten paths as possible. Roughing it in the real meaning of the term is what we girls need.”

“That is what I say,” cried Emma. “No weak lemonade trips for me. Give me a wild west or give me an automobile.”

“I am certain that Loyalheart has a suggestion to offer,” said Miss Briggs, nodding in Grace’s direction.

“Yes, I have,” admitted Grace. “My advice is that we adopt Emma’s suggestion and go west. Speaking for myself, there is one place out there that always has held a great fascination for me. I refer to the Old Apache Trail in Arizona. From what I have read of that part of the country, one should be able to find adventure in a horseback journey over the old trail. Going so far by train, before we start with horses, will make it rather an expensive trip, but I do not believe it will be beyond our means.”

Emma’s eyes widened.

“Indians? Are there Indians there?”

“Every bush hides a lurking Apache,” Lieutenant Wingate gravely informed her.

“Oh!” exclaimed Emma under her breath.

“I do not believe it is quite so alarming as that,” laughed Grace. “Even though there are Indians, we probably shall not be troubled by them. Are there any further suggestions, girls?”

“The Apache Trail sounds interesting to me,” admitted Anne.

“Both interesting and alarming,” averred Elfreda. “However, we know from past experiences that trouble always goes hand in hand with Grace Harlowe, so we are fully prepared in advance for whatever may come to us. What do we take with us, and how are we to dress?”

“It has occurred to me that we can wear our old army uniforms, without insignia,” replied Grace. “They will be appropriate for riding, but we should wear campaign hats in place of our overseas caps. Such changes of clothing as we shall require can be carried in our steamer trunks which we will send ahead by express. My advice is not to carry any finery. Let us keep in the simple atmosphere at all times, bearing in mind that this will not be a Pullman car outing after we reach our starting point. How soon can you girls be ready?”

Elfreda said she would be prepared to leave in about ten days, having some office legal matters to clear up before going away. The others said they could be ready in even less time than that, so it was decided that they should meet at Oakdale for the start for the west on August first. Hippy, in the meantime, would, so far as possible, arrange by correspondence for the horses they were to ride, and for such equipment as had to do with his part in the preparations.

The following few days were busy ones for all, between riding horseback, taking short gallops out into the country on such mounts as they could find at livery stables, and planning for their vacation in the saddle. On these rides, Hippy and Grace taught the others such riding points as they had learned in their riding experiences, all save Emma quickly adapting themselves to the saddle, so that the week’s vacation at Haven Home lengthened to twelve days before Elfreda and Emma entrained for home. Anne remained with Grace, there being no reason why she should return home, as her husband, still in the service of his country, was on the other side of the Atlantic.

In the intervening days before the start for the west, Hippy corresponded by wire and letter, with the postmaster at Globe, Arizona, who informed the lieutenant that there were two stock farms near that place, where mounts suitable for the Overton girls’ needs might be purchased or hired at reasonable prices. It was decided, however, that no definite arrangement for horses should be made until Hippy had had opportunity to look them over, with all the girls present to approve of his selection.

Grace, having completed most of her preparations for their outing, now made a brief journey to the city to visit Yvonne at her school, returning home in time to welcome Elfreda and Emma, who arrived at Oakdale looking trim and pretty in their new tailor-made serge traveling suits. Grace looked her two friends over critically on their arrival.

“Becoming, but not quite suitable for horseback riding,” she observed, referring to their costumes.

“Our riding suits are in our steamer trunks,” explained Elfreda. “I know – you said we were not to take any finery along, but surely, while traveling on a train we should wear something other than our uniforms.”

Grace admitted that perhaps this would be advisable, and decided that the party would be less conspicuous in traveling clothes.

It was a merry company at Haven Home that evening, the eve of the Overton girls’ departure for the west on what, each one instinctively felt, was destined to be an eventful journey. Several neighbors came in and there was music, with Irish songs by Nora, a characteristic speech from the lips of Lieutenant Wingate, followed by dancing, refreshments and much chatter, until a late hour.

After the neighbors had said their good-byes the Overton girls put the finishing touches to their packing and closed their trunks.

“To be opened when we reach Arizona,” announced Grace, placing her trunk key in her purse, smiling at her friends with that rare smile that so attracted people to her.

Quite a party was at the station to see the outfit off next morning, though naturally the crowd was neither so great nor so boisterous as when, upon her arrival home from the war, Grace Harlowe had been literally carried from the train to her home, a heroine, not in theory, but in fact, as the crosses of war of two nations, pinned to her blouse, bore evidence.

Farewells were waved from car windows, the tall maples and spreading elms of Haven Home melted into the distance as the journey toward the setting sun was begun.

“Somehow I have a feeling that this vacation of ours is not to be an unalloyed sweet summer’s dream,” sighed Elfreda Briggs, settling herself resignedly for the journey.