STRANGE EXPERIENCE

Within an hour the Overlanders were sufficiently dried out to permit them to go to bed with some comfort. Blankets had been warmed before the fire, and, even though the tents and the ground were damp, they found a large measure of comfort after they had tucked themselves in for the night. Two there were of the party, however, who were not wholly comfortable. One was Lieutenant Wingate, who ached all over, and the other was Stacy Brown, whose mouth was so sore that it hurt him to swallow, and he was restless all night.

The morning dawned bright and beautiful, with skies of the deepest blue, unmarred by drifting clouds. After a consultation, following breakfast, it was decided to leave the ponies and make their way on foot to the top of Electric Peak.

“Can we make it and back here the same day?” questioned Grace, glancing over at Jim Badger.

“If you don’t stay up there too long I reckon you might,” he replied.

“At least we must take sufficient food along to last us until to-morrow,” urged Grace.

“Yes. Don’t forget the eats. I can’t live without food,” reminded Stacy.

Tom suggested that Stacy remain at the camp with Badger.

“Nothing like that doing,” replied the fat boy. “I should think you would prefer to remain here, in view of the fact that you have a sore mouth,” urged Miss Briggs. “That climb is going to be regular hard work, you know.”

“I won’t stay, and that’s flat,” retorted Stacy. “If you folks go, I go.”

“If you wished him to remain in camp you should have insisted on his accompanying us,” spoke up Emma.

“Yes, that’s so,” agreed Hippy. “Stacy, you know what you are?”

“Sure I do. I am the brains of the Overland outfit and the leading sunshine dispenser.”

“You mean trouble dispenser,” suggested Tom laughingly.

“Not only that, Stacy, but you are as contrary as a government mule,” added Lieutenant Win—

“That’s right. Call me names, but don’t get the idea that you can cheat me out of any real fun that comes along on this dull trip,” retorted young Brown. “I know what you want. You want me to stay here and fight bears trying to steal food—you want me to fight them with a sealed rifle. Of course I could do it if I wished, but I don’t wish. What’s the matter with Jim Badger?”

“I’ll stay,” offered the guide.

“You will have to carry a heavy pack on your back, Stacy, if you go,” reminded Grace teasingly.

Stacy demurred at this, declaring that his heart would stand no such strain.

“Don’t carry the pack on your heart. Carry it on your back,” suggested Emma amid much laughter.

The guide was directed, in case of trouble, to fire gun signals.

“What about the seals on the locks?” questioned Grace, nodding to Hippy, who had made the suggestion.

“That’s so. Make smoke signals, Jim. In case of our being delayed, make them anyway.”

For the next half hour the Overlanders were busy selecting such equipment as they thought would be needed on their journey to the top of Electric Peak. Stacy compromised with his companions by consenting to carry two blanket rolls which he said was all his heart would stand, and the party started up the mountain full of spirits and eagerness for the adventure that lay before them.

Within an hour after the start the high altitude began to affect the Overlanders, and especially Stacy, who had an attack of nosebleed. The party halted until the fat boy recovered, then resumed their climb, with continued rising spirits. Emma was laughing almost hysterically, and Stacy again indulged in “song.”

“We have never before felt such queer effects from mountain climbing,” Grace confided to her husband.

“It’s the altitude,” he said.

“I don’t agree with you,” differed Grace. “I feel it too strongly.”

“What ails us, Loyalheart?” cried Elfreda, addressing Grace. “We are acting like a lot of schoolgirls on their first picnic.”

“Tom says it is the high altitude, but I think he is wrong.”

“I could almost fly away on the wings of the morning,” laughed Emma.

“Spread your wings and take off,” suggested Lieutenant Wingate. “You will find the air and the rocks rather bumpy, but—”

“It won’t hurt; she’s too soft,” interjected Stacy.

“Thank goodness I am not a thickhead,” retorted Miss Dean, laughing immoderately at her own witticism.

“It is my opinion that you all have an exaggerated attack of the willies. How is your heart now, Chunky?” questioned Hippy teasingly.

“It beats all,” was Stacy’s prompt reply.

The Overland Riders groaned dismally, then burst into peals of laughter. The merriment continued until luncheon had satisfied their hunger.

“I am inclined to believe that last night’s electric storm has something to do with our peculiar sensations to-day,” averred Elfreda. “I feel as if I were attached to an electric-light wire. Don’t you?”

“Never having been in that situation I can’t say that I do feel that way,” answered Grace, laughing merrily. “I must admit that I do feel queer, though.”

As they got higher their peculiar sensations increased rather than diminished.

“Tell you what I’m going to do, folks,” shouted Stacy. “After we get to the top I’m going to beat you all back to camp. I’m going to jump off the mountain, I am. Hurrah! Come along, Emma, and take the leap with me.”

“Perish the thought! Perish it with a big, big perisher,” replied Emma. “I probably shall slide, but leap? Never!”

It was mid-afternoon before they called another halt, and by that time Emma and Nora were almost exhausted from their activity and nervous excitement.

“I would suggest that we make coffee before going further,” urged Grace.

“Yes, let’s eat,” agreed Stacy.

“I did not say ‘eat,’ I said coffee,” returned Grace. “You may eat all you wish from your dry rations, but we shall cook nothing but coffee.”

Coffee was made and did them all good. It steadied them, and made them feel that nothing was too difficult for them to undertake.

“Did not the guide say we could make this journey and return in one day?” demanded Grace, gazing up at Electric Peak which seemed farther away than when they started out.

“He meant that we could climb up and jump down in a day,” answered Hippy.

It was late in the afternoon when the Overland Riders fully realized that some mysterious change had taken possession of them. Emma Dean declared that she tingled all over her body, and Nora confessed to a similar sensation.

Stacy Brown laughed boisterously, then suddenly leaped to one side, suspiciously eyeing the spot on which he had been standing.

“What is the matter with you?” demanded Tom Gray.

“I—I reckon there must be fleas up here,” declared Chunky. “They are biting me all over.” About this time Hippy Wingate, who was laughing at Stacy’s suggestion of fleas, suddenly changed his position.

“There is something peculiar about this place,” he cried. “Tom, don’t you get it?”

“No.”

“Come over and stand here by me.”

Tom did so, but hurriedly moved away. About this time Grace and Elfreda, finding a smooth ledge, began to dance. Tom pulled them from the ledge and told them to keep away from it. The faces of the two girls grew a shade paler.

“Tom, Tom! What is it?” breathed Grace. “What does this mean?”

“Mean? It means that this mountain is a huge Leyden jar heavily charged with electricity—a sort of storage battery. I saw last night that there were peculiar electrical phenomena on this mountain, and I fear we haven’t seen the worst of it yet.”

“So far as I am concerned we have,” promised Elfreda Briggs.

“Stacy, why don’t you try it again? You might as well finish the experiment that you began,” suggested Emma.

“What, I?”

“Yes, you.”

“Do you know what I am going to do?” demanded the fat boy.

“I am sorry to say that no one knows what you will do next.”

Stacy shaded his eyes and gazed down the mountain-side.

“I am going to make for the camp just as fast as these legs of mine will carry me, and take my word for it, they are going to work overtime this afternoon.”

“Remember you have a weak heart,” reminded Grace laughingly.

“I’m not going to walk with my heart. It is my legs that are going to get busy this time, but I’m going to make a flying start and take a toboggan slide down that stretch of rocks,” announced Stacy, making a run for a smooth sloping surface of the mountain.

“Not that way, Stacy!” shouted Tom Gray warningly.

His warning was too late. Stacy had started, not for the short slope up which they had climbed, but towards another and longer one a few yards to the right of it, a slope that led to a drop of hundreds of feet of almost empty space, as Tom and Hippy knew.

Both men made a dash for the boy. He turned his head to make a face at them, caught his toe on a rock and plunged headlong down the slope, shooting down and disappearing over the edge, uttering frightful howls.

The Overland girls screamed and Emma and Nora covered their eyes to shut out the sight of Stacy, as they supposed, going to his death.