-centrating' on you?"

"What dat? Er hoodoo?"

"Yes, that is what Miss Dean is trying to put on you," laughed Hippy.

"You listen to me, Wash!" demanded Emma spiritedly. "When I was
con-centrating on you, making my mind reach out to yours, didn't your
hair seem to stand on end just the way a cat's hair does when you stroke
it the wrong way--"

"Yes'm! Mah hair stood up all right when dey kotched me," admitted
Washington.

"And didn't you feel a distinct electric shock all over your being?"

"Just like as if you had run into an electric light pole?" interjected
Hippy.

"No, suh. Didn' feel no shock, 'cept when dat feller kicked me. Ah felt
dat all right an' Ah feels it yit."

"I reckon that will be about all. You see, Emma, this was not a case of
mind over matter, but of a heavy boot against Washington Washington's
anatomy," chuckled Hippy.

The Overland Riders laughed louder than their situation warranted, and
Emma Dean, very red in the face, flounced off to her tent without
another word.

"I think that was real mean of you, Hippy," chided Grace, laughing in
spite of her effort to be stern.

Soon after that the camp settled down to quietness, with Hippy Wingate
and Elfreda Briggs on guard, Grace having consented to lie down and
sleep for the rest of the night--provided.

They were undisturbed, except when, shortly before daylight, something
again aroused the ponies, but the disturbance quickly subsided, and the
watchers believed that some animal had startled them.

At daylight the camp was astir--that is, with the exception of Hippy
Wingate who insisted on a brief beauty nap after his two-hour vigil. He
came out just as Washington, after building the cook-fire, was starting
out to water the horses.

"Good morning, Lieutenant," greeted Emma Dean sweetly. "What's the
quotation this morning?"

"On what?" demanded Hippy, halting and eyeing her suspiciously.

"On heads, of course."

"Is there any reason why, because I'm a marked man--because there is a
price on my head, you should make fun of me? Having a price on one's
head is not a joking matter. My mind is carrying a heavy weight, Emma
Dean," rebuked Hippy impressively.

"Nonsense! I know better. If it was carrying a heavy burden your mind
long ago would have caved in," retorted Emma.

Hippy Wingate threw up his hands in token of surrender, and breaking off
a twig of laurel he gravely placed it in Emma's hair so that it drooped
over her forehead.