The Overland girls chatted with the rough but big-hearted cow punchers, who, that night, declared that they never had come up with such a likely bunch of young women.
When Mr. Giddings learned from Tom Gray that the party was bound for the High Sierras, he shook his head dubiously.
"No place for white folk, especially women," he warned.
"Trouble! It's the Devil's country up there."
"We are used to roughing it under all sorts of conditions," replied Tom. "We learned how to do that during the Great War. All these young women were in the service, at or near the front in France; Mr. Wingate was an aviator, and I was a Captain of Engineers, so you see we aren't afraid of trouble."
"That's all right. I take off my hat to you, especially to the young ladies. This country is another breed of cats, however, and they tell strange stories about men going up there and never being found afterwards, or, as is sometimes the case, found dead in the Crazy Lake section. Aerial Lake, they call it."
"Where is this mysterious lake?" asked Miss Briggs.
"I don't rightly know. I don't know anything about it. I reckon I don't want to know. Neither would you if you had been up here long and had heard as much about it as I have. Did you ever hear of the Jones gang?"
"I reckon we have. We had a little mix-up with them. At least, we understand that was the outfit," Hippy informed them.
"Yes, and we drove them off and gave them a good walloping," added Stacy.
Hippy related the story of the hold-up and of the skirmish that followed, resulting in the driving off of the train robbers. The cowboys listened attentively, their expressions showing an increasing respect for the "tenderfeet" who had dropped in on them for a friendly call.
"Why should this band of outlaws have reason to interfere with us?" asked Tom.
"Why do they bother other folks?" answered Mr. Giddings. "For what they can get out of it, of course," he said, answering his own question.
"They will not get much if they hold us up," Grace Harlowe informed their hosts.
"No. I reckon that would not likely put you in peril, for the reason that they are after bigger game, like that treasure on the Red Limited. There's another thing, though, that might make it equally bad for you people."