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“Keep your men together here, sergeant,” is the brief order, and in a moment more Lee is spurring upward along an old game trail. Just under the crest he overtakes a sergeant hurrying northward.

“What is it? Who fired?” he asks.

“Morris fired, sir: I don’t know why. He is the farthest post up the bluffs.”

Together they reach a young trooper, crouching in the pallid dawn behind a jagged parapet of rock, and eagerly demanded the cause of the alarm. The sentry is quivering with excitement.

“An Indian, sir! Not a hundred yards out there! I seen him plain enough to swear to it. He rose up from behind that point yonder and started out over the prairie, and I up and fired.”

“Did you challenge?”

“No, sir,” answers the young soldier, simply. “He was going away. He couldn’t understand me if I had,–leastwise I couldn’t ‘a understood him. He ran like a deer the moment I fired, and was out of sight almost before I could send another shot.”

Lee and the sergeant push out along the crest, their arms at “ready,” their keen eyes searching every dip in the surface. Close to the edge of the canyon, perhaps a hundred yards away, they come upon a little ledge, behind which, under the bluff, it is possible for an Indian to steal unnoticed towards their sentries and to peer into the depths below. Some one has been here within a few minutes, watching, stretched prone upon the turf, for Lee finds it dry and almost warm, while all around the bunch grass is heavy with dew. Little by little as the light grows warmer in the east and aids them in their search, they can almost trace the outline of a recumbent human form. Presently the west wind begins to blow with greater strength, and they note the mass of clouds, gray and frowning, that is banked against the sky. Out on the prairie not a moving object can be seen, though the eye can reach a good rifle-shot away. Down in the darkness of the canyon the watch-fires still smoulder and the men still wait. There comes no further order from the heights. Lee, with the sergeant, is now bending over faint footprints just discernible in the pallid light.

Suddenly up he starts and gazes eagerly out to the west. The sergeant, too, at the same instant, leaps towards his commander. Distant, but distinct, two quick shots have been fired far over among those tumbling buttes and ridges lying there against the horizon. Before either man could speak or question, there comes another, then another, then two or three in quick succession, the sound of firing thick and fast.

“It’s a fight, sir, sure!” cries the sergeant, eagerly.

“To horse, then,–quick!” is the answer, as the two soldiers bound back to the trail.

“Saddle up, men!” rings the order, shouted down the rocky flanks of the ravine. There is instant response in the neigh of excited horses, the clatter of iron-shod hoofs. Through the dim light the men go rushing, saddles and bridles in hand, each to where he has driven his own picket pin. Promptly the steeds are girthed and bitted. Promptly the men come running back to the bivouac, seizing and slinging carbines, then leading into line. A brief word of command, another of caution, and then the whole troop is mounted and, following its leader, rides ghost-like up a winding ravine that enters the canyon from the west and goes spurring to the high plateau beyond. Once there the eager horses have ample room; the springing turf invites their speed. “Front into line” they sweep at rapid gallop, and then, with Lee well out before them, with carbines advanced, with hearts beating high, with keen eyes flashing, and every ear strained for sound of the fray, away they bound. There’s a fight ahead! Some one needs their aid, and there’s not a man in all old “B” troop who does not mean to avenge those new-made graves. Up a little slope they ride, all eyes fixed on Lee. They see him reach the ridge, sweep gallantly over, then, with ringing cheer, turn in saddle, wave his revolver high in air, clap spur to his horse’s flank and go darting down the other side.