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The Fifth Cavalry had been stationed not far from the Chug Valley when he first came to the country, and afterwards were sent out to Arizona for a five-years’ exile. It was all right for the Fifth to claim acquaintance with the ways of the Sioux, Farron admitted, but as for these fellows of the –th,–that was another thing. It did not seem to occur to him that the guarding of the neighboring reservations for about five years had given the new regiment opportunities to study and observe these Indians that had not been accorded to him.

Another element which he totally overlooked in comparing the relative advantages of the two regiments was a very important one that radically altered the whole situation. When the Fifth was on duty watching the Sioux, it was just after breech-loading rifles had been introduced into the army, and before they had been introduced among the Sioux.

Through the mistaken policy of the Indian Bureau at Washington this state of affairs was now changed and, for close fighting, the savages were better armed than the troops. Nearly every warrior had either a magazine rifle or a breech-loader, and many of them had two revolvers besides. Thus armed, the Sioux were about ten times as formidable as they had been before, and the task of restraining them was far more dangerous and difficult than it had been when the Fifth guarded them.

The situation demanded greater vigilance and closer study than in the old days, and Farron ought to have had sense enough to see it. But he did not. He had lived near the Sioux so many years; these soldiers had been near them so many years less; therefore they must necessarily know less about them than he did. He did not take into account that it was the soldiers’ business to keep eyes and ears open to everything relating to the Indians, while the information which he had gained came to him simply as diversion, or to satisfy his curiosity.

So it happened that when Wells came in that night and told Farron what was feared at Phillips’s, the ranchman treated his warning with good-humored but rather contemptuous disregard.

“Phillips gets stampeded too easy,” was the way he expressed himself, “and when you fellows of the Mustangs have been here as long as I have you’ll get to know these Indians better. Even if they did come, Pete and Jake here, and I, with our Henry rifles, could stand off fifty of ’em. Why, we’ve done it many a time.”

“How long ago?” asked the sergeant, quietly.

“Oh, I don’t know. It was before you fellows came. Why, you don’t begin to know anything about these Indians! You never see ’em here nowadays, but when I first came here to the Chug there wasn’t a week they didn’t raid us. They haven’t shown up in three years, except just this spring they’ve run off a little stock. But you never see ’em.”

“You may never see them, Farron, but we do,–see them day in and day out as we scout around the reservation; and while I may not know what they were ten years ago, I know what they are now, and that’s more to the purpose. You and Pete might have stood off a dozen or so when they hadn’t ‘Henrys’ and ‘Winchesters’ as they have now, but you couldn’t do it to-day, and it’s all nonsense for you to talk of it. Of course, so long as you keep inside here you may pick them off, but look out of this window! What’s to prevent their getting into your corral out there, and then holding you here! They can set fire to your roof over your head, man, and you can’t get out to extinguish it.”

“What makes you think they’ve spotted me, anyhow?” asked Farron.

“They looked you over the last time they came up the valley, and you know it. Now, if you and the men want to stay here and make a fight for it, all right,–I’d rather do that myself, only we ought to have two or three men to put in the corral,–but here’s little Jessie. Let me take her down to Phillips’s; she’s safe there. He has everything ready for a siege and you haven’t.”