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CHAPTER VII.

THE RESCUE.

All the time, travelling at rapid lope, but at the same time saving Buford’s strength for sudden emergency, Ralph McCrea rode warily through the night. He kept far to east of the high ridge of the “Buffalo Hill,”–Who knew what Indian eyes might be watching there?–and mile after mile he wound among the ravines and swales which he had learned so well in by-gone days when he little dreamed of the value that his “plainscraft” might be to him.

For a while his heart beat like a trip-hammer; every echo of his courser’s footfall seemed to him to be the rush of coming warriors, and time and again he glanced nervously over his shoulder, dreading pursuit. But he never wavered in his gallant purpose.

The long ridge was soon left to his right rear, and now he began to edge over towards the west, intending in this way to reach the road at a point where there would lie before him a fifteen-mile stretch of good “going ground.” Over that he meant to send Buford at full speed.

Since starting he had heard no sound of the fray; the ridge and the distance had swallowed up the clamor; but he knew full well that the raiding Indians would do their utmost this night to burn the Farron ranch and kill or capture its inmates. Every recurring thought of the peril of his beleaguered friends prompted him to spur his faithful steed, but he had been reared in the cavalry and taught never to drive a willing horse to death.

The long, sweeping, elastic strides with which Buford bore him over the rolling prairie served their needs far better than a mad race of a mile or two, ending in a complete break-down, would have done.

At last, gleaming in the moonlight, he sighted the hard-beaten road as it twisted and wound over the slopes, and in a few moments more rode beneath the single wire of the telegraph line, and then gave Buford a gentle touch of the steel. He had made a circuit of ten miles or more to reach this point, and was now, he judged, about seven miles below the station and five miles from Farron’s ranch.

He glanced over his right shoulder and anxiously searched the sky and horizon. Intervening “divides” shut him off from a view of the valley, but he saw that as yet no glare of flames proceeded from it.

“Thus far the defence has held its own,” he said, hopefully, to himself. “Now, if Buford and I can only reach Lodge Pole unmolested there may yet be time.”

Ascending a gentle slope he reined Buford down to a walk, so that his pet might have a little breathing spell. As he arrived at the crest he cast an eager glance over the next “reach” of prairie landscape, and then–his heart seemed to leap to his throat and a chill wave to rush through his veins.

Surely he saw a horseman dart behind the low mound off to the west. This convinced him that the Indians had discovered and pursued him. After the Indian fashion they had not come squarely along his trail and thus driven him ahead at increased speed, but with the savage science of their warfare, they were working past him, far to his right, intending to head him off.

To his left front the country was clear, and he could see over it for a considerable distance. The road, after winding through some intermediate ravines ahead, swept around to the left. He had almost determined to leave the trail and make a bee-line across country, and so to outrun the foeman to his right, when, twice or thrice, he caught the gleam of steel or silver or nickel-plate beyond the low ground in the very direction in which he had thought to flee.

His heart sank low now, for the sight conveyed to his mind but one idea,–that the gleams were the flashing of moonbeams on the barbaric ornaments of Indians, as he had seen them flash an hour ago when the warriors raced forth into the valley of the Chug. Were the Indians ahead of him then, and on both sides of the road?