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“Forward, trot, march!”

Away went the troop full tilt for the Chug, while the ranchman rode rearward until he met the supporting squadron two hours behind. Ten minutes after parting with their informant, the officers of “K” Troop, well out in front of their men, caught sight of a daring horseman sweeping at full gallop down from some high bluffs to their left and front.

“Rides like an Indian,” said the captain; “but no Sioux would come down at us like that, waving a hat, too. By Jupiter! It’s Ralph McCrea! How are you, boy? What’s wrong at the Chug?”

“Farron’s surrounded, and I believe Warner’s killed!” said Ralph, breathless. “Thank God, you’re here so far ahead of where I expected to find you! We’ll get there in time now;” and he turned his panting horse and rode eagerly along by the captain’s side.

“And you’ve not been chased? You’ve seen nobody?” was the lieutenant’s question.

“Nobody but a white man, worse scared than I was, who left his hat behind when I ran upon him a mile back here.”

Even in the excitement and urgent haste of the moment, there went up a shout of laughter at the expense of Pete; but as they reached the next divide, and got another look well to the front, the laughter gave place to the grinding of teeth and muttered malediction. A broad glare was in the northern sky, and smoke and flame were rolling up from the still distant valley of the Chug, and now the word was “Gallop!”

Fifteen minutes of hard, breathless riding followed. Horses snorted and plunged in eager race with their fellows; officers warned even as they galloped, “Steady, there! Keep back! Keep your places, men!” Bearded, bright-eyed troopers, with teeth set hard together and straining muscles, grasped their ready carbines, and thrust home the grim copper cartridges. On and on, as the flaring beacon grew redder and fiercer ahead; on and on, until they were almost at the valley’s edge, and then young Ralph, out at the front with the veteran captain, panted to him, in wild excitement that he strove manfully to control,–

“Now keep well over to the left, captain! I know the ground well. It’s all open. We can sweep down from behind that ridge, and they’ll never look for us or think of us till we’re right among them. Hear them yell!”

“Ay, ay, Ralph! Lead the way. Ready now, men!” He turned in his saddle. “Not a word till I order ‘Charge!’ Then yell all you want to.”

Down into the ravine they thunder; round the moonlit slope they sweep; swift they gallop through the shadows of the eastward bluffs; nearer and nearer they come, manes and tails streaming in the night wind; horses panting hard, but never flagging.

Listen! Hear those shots and yells and war-whoops! Listen to the hideous crackling of the flames! Mark the vengeful triumph in those savage howls! Already the fire has leaped from the sheds to the rough shingling. The last hope of the sore-besieged is gone.

Then, with sudden blare of trumpet, with ringing cheer, with thundering hoof and streaming pennon and thrilling rattle of carbine and pistol; with one magnificent, triumphant burst of speed the troop comes whirling out from the covert of the bluff and sweeps all before it down the valley.

Away go Sioux and Cheyenne; away, yelling shrill warning, go warrior and chief; away, down stream, past the stiffening form of the brave fellow they killed; away past the station where the loop-holes blaze with rifle-shots and ring with exultant cheers; away across the road and down the winding valley, and so far to the north and the sheltering arms of the reservation,–and one more Indian raid is over.

But at the ranch, while willing hands were dashing water on the flames, Ralph and the lieutenant sprang inside the door-way just as Farron lifted from a deep, cellar-like aperture in the middle of the floor a sobbing yet wonderfully happy little maiden. She clung to him hysterically, as he shook hands with one after another of the few rescuers who had time to hurry in.