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“Mrs. Henry, this is Jessie Farron. You know her father; he owns a ranch up on the Chugwater, right near the Laramie road. The station-master says she has been here all alone since he went off at one o’clock with some friends to buy things for the ranch and try some horses. It must have been his party Sergeant Wells and I saw way out by the fort.”

He paused a moment to address a cheering word to the little girl in his arms, and then went on: “Their team had run away over the prairie–a man told us–and they were leading them in to the quartermaster’s corral as we rode from the stables. I did not recognize Farron at the distance, but Sergeant Wells will gallop out and tell him Jessie is all right. Would you mind taking care of her a few minutes? Poor little girl!” he added, in lower and almost beseeching tones, “she hasn’t any mother.”

“Would I mind!” exclaimed Mrs. Henry, warmly. “Give her to me, Ralph. Come right here, little daughter, and tell me all about it,” and the loving woman stood up in the carriage and held forth her arms, to which little Jessie was glad enough to be taken, and there she sobbed, and was soothed and petted and kissed as she had not been since her mother died.

Ralph and the station-master brought to the carriage the wonderful doll–at sight of whose toilet Mrs. Henry could not repress a significant glance at her lady friend, and a suggestive exclamation of “Horrors!”–and the heavy satchel. These were placed where Jessie could see them and feel that they were safe, and then she was able to answer a few questions and to look up trustfully into the gentle face that was nestled every little while to hers, and to sip the cup of milk that Ralph fetched from the hotel. She had certainly fallen into the hands of persons who had very loving hearts.

“Poor little thing! What a shame to leave her all alone! How long has her mother been dead, Ralph?” asked the other lady, rather indignantly.

“About two years, Mrs. Wayne. Father and his officers knew them very well. Our troop was camped up there two whole summers near them,–last summer and the one before,–but Farron took her to Denver to visit her mother’s people last April, and has just gone for her. Sergeant Wells said he stopped at the ranch on the way down from Laramie, and Farron told him, then, he couldn’t live another month without his little girl, and was going to Denver for her at once.”

“I remember them well, now,” said Mrs. Henry, “and we saw him sometimes when our troop was at Laramie. What was the last news from your father, Ralph, and when do you go?”

“No news since the letter that met me here. You know he has been scouting ever since General Crook went on up to the Powder River country. Our troop and the Grays are all that are left to guard that whole neighborhood, and the Indians seem to know it. They are ‘jumping’ from the reservation all the time.”

“But the Fifth Cavalry are here now, and they will soon be up there to help you, and put a stop to all that,–won’t they?”

“I don’t know. The Fifth say that they expect orders to go to the Black Hills, so as to get between the reservations and Sitting Bull’s people. Only six troops–half the regiment–have come. Papa’s letter said I was to start for Laramie with them, but they have been kept waiting four days already.”

“They will start now, though,” said the lady. “General Merritt has just got back from Red Cloud, where he went to look into the situation, and he has been in the telegraph office much of the afternoon wiring to Chicago, where General Sheridan is. Colonel Mason told us, as we drove past camp, that they would probably march at daybreak.”