Ralph's eyes were snapping with excitement and his cheeks were flushed. It was a daring, it was a gallant, thought,—the idea of riding back all alone through a country that might be infested by savage foes; but it was the one chance.
Farron and Wells and the men might be able to hold out a few hours at the ranch up the valley, and keep the Indians far enough away to prevent their burning them out. Of course the ranch could not stand a long siege against Indian ingenuity, but six hours, or eight at the utmost, would be sufficient time in which to bring rescue to the inmates. By that time he could have an overwhelming force of cavalry in the valley, and all would be safe.
If word were not sent to them it would be noon to-morrow before the advance of the Fifth would reach the Chug. By that time all would be over with Farron.
Ralph's brave young heart almost stopped beating as he thought of the hideous fate that awaited the occupants of the ranch unless help came to them. He felt that nothing but a light rider and a fast horse could carry the news in time. He knew that he was the lightest rider in the valley; that Buford was the fastest horse; that no man at the station knew all the "breaks" and ravines, the ridges and "swales" of the country better than he did.
Farron's lay to the southwest, and thither probably all the Indians were now riding. He could gallop off to the southeast, make a long détour, and so reach Lodge Pole unseen. If he could get there in two hours and a half, the cavalry could be up and away in fifteen minutes more, and in that case might reach the Chug at daybreak or soon afterwards.
One thing was certain, that to succeed he must go instantly, before the Indians could come down and put a watch around Phillips's.
Of course it was a plan full of fearful risk. He took his life in his hands. Death by the cruelest of tortures awaited him if captured, and it was a prospect before which any boy and many a man might shrink in dismay.
But he had thought of little Jessie; the plan and the estimation of the difficulties and dangers attending its execution had flashed through his mind in less than five seconds, and his resolution was instantly made. He was a soldier's son, was Ralph, and saying no word to any one he had run to the stable, saddled and bridled Buford, and with his revolver at his hip was ready for his ride.
"It's no use of talking; I'm going," was all he said. "I know how to dodge them just as well as any man here, and, as for father, he'd be ashamed of me if I didn't go."
Waiting for no reply,—before they could fully realize what he meant,—the boy had chirruped to his pawing horse and away they darted round the corner of the station, across the moonlit road, and then eastward down the valley.
"Phillips," exclaimed the soldier, "I never should have let him go. I ought to have gone myself; but he's away before a man can stop him."
"You're too heavy to ride that horse, and there's none other here to match him. That boy's got the sense of a plainsman any day, I tell you, and he'll make it all right. The Indians are all up the valley and we'll hear 'em presently at Farron's. He's keeping off so as to get round east of the bluffs, and then he'll strike across country southward and not try for the road until he's eight or ten miles away. Good for Ralph! It's a big thing he's doing, and his father will be proud of him for it."
But the telegraph operator was heavy-hearted. The men were all anxious, and clustered again at the rear of the station. All this had taken place in the space of three minutes, and they were eagerly watching for the next demonstration from the marauders.
Of the fate of poor Warner there could be little doubt. It was evident that the Indians had overwhelmed and killed him. There was a short struggle and the rapidly concentrating fire of rifles and revolvers for a minute or two; then the yells had changed to triumphant whoops, and then came silence.
"They've got his scalp, poor fellow, and no man could lend a hand to help him. God grant they're all safe inside up there at Farron's," said one of the party; it was the only comment made on the tragedy that had been enacted before them.
"Hullo! What's that?"
"It's the flash of rifles again. They've sighted Ralph!" cried the soldier.
"Not a bit of it. Ralph's off here to the eastward. They're firing and chasing up the valley. Perhaps Warner got away after all. Look at 'em! See! The flashes are getting farther south all the time! They've headed him off from Farron's, whoever it is, and he's making for the road. The cowardly hounds! There's a hundred of 'em, I reckon, on one poor hunted white man, and here we are with our hands tied!"
For a few minutes more the sound of shots and yells and thundering hoofs came vividly through the still night air. All the time it was drifting away southward, and gradually approached the road. One of the ranchmen begged Phillips to let him have a horse and go out in the direction of the firing to reconnoitre and see what had happened, but it would have been madness to make the attempt, and the request was met with a prompt refusal.
"We shall need every man here soon enough at the rate things are going," was the answer. "That may have been Warner escaping, or it may have been one of Farron's men trying to get through to us or else riding off southward to find the cavalry. Perhaps it was Sergeant Wells. Whoever it was, they've had a two- or three-mile chase and have probably got him by this time. The firing in that direction is all over. Now the fun will begin up at the ranch. Then they'll come for us."
"It's my fault!" groaned the operator. "What a night,—and all my fault! I ought to have told them at Lodge Pole when I could."
"Tell them what?" said Phillips. "You didn't know a thing about their movements until Warner got here! What could you have said if you'd had the chance? The cavalry can't move on mere rumors or ideas that any chance man has who comes to the station in a panic. It has just come all of a sudden, in a way we couldn't foresee.
"All I'm worrying about now is little Jessie, up there at Farron's. I'm afraid Warner's gone, and possibly some one else; but if Farron can only hold out against these fellows until daylight I think he and his little one will be safe. Watch here, two of you, now, while I go back to the house a moment."
And so, arms at hand and in breathless silence, the little group watched and waited. All was quiet at the upper ranch. Farron's light had been extinguished soon after it had replied to the signal from below, but his roofs and walls were dimly visible in the moonlight. The distance was too great for the besiegers to be discerned if any were investing his place.
The quiet lasted only a few moments. Then suddenly there came from up the valley and close around those distant roofs the faint sound of rapid firing. Paled by the moonlight into tiny, ruddy flashes, the flame of each report could be seen by the sharper eyes among the few watchers at Phillips's. The attack had indeed begun at Farron's.
One of the men ran in to tell the news to Phillips, who presently came out and joined the party. No sign of Indians had yet been seen around them, but as they crouched there by the corral, eagerly watching the flashes that told of the distant struggle, and listening to the sounds of combat, there rose upon the air, over to the northward and apparently just at the base of the line of bluffs, the yelps and prolonged bark of the coyote. It died away, and then, far on to the southward, somewhere about the slopes where the road climbed the divide, there came an answering yelp, shrill, querulous, and prolonged.
"Know what that is, boys?" queried Phillips.
"Coyotes, I s'pose," answered one of the men,—a comparatively new hand.
"Coyotes are scarce in this neighborhood nowadays. Those are Sioux signals, and we are surrounded. No man in this crowd could get out now. Ralph ain't out a moment too soon. God speed him! If Farron don't owe his life and little Jessie's to that boy's bravery, it'll be because nobody could get to them in time to save them. Why didn't he send her here?"
Bad as was the outlook, anxious as were all their hearts, what was their distress to what it would have been had they known the truth,—that Warner lay only a mile up the trail, stripped, scalped, gashed, and mutilated! Still warm, yet stone dead! And that al
l alone, with little Jessie in his arms, Sergeant Wells had ridden down that trail into the very midst of the thronging foe! Let us follow him, for he is a soldier who deserves the faith that Farron placed in him.
For a few moments after leaving the ranch the sergeant rides along at rapid lope, glancing keenly over the broad, open valley for any sign that might reveal the presence of hostile Indians, and then hopefully at the distant light at the station. He holds little Jessie in firm but gentle clasp, and speaks in fond encouragement every moment or two. She is bundled like a pappoose in the blanket, but her big, dark eyes look up trustfully into his, and once or twice she faintly smiles. All seems so quiet; all so secure in the soldier's strong clasp.
"That's my brave little girl!" says the sergeant. "Papa was right when he told us down at Russell that he had the pluckiest little daughter in all Wyoming. It isn't every baby that would take a night ride with an old dragoon so quietly."
He bends down and softly kisses the thick, curling hair that hangs over her forehead. Then his keen eye again sweeps over the valley, and he touches his charger's flank with the spur.
"Looks all clear," he mutters, "but I've seen a hundred Indians spring up out of a flatter plain than that. They'll skulk behind the smallest kind of a ridge, and not show a feather until one runs right in among them. There might be dozens of them off there beyond the Chug at this moment, and I not be able to see hair or hide of 'em."
Almost half way to Phillips's, and still all is quiet. Then he notes that far ahead the low ridge, a few hundred yards to his left, sweeps round nearly to the trail, and dips into the general level of the prairie within short pistol-shot of the path along which he is riding. He is yet fully three-quarters of a mile from the place where the ridge so nearly meets the trail, but it is plainly visible now in the silvery moonlight.
"If they should have come down, and should be all ranged behind that ridge now, 'twould be a fearful scrape for this poor little mite," he thinks, and then, soldier-like, sets himself to considering what his course should be if the enemy were suddenly to burst upon him from behind that very curtain.
"Turn and run for it, of course!" he mutters. "Unless they should cut me off, which they couldn't do unless some of 'em were far back along behind the ridge. Hullo! A shadow on the trail! Coming this way. A horseman. That's good! They've sent out a man to meet me."
The sound of iron-shod hoofs that came faintly across the wide distance from the galloping shadow carried to the sergeant's practised ear the assurance that the advancing horseman was not an Indian. After the suspense of that lonely and silent ride, in the midst of unknown dangers, Wells felt a deep sense of relief.
"The road is clear between here and Phillips's, that's certain," he thought. "I'll take Jessie on to the station, and then go back to Farron's. I wonder what news that horseman brings, that he rides so hard."
Still on came the horseman. All was quiet, and it seemed that in five minutes more he would have the news the stranger was bringing,—of safety, he hoped. Jessie, at any rate, should not be frightened unless danger came actually upon them. He quickened his horse's gait, and looked smilingly down into Jessie's face.
"It's all right, little one! Somebody is coming up the trail from Phillips's, so everything must be safe," he told her.
Then came a cruel awakening. Quick, sudden, thrilling, there burst upon the night a mad chorus of shouts and shots and the accompaniment of thundering hoofs. Out from the sheltering ridge by dozens, gleaming, flashing through the moonlight, he saw the warriors sweep down upon the hapless stranger far in front.
He reined instantly his snorting and affrighted horse, and little Jessie, with one low cry of terror, tried to release her arms from the circling blanket and throw them about his neck; but he held her tight. He grasped the reins more firmly, gave one quick glance to his left and rear, and, to his dismay, discovered that he, too, was well-nigh hemmed in; that, swift and ruthless as the flight of hawks, a dozen warriors were bounding over the prairie towards him, to cut off his escape.
He had not an instant to lose. He whirled his practised troop horse to the right about, and sent him leaping madly through the night back for Farron's ranch.
Even as he sped along, he bent low over his charger's neck, and, holding the terror-stricken child to his breast, managed to speak a word to keep up her courage.
"We'll beat them yet, my bonny bird!" he muttered, though at that instant he heard the triumphant whoops that told him a scalp was taken on the trail behind him, though at that very instant he saw that warriors, dashing from that teeming ridge, had headed him; that he must veer from the trail as he neared the ranch, and trust to Farron and his men to drive off his pursuers.
Already the yells of his pursuers thrilled upon the ear. They had opened fire, and their wide-aimed bullets went whizzing harmlessly into space. His wary eye could see that the Indians on his right front were making a wide circle, so as to meet him when close to the goal, and he was burdened with that helpless child, and could not make fight even for his own life.
Drop her and save himself? He would not entertain the thought. No, though it be his only chance to escape!
His horse panted heavily, and still there lay a mile of open prairie between him and shelter; still those bounding ponies, with their yelping, screeching riders, were fast closing upon him, when suddenly through the dim and ghostly light there loomed another shadow, wild and daring,—a rider who came towards him at full speed.
Because of the daring of the feat to ride thus alone into the teeth of a dozen foemen, the sergeant was sure, before he could see the man, that the approaching horseman was Farron, rushing to the rescue of his child.
Wells shouted a trooper's loud hurrah, and then, "Rein up, Farron! Halt where you are, and open fire! That'll keep 'em off!"
Though racing towards him at thundering speed, Farron heard and understood his words, for in another moment his "Henry" was barking its challenge at the foe, and sending bullet after bullet whistling out across the prairie.
The flashing, feather-streaming shadows swerved to right and left, and swept away in big circles. Then Farron stretched out his arms,—no time for word of any kind,—and Wells laid in them the sobbing child, and seized in turn the brown and precious rifle.
"Off with you, Farron! Straight for home now. I'll keep 'em back." And the sergeant in turn reined his horse, fronted the foe, and opened rapid fire, though with little hope of hitting horse or man.
Disregarding the bullets that sang past his ears, he sent shot after shot at the shadowy riders, checked now, and circling far out on the prairie, until once more he could look about him, and see that Farron had reached the ranch, and had thrown himself from his horse.
Then slowly he turned back, fronting now and then to answer the shots that came singing by him, and to hurrah with delight when, as the Indians came within range of the ranch, its inmates opened fire on them, and a pony sent a yelping rider flying over his head, as he stumbled and plunged to earth, shot through the body.
Then Wells turned in earnest and made a final dash for the corral. Then his own good steed, that had borne them both so bravely, suddenly wavered and tottered under him. He knew too well that the gallant horse had received his death-blow even before he went heavily to ground within fifty yards of the ranch.
Wells was up in an instant, unharmed, and made a rush, stooping low.
Another moment, and he was drawn within the door-way, panting and exhausted, but safe. He listened with amazement to the outward sounds of shots and hoofs and yells dying away into the distance southward.
"What on earth is that?" he asked.
"It's that scoundrel, Pete. He's taken my horse and deserted!" was Farron's breathless answer. "I hope they'll catch and kill him! I despise a coward!"
* * *
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 wa
rily 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.
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