re not strongly reinforced. He reasoned that
Stabber and his people were probably gone to strengthen the attack, and
that having an hour's start at least, and riding faster, they would get
there somewhat ahead of him. But one of his own old sergeants, a veteran
of twenty years in the cavalry, was now stationmaster on the Dry Fork,
and all the Sioux from the Platte to Paradise couldn't stampede old Jim
Kelly. Many a forced march had Ray made in the past, and well he knew
that the surest way to bring his horses into action, strong and sound at
the finish, was to move "slow and steady" at the start, to move at the
walk until the horses were calm and quiet, was his rule. Then on this
bright September day would come the alternating trot and lope, with
brief halts to reset saddles; then, later still, the call upon his
willing men and mounts for sustained effort, and by sunset he and they
could count on riding in, triumphant, to the rescue, even though Stabber
himself should seek to bar the way.

And that Stabber meant to watch the road, if not to block it, became
evident before the head of column began the gradual ascent of Moccasin
Ridge, from whose sharp crest the little band could take their last
look, for the time, at least, at the distant walls of Frayne. Somewhere
toward seven-thirty Corporal Connors' foremost man, far out on the left
flank, riding suddenly over a low divide, caught sight of a bonneted
warrior bending flat over his excited pony and lashing that nimble,
fleet-footed creature to mad gallop in the effort to reach the cover of
the projecting point of bluff across the shallow ravine that cut in
toward the foothills. Stone, the trooper, lifted his campaign hat on
high once, and then lowered his arm to the horizontal, hat in hand,
pointing in the direction the darting savage was seen, and thus, without
a syllable having been spoken at the front, word was passed in to Ray
that one Indian had been sighted far out to the northwest.

"They may try to hold us among the breaks of the Mini Pusa," said he, to
his still unreconciled second in command. Field had been civil,
respectful, but utterly uncommunicative in his replies to the captain's
repeated cordialities. Any attempt to even remotely refer to the causes
that led to his being ordered out with the detachment had been met with
chilling silence. Now, however, the foe had been seen and could be
counted on to resist if his rallied force much exceeded that of the