ve fixed some signals with them down at
the road and you've got to abide by them. They can see your light plain
as a beacon, and it's got to go out in fifteen minutes."

Farron had begun by pooh-poohing the sergeant's views, but he already
felt that they deserved serious consideration. He was more than half
disposed to adopt Wells's plan and let him take Jessie down to the safer
station at Phillips's, but she looked so peaceful and bonny, sleeping
there in her little bed, that he could not bear to disturb her. He was
ashamed, too, of the appearance of yielding.

So he told the sergeant that while he would not run counter to any
arrangement he had made as to signals, and was willing to back him up in
any project for the common defence, he thought they could protect Jessie
and the ranch against any marauders that might come along. He didn't
think it was necessary that they should all sit up. One man could watch
while the others slept.

As a first measure Farron and the sergeant took a turn around the ranch.
The house itself was about thirty yards from the nearest side of the
corral, or enclosure, in which Farron's horses were confined. In the
corral were a little stable, a wagon-shed, and a poultry-house. The back
windows of the stable were on the side towards the house, and should
Indians get possession of the stable they could send fire-arrows, if
they chose, to the roof of the house, and with their rifles shoot down
any persons who might attempt to escape from the burning building.

This fault of construction had long since been pointed out to Farron,
but the man who called his attention to it, unluckily, was an officer of
the new regiment, and the ranchman had merely replied, with a
self-satisfied smile, that he guessed he'd lived long enough in that
country to know a thing or two about the Indians.

Sergeant Wells shook his head as he looked at the stable, but Farron
said that it was one of his safe-guards.

"I've got two mules in there that can smell an Indian five miles off,
and they'd begin to bray the minute they did. That would wake me up, you
see, because their heads are right towards me. Now, if they were way
across the corral I mightn't hear 'em at all. Then it's close to the
house, and convenient for feeding in winter. Will you put your horse in
to-night?"

Sergeant Wells declined. He might need him, he said, and would keep him
in front of the house where he was going to take his station to watch
the