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 u