"He's in the office at Laramie now," said the telegraph agent, with a
smile, "and I wired him the moment we sighted you coming down the hill.
Come in and send him a few words. It will please him more than anything
I can say."

So Ralph stepped into the little room with its solitary instrument and
lonely operator. In those days there was little use for the line except
for the conducting of purely military business, and the agents or
operators were all soldiers detailed for the purpose. Here at "The Chug"
the instrument rested on a little table by the loop-hole of a window in
the side of the log hut. Opposite it was the soldier's narrow camp-bed
with its brown army blankets and with his heavy overcoat thrown over the
foot. Close at hand stood his Springfield rifle, with the belt of
cartridges, and over the table hung two Colt's revolvers.

All through the rooms of the station the same war-like preparations were
visible, for several times during the spring and early summer war
parties of Indians had come prowling up the valley, driving the herders
before them; but, having secured all the beef cattle they could handle,
they had hurried back to the fords of the Platte and, except on one or
two occasions, had committed no murders.

Well knowing the pluck of the little community at Phillips's, the
Indians had not come within long rifle range of the ranch, but on the
last two visits the warriors seemed to have grown bolder. While most of
the Indians were rounding up cattle and scurrying about in the valley,
two miles below the ranch, it was noted that two warriors, on their
nimble ponies, had climbed the high ridge on the east that overlooked
the ranches in the valley beyond and above Phillips's, and were
evidently taking deliberate note of the entire situation.

One of the Indians was seen to point a long, bare arm, on which silver
wristlets and bands flashed in the sun, at Farron's lonely ranch four
miles up-stream.

That was more than the soldier telegrapher could bear patiently. He took
his Springfield rifle out into the fields, and opened a long range fire
on these adventurous redskins.

The Indians were a good mile away, but that honest "Long Tom" sent its
leaden missiles whistling about their ears, and kicking up the dust
around their ponies' heels, until, after a few defiant shouts and such
insulting and contemptuous gestures as they could think of, the two had
ducked suddenly out of sight behind the bluffs.

Al