aged to a select few, consisting entirely
of Lieutenant Loring, United States Engineers, Lieutenant Loomis, --th
Infantry, a few men from scattered troops, "pickups" at Frayne and
Emory, with Lieutenant Marshall Dean and fifty rank and file of Company
"C."

Loring, it will be remembered, had taken a small detachment from Emory
and gone into the hills in search of Burleigh. Loomis, fretting at the
fort, was later electrified by a most grudgingly given order to march to
the Laramie and render such aid as might be required by the engineer
officer of the department. Dean, with only fifteen men all told, had
dashed from Frayne straight for the ranch, and, marching all night, had
come in sight of the valley just as it was lighted afar to the eastward
by the glare of the burning buildings. "We thought it was all over,"
said he, as he lay there weak and languid, a few days later, for the
wound reopened in the rush of the fight, "but we rode on to the Laramie,
and there, God be thanked! fell in with Loomis here and "C" Troop,
heading for the fire. No words can tell you our joy when we found the
ranch still standing and some forty Sioux getting ready for the final
dash. That running fight, past the old home, and down the valley where
we stirred up Loring's besiegers and sent them whirling too--why, I'd
give a fortune, if I had it, to live it over again!"

But Loring, after all, had the most thrilling story to tell--of how he
wormed a clew to Burleigh's hiding place out of a captured outlaw and
beat up the party in a nook of the hills, nabbed the major asleep, but
was warned that all the Birdsall "outfit" would rally to the rescue, and
so sent a courier to Emory for "C" Troop, and, making wide _detour_ to
avoid the gang, ran slap into the Sioux in the act of firing Folsom's
ranch. Then he had to take to the rocks in the fight that followed, and
had a desperate siege of a few hours, even Burleigh having to handle a
gun and fight for his life. "I spotted him for a coward that day we
stumbled on Red Cloud's band up by the Big Horn. You remember it, Dean,
I thought him a villain when I learned how he was trying to undermine
you. Time proved him a thief and a scoundrel, but, peace to his ashes,
he died like a gentleman after all, with two Indian bullets through him,
and just as rescue came. He had time to make full confession, and it was
all pretty much as I suspected. The note Dean picked up at Reno, that so
stampeded him, told how a