call very far to the west,
and Davies waited no longer. "You remain here, corporal. I'll call the
captain." And in a few moments he was bending over Cranston. The latter
was awake in a minute, and together they hastened out afoot, past
snoring troopers or snorting steeds, and stood some hundred yards
outside the inner sentry line.

"Hay left Scott with 'A' and 'I' troops Wednesday, as we know," said
Cranston, "but it's impossible he could have caught us yet, though he
took the cutoff. That night trumpeting's a trick of the --th. They tried
it twice last summer."

"I know, sir, and may not that be some of them trying to find us?"

"Well, hardly. You know Atherton only had one troop left at Russell, the
other five were sent up toward the Big Horn ten days ago. Listen! There
it goes again!"

Yes, unmistakably, faint, far, but clear, the notes of a cavalry trumpet
could be heard, and, while Davies hurried to rouse the major, Cranston
stirred up his boy bugler. It took a minute or two to make Chrome
comprehend the situation. "Why," said he, "who'd be ass enough to be
marching or drilling with trumpet calls this hour of the night and in
the midst of a campaign?"

Cranston reminded him how scattered troops of the --th, his own
regiment, had found each other by night the previous year; how Truscott
announced the coming of his relieving column to Wayne's beleaguered
squadron; and Chrome slowly found his legs and faculties, but wouldn't
believe his subordinates. He demanded the evidence of his own senses,
and unwillingly accompanied them to the point beyond the lines,
Cranston's trumpeter sleepily following. It was full five minutes before
again the call was heard, and then it seemed farther away than before,
too far away for Chrome, who still could not believe it.

"Let my trumpeter hail them," urged Cranston, "then they'll answer." But
Chrome said that wouldn't do; it would wake up or startle everybody in
camp, and so declined.

"It's all your fancy," he said. "There are none of our fellows with
Tintop, and----"

"But he knows you, with at least two troops of the --th, are somewhere
out here, sir, and he takes a regimental way of trying to communicate
with you. I beg you to listen one moment more. _There!_" And this time
even Chrome was convinced, and the next instant guards and pickets,
sleeping troopers, and drowsing steeds all came staggering to their
feet, roused by the shrill blast from Cranston's trumpet soundi