led now, I
reckon. All I'm afraid of is that the moment they find we're not in
supporting distance, they'll drop what they're after and turn on Wayne.
He ought to be only forty odd miles down this valley,--considerably off
their line,--and if he has kept close and not fooled away his time he is
safe enough; but Wayne is Wayne, colonel, and I've known him to go
poking off on side scouts and losing time 'topogging' over pretty
country when he ought to have been making tracks for home." (Stannard
_would_ use the vernacular of the frontier when at all excited.) "Now it
would be just like Wayne to have lost a day in just such a manner. I
hope not,--but I fear it."

"He has Ray with him," suggested Captain Turner.

"I know that; but Wayne is butt-headed as a billy-goat on some points,
and one is that he can't be taught anything about Indians. He's as
innocent and unsuspicious and incapable of appreciating their wiles as
the average Secretary of the Interior; and Wayne isn't the kind of man
to be influenced by Ray's opinions. He'd be more apt to tell Ray to keep
them to himself. It couldn't be helped, of course, but it's a pity two
companies had to be sent on that scout. I'd feel safer under Ray with
one troop than under Wayne with two."

"I confess I wish we could see just where they were and what they were
doing," said the colonel, with an anxious look on his sun-blistered
face; "but we have our hands full as it is. Come, Mr. Adjutant, it's
time we were off! Get the men in saddle and have the arms and ammunition
inspected,--fifty rounds to the man, at least. Major Stannard, where
would you locate Truscott's command this morning? I shall send couriers
back from here to find him and tell him to join Wayne."

To join Wayne! Well, just at that particular moment Wayne was wishing
that he might,--or somebody equally strong. And if the colonel could but
have seen the fix that doughty dragoon was in--fifty miles away--the
concern on his ruddy face would have been intensified. Wayne had
succeeded in justifying everything Stannard had said of him. He had,
indeed, been "fooling away his time" on side scouts, and now, before he
had fairly dreamed of the possibility of such a thing, the hills around
him were alive with Indians.

Ray, with his troop, had been assigned to the captain's command for a
scout of some importance over towards the reservations three days before
this unlucky morning. Rumors of the disaffection of the Cheyenne