chief and his braves rode so fast at first.

"I don't know as I ever passed a longer day than that. We went at a
steady gallop, always keeping just about half a mile ahead of the
redskins. Sometimes I jumped off my horse and ran alongside of him with
my hand on the saddle for half a mile, to ease him a bit. The gal rode
splendidly; the mustang had a beautiful easy pace, and she set him as if
she was in a chair. For the first fifty miles I don't think the redskins
gained a yard on us; they warn't pressing their horses more than we
were, for it was a question only of last now. Then little by little I
could see that a small party was leaving the rest and gaining slowly
upon us; I darn't press my horse further, but I began to give the gal
instructions as to the course she should keep.

"'What does it matter, Dick,' she asked, 'when you are here to guide
me?' 'But I mayn't be with you all the time,' says I; 'it air quite
possible that them redskins will overtake me twenty miles afore I get to
the fort, but your critter can keep ahead of them easy, he is going nigh
as light now as when he started; when they get a bit closer to us you
must go on alone.' 'I shan't leave you,' she says. 'Dick, you got into
this scrape to save me, and I am not going to run away and leave you to
be killed; if you are taken, I will be taken too.'

"'That would be a foolish thing,' says I, 'and a cruel one, ef you like
to put it so. I have risked my life to save you, just as I have risked
it a score of times before on the plains; ef my time has come, it will
be a comfort to me to know as I have saved you, but ef you were taken
too I should feel that I had just chucked my life away. Besides, you
have got to think of the Captain; now that your mother has gone you have
got to be a comfort to him. So you see, Miss, ef you was to get taken
wilful you would be doing a bad turn to yerself, and to me, and to yer
father.'

"It was a long time before she spoke again, and then she didn't say
anything about what we had been talking of, but began to ask whether I
thought we were sure to find the soldiers still at the fort. In course I
couldn't say for sartin, but, to cheer her up, I talked hopeful about
it, though I thought it was likely enough they had fallen back on the
settlements. I did some long spells of running now, and got more
hopeful, for the Injins didn't gain anything to speak of.

"We war all going very slow now, for the horses were pretty nigh