ng to stand there and let him take me back to the fort, are you? You
promised to protect me. Plump him over! put the dogs on him! Do
something, and be quick about it."

Bob bore himself with surprising courage during this trying ordeal. He
did not know at what instant the squatter might comply with Bryant's
frantic order to "plump him over" or to "put the dogs on him," but he
never flinched. He did not even change color; and there is every reason
to believe that his bold front saved his life.

"Bryant," said he in a calm voice, "don't you know that the colonel will
be sure to hear of this, and that you are only making a bad matter worse
by holding out against the inevitable?--As for you, Peasley, you've got
the drop on me, and you can shoot if you feel like it; but if you do you
are a gone squatter. Look there," he added, jerking his thumb over his
shoulder.

Peasley looked, and saw George Ackerman coming down the ridge at a
furious gallop.

"That is one of my backers, and there are six more who will be along in
a minute. What did I tell you?" exclaimed Bob as the troopers and their
prisoners came into view over the top of the ridge. "Now, Peasley, if
you don't behave yourself I'll take you to the fort under arrest. I am
in the discharge of my duty, and I am not going to put up with any more
nonsense."

The squatter lowered his rifle, looked first at Bryant and then at the
troopers, and seemed undecided how to act. While he hesitated George
Ackerman dashed up to the porch, jumping out of his saddle before his
horse had fairly stopped, and, knocking the dogs right and left with the
heavy cavalry sabre which he had found fastened to Bob's saddle, he
mounted the steps and laid hold of the squatter's rifle.

"Peasley, what are you about?" he exclaimed as he twisted the weapon out
of the man's unresisting grasp. "Are you a born idiot? If you are not,
don't you know that if you raise a fuss here you won't have any roof
left over your head in less than five minutes?"

The squatter, muttering something under his breath, went back to his
seat and picked up his pipe, and in a few minutes more the troopers and
their prisoners arrived. At a sign from his officer, Loring dismounted
and stood guard over Bryant, while Bob walked up to the porch.

"What do you think of the situation now, friend Peasley?" said he
cheerfully. "I can't take that man to the fort in those clothes, and so
I would thank you to trot out his uniform."