with an inferior mount, but
his protests were of no avail. He was curtly directed by Stanley to do
as he was told, and unwillingly he turned his horse over to Scott and
took the scout's better steed. Scott added hurried and explicit
directions to Stanley as to the course to follow back to camp, and
without loss of time Stanley and Bucks crouching behind friendly rocks
led their horses up the inner canyon wall and, remounting at the top,
galloped hurriedly down a long ridge.

At intervals, shots from the Indians reached their ears, and
long-drawn yells, followed by the sharper crack of Scott's rifle,
echoed from the west as the scout held the wall against the enemy.
Bucks did not understand the real danger that the scout feared for
his party. It was that other parties of the marauding Cheyennes might,
by following the creek, gain the divide in time to cut off the
railroad men from their line of escape. The sounds of the stubborn
contest behind them died away as their straining horses gradually put
miles between them and the enemy. The fugitives had reached the summit
of the hills and with a feeling of safety were easing their pace when
Bucks discerned, almost directly ahead of them, dark objects moving
slowly along the foot of a wooded hill. The two men halted.

CHAPTER V

"Indians," announced Stanley after a brief moment of inspection.

"We are cut off," he added, looking alertly over the landscape about
them. "This way, Bucks. Ride as low as you can." Without further words
he made an abrupt turn to the right, striking south to get behind a
friendly butte that rose half a mile away.

"The question now is," said Stanley, as they held their horses up a
little after getting somewhat farther out of sight, "whether they have
likewise seen us."

The harried pair were not long in doubt. They had hardly changed their
course when there was immediate activity on the hill-side. The
railroad men spurred on; the distant horsemen, now on their flank,
dashed out upon the broad slope that lay between the two parties and
rode straight and hard after the fleeing men. Stanley steadied his
inexperienced companion as the latter urged his horse. "Not too hard
just now. Your pony will need all his wind. It's a question of getting
away with our scalps and we must be careful. Follow me."

Bucks's heart, as he looked back, crowded up into his throat. A long
skirmish line of warriors had spread across the unbroken plateau to
the