rier, and then fearfully
scanned the ridge line between him and the northward sky; praying with
white lips for his safety; dreading with sinking hearts that at any
moment those savage riders should come darting over the divide and
swooping down upon their helpless prey. Men, with eyes that snapped and
fists that clinched, or fingers that seemed twitching with mad desire to
clasp pistol butt or sabre hilt, or loud barking carbine, ran in sheer
nervous frenzy up and down the bluffs, staring only at Blake's
far-distant riders, swinging their hats and waving them on, praying only
for another sight of the Sioux in front of the envied seven, and craving
with all their soldier hearts to share in the fight almost sure to
follow. On the Rays' piazza, with pallid face and quivering lips, Esther
Dade clung to her mother's side. Mrs. Ray had encircled with her arm the
slender waist of Nannie Blake, whose eyes never for an instant quit
their gaze after the swift-speeding dots across the distant prairie. All
her world was there in one tall, vehement horseman. Other troopers,
mounting at the stables, had spurred away under Captain Gregg, and were
splashing through the ford. Other denizens of Fort Frayne, hearing of
the excitement, came hurrying to the bluff, hangers-on from the trader's
store and corral, the shopman himself, even the bar-keeper in his white
jacket and apron; two or three panting, low-muttering halfbreeds, their
eyes aflame, their teeth gleaming in their excitement; then Hay himself,
and with him,--her dark face almost livid, her hair disordered and lips
rigid and almost purple, with deep lines at the corners of her
mouth,--Nanette Flower. Who that saw could ever forget her as she forced
her way through the crowd and stood at the very brink, saying never a
word, but swiftly focussing her ready glasses? Hardly had she reached
the spot when wild, sudden, exultant, a cheer burst fiercely from the
lips of the throng. "Look!" "Look!" "By God, they've got 'em!" yelled
man after man, in mad excitement. Three black dots had suddenly swept
into view, well to the right of Blake's men, and came whirling down
grade straight for the lone courier on the gray. Theirs had been the
short side, ours the long diagonal of the race. Theirs was the race,
perhaps, but not the prize, for he had turned up far from the expected
point. Still they had him, if only,--if only those infernal troopers
failed to see them. There was their hope! Plainly i