ore, it dawned upon the major that it was there Mr. Field had
stowed his packages of currency--a violation of orders pure and
simple--and that was why he could not produce the money on the spot.
Webb reflected. If he let Ray start at dawn and held Field back until
the trader was astir, it might be eight o'clock before the youngster
could set forth. By that time Ray would be perhaps a dozen miles to the
northward, and with keen-eyed Indian scouts noting the march of the
troop and keeping vigilant watch for possible stragglers, it might be
sending the lad to certain death, for Plodder had said in so many words
the Sioux about him had declared for war, had butchered three ranchmen
on the Dry Fork, had fired on and driven in his herd guards and wood
choppers, and, what started with Lane Wolf's big band, would spread to
Stabber's little one in less than no time, and what spread to Stabber's
would soon reach a host of the Sioux. Moreover, there was another
reason. It would give Field opportunity for further conference
with--inmates of the trader's household, and the major had his own grave
reasons for seeking to prevent that.

"Your written order will be sufficient, Mr. Field," said he. "Send me
memorandum of the amounts and I will receipt at once, so that you can go
without further thought of them. And now," with a glance at the clock,
"you have hardly half an hour in which to get ready."

Raising his hand in mechanical salute, Field faced about; cast one look
at Blake, standing uncomfortably at the window, and then strode angering
away to his quarters, smarting under a sense of unmerited rebuke yet
realizing that, as matters looked, no one was more to blame than
himself.

Just as the first faint flush of coming day was mantling the pallid
eastern sky, and while the stars still sparkled aloft and the big,
bright moon was sinking to the snow-tipped peaks far away to the
occident, in shadowy column a troop of fifty horse filed slowly from The
Sorrels' big corral and headed straight for the Platte. Swift and
unfordable in front of Frayne in the earlier summer, the river now went
murmuring sleepily over its stony bed, and Ray led boldly down the bank
and plunged girth deep into the foaming waters. Five minutes more and
every man had lined up safely on the northward bank. In low tone the
order was given, starting as Ray ever did, in solid column of fours. In
dead silence the little command moved slowly away, followed by the eye