he did, and fetched her back to-day. Sergeant Wells has gone up
there to keep watch with them, and we are to signal if we get important
news. All you tell me only adds to what we suspected. How I wish we had
known it an hour ago! Now, will you stay here with us or go up to
Farron's and tell Wells what you've seen?"

"I'll stay here. My horse can't make another mile, and you may believe I
don't want any prowling round outside of a stockade this night. No, if
you can signal to him go ahead and do it."

"What say you, Ralph?"

Ralph thought a moment in silence. If he fired his three shots, it meant
that the danger was imminent, and that they had certain information that
the Indians were near at hand. He remembered to have heard his father
and other officers tell of sensational stories this same old trapper had
inflicted on the garrison. Sergeant Wells himself used to laugh at
"Baker's yarns." More than once the cavalry had been sent out to where
Baker asserted he had certainly seen a hundred Indians the day before,
only to find that not even the vestige of a pony track remained on the
yielding sod. If he fired the signal shots it meant a night of vigil for
everybody at Farron's and then how Wells would laugh at him in the
morning, and how disgusted he would be when he found that it was
entirely on Baker's assurances that he had acted!

It was a responsible position for the boy. He would much have preferred
to mount Buford and ride off over the four miles of moonlit prairie to
tell the sergeant of Baker's report and let him be the judge of its
authenticity. It was lucky he had that level-headed soldier operator to
advise him. Already he had begun to fancy him greatly, and to respect
his judgment and intelligence.

"Suppose we go in and stir up Laramie, and tell them what Mr. Baker
says," he suggested; and, leaving the trapper to stable his jaded horse
under Phillips's guidance, Ralph and his friend once more returned to
the station.

"If the Indians are south of the Platte," said the operator, "I shall no
longer hesitate about sending a despatch direct to the troops at Lodge
Pole. The colonel ought to know. He can send one or two companies right
along to-night. There is no operator at Eagle's Nest, or I'd have him up
and ask if all was well there. That's what worries me, Ralph. It was
back of Eagle's Nest old Baker says he saw their smokes, and it is
somewhere about Eagle's Nest that I should expect the rascals to sli