hurrah! Faint and flickering at first, then shining a few seconds
in clear, steady beam, the sergeant's answering signal streamed out upon
the night, a calm, steadfast, unwavering response, resolute as the
spirit of its soldier sender, and then suddenly disappeared.

"He's all right!" said Ralph, joyously, as the young ranchman put spurs
to his panting horse and rode off to the west. "Now, what about Lodge
Pole?"

Just as they turned away there came a sound far out on the prairie that
made them pause and look wonderingly a moment in one another's eyes. The
horseman had disappeared from view. They had watched him until he had
passed out of sight in the dim distance. The hoof-beats of his horse had
died away before they turned to go.

Yet now there came the distant thunder of an hundred hoofs bounding over
the sod.

Out from behind a jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth
upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has
disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver
streaks, are plainly seen, as the moonbeams glint on armlet or bracelet,
or the nickel plating on their gaudy trappings.

Then see! a ruddy flash! another! another! the muffled bang of
fire-arms, and the vengeful yell and whoops of savage foeman float down
to the breathless listeners at the station on the Chug. The Sioux are
here in full force, and a score of them have swept down on that brave,
hapless, helpless fellow riding through the darkness alone.

Phillips groaned. "Oh, why did we let him go? Quick, now! Every man to
the ranch, and you get word to Lodge Pole, will you?"

"Ay, ay, and fetch the whole Fifth Cavalry here at a gallop!"

But when Ralph ran into the telegraph station a moment later, he found
the operator with his head bowed upon his arms and his face hidden from
view.

"What's the matter,--quick?" demanded Ralph.

It was a ghastly face that was raised to the boy, as the operator
answered,--

"It--it's all my fault. I've waited too long. _They've cut the line
behind us!_"

CHAPTER V.

AT FARRON'S RANCH.

When Sergeant Wells reached Farron's ranch that evening little Jessie
was peacefully sleeping in the room that had been her mother's. The
child was tired after the long, fifty-mile drive from Russell, and had
been easily persuaded to go to bed.

Farron himself, with the two men who worked for him, was having a
sociable smoke and chat, and the three were not a