o it happened that when Wells came in that night and told Farron what
was feared at Phillips's, the ranchman treated his warning with
good-humored but rather contemptuous disregard.

"Phillips gets stampeded too easy," was the way he expressed himself,
"and when you fellows of the Mustangs have been here as long as I have
you'll get to know these Indians better. Even if they did come, Pete and
Jake here, and I, with our Henry rifles, could stand off fifty of 'em.
Why, we've done it many a time."

"How long ago?" asked the sergeant, quietly.

"Oh, I don't know. It was before you fellows came. Why, you don't begin
to know anything about these Indians! You never see 'em here nowadays,
but when I first came here to the Chug there wasn't a week they didn't
raid us. They haven't shown up in three years, except just this spring
they've run off a little stock. But you never see 'em."

"_You_ may never see them, Farron, but we do,--see them day in and day
out as we scout around the reservation; and while I may not know what
they were ten years ago, I know what they are _now_, and that's more to
the purpose. You and Pete might have stood off a dozen or so when they
hadn't 'Henrys' and 'Winchesters' as they have now, but you couldn't do
it to-day, and it's all nonsense for you to talk of it. Of course, so
long as you keep inside here you may pick them off, but look out of this
window! What's to prevent their getting into your corral out there, and
then holding you here! They can set fire to your roof over your head,
man, and you can't get out to extinguish it."

"What makes you think they've spotted me, anyhow?" asked Farron.

"They looked you over the last time they came up the valley, and you
know it. Now, if you and the men want to stay here and make a fight for
it, all right,--I'd rather do that myself, only we ought to have two or
three men to put in the corral,--but here's little Jessie. Let me take
her down to Phillips's; she's safe there. He has everything ready for a
siege and you haven't."

"Why, she's only just gone to sleep, Wells; I don't want to wake her up
out of a warm bed and send her off four miles a chilly night like
this,--all for a scare, too. The boys down there would laugh at
me,--just after bringing her here from Denver, too."

"They're not laughing down there _this_ night, Farron, and they're not
the kind that get stampeded either. Keep Jessie, if you say so, and I'll
stay through the night; but I'