rgeant, "he would
reduce these statements to mathematics, ten per cent fact an' ninety per
cent fancy."

"Just about that," said Dick.

Red Blaze came to them presently, bristling with news.

"A farmer from a hollow further to the west," he said, "has just come
in, an' he says that a band of guerillas is ridin' through the hills.
'Bout twenty of them, he said, led by a big dark fellow, his face
covered with black beard. They've been liftin' hosses an' takin' other
things, but they're strangers in these parts. Tom Sykes, who was held up
by them an' robbed of his hoss, says that the rest of 'em called their
leader Skelly. Tom seemed to think that mebbe they came from somewhere
in the Kentucky mountains. They called themselves a scoutin' party of
the Southern army."

Dick started violently.

"Why, I know this man Skelly," he said. "He lives in the mountains
to the eastward of my home in Kentucky. He organized a band at the
beginning of the war, but over there he said he was fightin' for the
North."

"He'll be fightin' for his own hand," said the sergeant sternly. "But he
can't play double all the time. That sort of thing will bring a man to
the end of a rope, with clear air under his feet."

"I'm glad you've told me this," said Red Blaze. "Skelly might have come
ridin' in here, claimin' that he an' his men was Northern troops, an'
then when we wasn't suspectin' might have held up the whole town. I'll
warn 'em. Thar ain't a house here that hasn't got two or three rifles
an' shotguns in it, an' with the farmers from the valley joinin' in
Hubbard could wipe out the whole gang."

"Tell them to be on guard all the time, Red Blaze," said Whitley with
strong emphasis. "In war you've got to watch, watch, watch. Always know
what the other fellow is doin', if you can."

"Let's go back to the station," said Dick. "Maybe we'll have an answer
soon."

They found the young operator hanging over his instrument, his eyes
still shining. He had been in that position ever since they left him,
and Dick knew that his eagerness to get an answer from Washington kept
him there, mind and body waiting for the tick of the key.

Dick, the sergeant, and Red Blaze sat down by the stove again, and
rested there quietly for a quarter of an hour. Red Blaze was thinking
that it would be another cold ride back over the pass. The sergeant,
although he was not sleepy, closed his eyes and saw again the vast
rolling plains, the herds of buffalo spr