him and lay a loving hand on
Pappoose's lustrous hair. It must have been ten o'clock and a night wind
was rising, making the occasional cry of the coyotes even more weird and
querulous, when they heard the sudden, fierce challenge of Trooper, the
keenest, finest of the mastiffs, and instantly his bark was echoed by
the rush and scurry of every canine on the place. The men on the porch
sprang to their feet and Folsom hastened out to join them. The dogs had
charged in the darkness toward the northeast, and somewhere out in that
direction were now all furiously barking. Aloft the skies were heavily
clouded. The moon was banked and not a glimmer of light shone on earth
or heaven. Suddenly, afar out over the prairie, beyond where the dogs
were challenging, there was heard the sound of a pony's neigh, an eager
appeal for welcome and shelter, and Folsom sprang confidently forward,
his powerful tones calling off the dogs. They came back, growling,
sniffing, only half-satisfied, still bristling at the unseen visitor.
"War ponies never neigh," said Folsom. "Who are you, brothers--friends?"
he called, in the Sioux tongue, and a faint voice answered from the
darkness, a pony came loping dimly into view, almost running over him,
and in another minute an Indian girl, trembling with fear and
exhaustion, had toppled from the saddle and clasped the old trader's
hand.

"Good God! Lizette," he cried, "you again? What is wrong?" for her head
was drooping, her knees giving way beneath her, as the poor child
whispered her answer:

"Sioux coming--plenty braves! Hide--quick!"

And Folsom bore her in his arms within.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Never unless sure of its ground and the weakness of the adversary does
the modern Indian band attack at night. Folsom and his people well knew
that. Yet not five minutes after the Indian girl, faint with exhaustion
and dread, was carried within doors, the big mastiff challenged again.
The dogs charged furiously out to the northeast and would not be
recalled. For nearly half an hour they kept up their angry clamor. Time
and again during the night, suspicious and excited, they dashed out
again and again, and once one of them, venturing further than his
fellows, broke suddenly into loud cries of mingled pain and rage, and
when at last he came whining piteously back to the ranch it was found
that he was bleeding from a gash along the flank, where an Indian arrow
had seared him. Only by fits and starts did