s of alarm or peril
that the quicker they reached the guiding hand and bore, each, his
soldier on his back, the quicker would vanish the common foe. Even
before the panting steed of the headlong courier came within hailing
distance of the ranch, half the horses in the troop were caught and the
bits were rattling between their teeth; then, as the messenger tore
along the gentle slope that led to the gateway, his wearied horse
laboring painfully at the rise, Mrs. Folsom recognized one of her
husband's herdsmen, a man who had lived long years in Wyoming and could
be unnerved by no false alarm, and her voice went up in a shriek of fear
as she read the tidings in his almost ghastly face.

"Where is Hal?" she screamed. "Oh, what has happened?"

"He's safe," was the answering call, as the rider waved a reassuring
hand, but at the instant he bent low. "Thank God, you're here,
lieutenant," he gasped. "Mount quick. Hal's corralled two miles out
there under the butte--Sioux!" And then they saw that he was swooning,
that the blood was streaming down the left thigh and leg, and before
hand could help him, he rolled senseless, doubled up in the dust at his
horse's feet, and the weary creature never even started.

"Saddle up, men!" rang the order across the stream. And then while
strong arms lifted and bore the wounded herdsman to the porch, Dean
turned to the wailing mistress, who, white-faced and terror-stricken,
was wringing her hands and moaning and running wildly up and down the
walk and calling for some one to go and save her husband. Dean almost
bore her to a chair and bade her fear nothing. He and his men would lose
not a moment. On the floor at her feet lay the little card photograph,
and Dean, hardly thinking what he did, stooped, picked it up and placed
it in the pocket of his hunting shirt, just as the trumpeter on his
plunging gray reached the gate, Dean's big, handsome charger trotting
swiftly alongside. In an instant the lieutenant was in saddle, in
another second a trooper galloped up with his belt and carbine. Already
the men were leading into line across the stream, and, bidding the
trumpeter tell Sergeant Shaughnessy to follow at speed, the young
officer struck spur to his horse and, carbine in hand, a single trooper
at his heels, away he darted down the valley, "C" Troop, splashing
through the ford a moment later, took the direct road past the stockade
of the corral, disappeared from sight a moment behind that wo