t in view of the flagstaff,
only to find dozens of Indians watching the post and skulking between
him and the desired refuge. At last--but Stone shut him off:

"Take two companies, major," he ordered, "march for the wood camp and
see what you can find. You know what to do."

So again was Blenke, the silent, in spite of prejudice and prediction,
the hero of the occasion. They bore him off to be fed and feted, but he
begged first that Miss Sanford might be informed of his safe return.
Then Stone, with anxious brow, dismounted, clambered to the tower of the
Exchange, where his glasses swept the wide expanse of country and told
him the excitement, so vivid here at the fort and over "beyond Jordan"
at Skidmore's, was already spreading to Silver Hill. God grant his
rescuers had not gone too late--or slowly!

Slowly at least they did not go, for Dwight, possessed of a very devil
of nervous energy, pushed his four troops at steady trot. Well he knew
it would not be long before some one of the ridge lines, successively to
be passed, would suddenly spit fire at his advance, and that every
device known to Indian strategy would be brought into play in the effort
to stay his coming until all was over with Ray's little party at the
agency. Physical weakness, personal danger, even Jimmy, his only child,
now tossing in the throes of burning fever, he seemed for the time to
have forgotten. Hurst, the senior captain, who had counted on leading
the dash, reckoned without due comprehension of his major that day, and
looked amazed when Dwight had come trotting down to the formation, his
grim face lighting with something of the old fire, and sent his second
in command to the head of the first troop. Once well out beyond the
railway the major ordered a few picked skirmishers forward at the gallop
from the head of each of his four columns, other active light-horsemen
to cover the flanks, and the wary scouts and marksmen of the Sioux,
crouching behind the crests, shook their scalp-locks in chagrin. There
could be no picking off of prominent officers at close range, no
ambuscading crowded ranks or columns. This chief knew his business, and
they might better serve Black Wolf and their comrades in arms by
galloping away to the agency and urging one desperate assault. Stopping
this fellow was out of the question. The one stand, made just six miles
out, resulted in no check to the cavalry, but a dead loss to two of
their own braves.

And so it h