ever had a very clear idea of what
happened during the next few minutes. He remembered that he heard the
bugle sound a charge; that he dashed through the arched stone gateway at
headlong speed side by side with Captain Clinton; and that the rapid
discharge of firearms rang in his ears, accompanied by the cries of the
cattle-thieves, who fled in every direction, and such cheers and yells
from the troopers as he had never heard before. When he came to
himself, his horse, which seemed to enter fully into the spirit of the
matter, was dancing about in front of a pile of forage that filled one
end of the courtyard. When George saw it he threw himself from his
saddle and caught up a lantern.

"I have seen the inside of this hole for the last time," said he to
himself. "If Fletcher lives to make a prisoner of me, he shall not bring
me to this ranche, and neither shall he harbor here to raid on my
stock."

As these thoughts passed through the boy's mind he smashed the glass
globe of the lantern with one savage kick, and picking up the lamp
applied the flame to the pile of forage. He set it on fire in half a
dozen different places, and then turned and threw the lamp into one of
the nearest rooms, which seemed to be well filled with something. When
he had done that he was frightened. What if it was powder in there? But,
fortunately, it wasn't. It was some combustible matter that blazed up
fiercely, sending huge volumes of flames out of the door and lighting up
the courtyard, which was now occupied only by American troopers. The
cattle-thieves had behaved just as they did when Bob Owens so gallantly
attacked a portion of their number at the squatter's cabin. They fled
in hot haste, making their escape by the roof, by doors whose existence
George never dreamed of, and by squeezing themselves through the narrow
openings that served the ranche in the place of windows. And, strange to
tell, there was no one injured on either side. Having satisfied himself
on this point by searching all the rooms to make sure that there were no
dead or wounded men in them, the captain ordered his troopers into the
saddle and departed as rapidly and silently as he had come. George
looked over his shoulder now and then, and when he saw the thick clouds
of smoke that arose in the air growing thicker and blacker, he told
himself that he had made sure work of the old ranche, and that it would
never serve the cattle-thieves for a harboring-place again.

O