"I was looking for the officer of the day, sir. Is he here?"
"Over at his quarters, probably. What's amiss?"
"There's two of Fuller's men in, sir, from Crockett,—just about played out. They swear that not an hour after sunset the whole Friday gang—it couldn't have been anything else—came a-riding out from the foot-hills over towards the Wild Rose and kept on to the southeast. They saw the dust against the sky and hid in the rocks away off to the east of the trail, and they swear there must have been fifty of 'em at least."
He had hardly time to finish the words when the sutler himself came galloping over the parade, "hot foot," on his wiry mustang, and drew up in front of the gate. "Has the sergeant told you?" he asked, breathlessly. "It's Reed and his partner,—two of the best men on my ranch,—and they can't be mistaken. You know what it must mean, gentlemen. The gang is after the paymaster, and I think Colonel Frazier should know at once." No wonder Fuller was breathless, bareheaded, and only half dressed. Anywhere from thirty to forty thousand dollars might be diverted from its proper and legitimate use if that Friday gang should overpower the guard and get away with it. His coffers were filled with sutler checks redeemable in currency at the pay-table, as was the wonted way of the old army. It was a case of feast or famine with Fuller, and he poured his tale into sympathetic ears. Brooks himself went over to the colonel's, and found that weasel of a chief already awake. Mrs. Frazier didn't allow galloping over her parade in the dead of the night without an attempt to detect the perpetrator. That vigilant dame had more than once brought graceless skylarkers to terms, and the quadrupedante putrem sonitu of Fuller's mustang represented to her incensed and virtuous ears only the mad lark of some scapegrace subaltern, who perchance had not been as attentive to 'Manda as he should have been, and she was out of dreamland and over at the window before Fuller fairly drew rein.
"What is it, Brooks, me boy?" asked Frazier from his casement, as did gallant O'Dowd of his loyal Dobbin. "I'll be down in a minute." By the time he reached the door Fuller had hurried up his stiff and wearied scouts, and in the presence of a little party of officers the story was told again, and told without break or variation. There was only one opinion. The scattered outlaws had easily got wind of the coming of the paymaster with his unusual amount of treasure, and, quickly assembling, they were heading away to meet him far to the southeast of the big post, very possibly planning to ambuscade the party in the winding defiles of the San Saba Hills. Not a moment was to be lost. For the first time the full weight of his divorce from all that was once his profession and his pride fell on Ned Lawrence, as for an instant the colonel's eyes turned to him as of old,—the dashing and successful leader of the best scouts sent from Worth in the last two years. Then, as though suddenly realizing that he had no longer that arm to lean on, old Frazier spoke:
"Why, Brooks, you'll have to go. I can't trust such a command to Mullane, and it'll take two companies at least."
And twenty minutes later, answering the sharp summons of their veteran sergeants, the men of Mullane's and Barclay's troops were tumbling out of their bunks and into their boots, "hell-bent for a rousin' ride," and the old captain of Troop "D" was saying to the new, "Captain Barclay, may I ask you for a mount? I've been longing for two years past for a whack at this very gang, and now that the chance has come I cannot stay here and let my old troop go."
And all men present marked the moment of hesitation, the manner of reluctance, before Barclay gravely answered, "There is nothing at my disposal to which you are not most welcome, Colonel Lawrence; and yet—do you think—you ought to go?"
"I could not stay here, sir, and see my old troop go without me," was the answer.