"It's the old Hatton gang, sure!" he cried. "They dare not go to the mines. They'll make for Marcy's Pass, and scatter when they get to the cove beyond. There's only one hope." And like a deer the active frontiersman ran to the telegraph office.
"Rush this out to the fort!" he cried, as he pencilled a despatch.
"First National just robbed by Hatton gang. Ten men. Ninety thousand gone. Government funds mostly. ["That'll make him act," he muttered.] They're making for Marcy's Pass. You can head 'em off by Squaw Cañon if you send cavalry at once. We follow trail. Answer.
"Brent, Sheriff."
Colonel Belknap, with a knot of officers, was in the club-room just after stables when the despatch was handed to him by the breathless operator. He was an old campaigner, who had served almost a lifetime in the West.
"Mount your troop instantly, Lane!" he called to one of his most trusted captains. "Never mind their supper; they can have that later. Listen to this." And he read the despatch aloud.
The entrance to Marcy's Pass lay about nine miles nearly due west from town. Hatch's Cove was a lovely nook in the summer-time, but almost inaccessible in winter, lying across the range, and approached from the east by the old road through the Pass. Lance Creek, a clear and beautiful stream, rose in the cove and made its way through the range by means of a tortuous and wellnigh impassable gorge known as Squaw Cañon, which opened into the foot-hills not more than two miles and a half away to the westward of Fort Reynolds. All this was promptly discussed even as the sergeants' voices could be heard ringing out the order in the barrack corridors across the parade.
"Turn out, 'E' troop, lively; carbines and revolvers, fur coats and gloves. Jump now, men!"
Down went knife and fork, cup and spoon. Up sprang the laughing, chaffing, boisterous crowd of the moment before. Away they tore to their bunk-room, and grabbed their great-coats and furs; away to the arm-racks for carbine and six-shooter. Quickly they buckled the broad woven cartridge-belts, and then went bounding down the barrack stairs, forming ranks in the softly falling snow. Double time they trotted down to the long, dimly lighted stables, and in among their astonished and snorting horses. In ten minutes they were trotting away to the westward through wellnigh impenetrable darkness, through a muffling snowfall, over an unseen and unknown trail, yet hesitating not a minute; trotting buoyantly, confidently ahead, following a guide who knew every inch of the way to and through the cañon and miles and miles beyond.