Three times the flash lighted up the faces of the little party; set and stern and full of pluck they were. Then all eyes were turned to the dark, shadowy, low-lying objects far up the stream, the roofs of Farron's threatened ranch.
Full half a minute they watched, hearts beating high, breath coming thick and fast, hands clinching in the intensity of their anxiety.
Then, hurrah! Faint and flickering at first, then shining a few seconds in clear, steady beam, the sergeant's answering signal streamed out upon the night, a calm, steadfast, unwavering response, resolute as the spirit of its soldier sender, and then suddenly disappeared.
"He's all right!" said Ralph, joyously, as the young ranchman put spurs to his panting horse and rode off to the west. "Now, what about Lodge Pole?"
Just as they turned away there came a sound far out on the prairie that made them pause and look wonderingly a moment in one another's eyes. The horseman had disappeared from view. They had watched him until he had passed out of sight in the dim distance. The hoof-beats of his horse had died away before they turned to go.
Yet now there came the distant thunder of an hundred hoofs bounding over the sod.
Out from behind a jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver streaks, are plainly seen, as the moonbeams glint on armlet or bracelet, or the nickel plating on their gaudy trappings.
Then see! a ruddy flash! another! another! the muffled bang of fire-arms, and the vengeful yell and whoops of savage foeman float down to the breathless listeners at the station on the Chug. The Sioux are here in full force, and a score of them have swept down on that brave, hapless, helpless fellow riding through the darkness alone.
Phillips groaned. "Oh, why did we let him go? Quick, now! Every man to the ranch, and you get word to Lodge Pole, will you?"
"Ay, ay, and fetch the whole Fifth Cavalry here at a gallop!"