But when Ralph ran into the telegraph station a moment later, he found the operator with his head bowed upon his arms and his face hidden from view.
"What's the matter,—quick?" demanded Ralph.
It was a ghastly face that was raised to the boy, as the operator answered,—
"It—it's all my fault. I've waited too long. They've cut the line behind us!"
CHAPTER V.
AT FARRON'S RANCH.
When Sergeant Wells reached Farron's ranch that evening little Jessie was peacefully sleeping in the room that had been her mother's. The child was tired after the long, fifty-mile drive from Russell, and had been easily persuaded to go to bed.
Farron himself, with the two men who worked for him, was having a sociable smoke and chat, and the three were not a little surprised at Wells's coming and the unwelcome news he bore. The ranchman was one of the best-hearted fellows in the world, but he had a few infirmities of disposition and one or two little conceits that sometimes marred his better judgment. Having lived in the Chug Valley a year or two before the regiment came there, he had conceived it to be his prerogative to adopt a somewhat patronizing tone to its men, and believed that he knew much more about the manners and customs of the Sioux than they could possibly have learned.
The Fifth Cavalry had been stationed not far from the Chug Valley when he first came to the country, and afterwards were sent out to Arizona for a five-years' exile. It was all right for the Fifth to claim acquaintance with the ways of the Sioux, Farron admitted, but as for these fellows of the —th,—that was another thing. It did not seem to occur to him that the guarding of the neighboring reservations for about five years had given the new regiment opportunities to study and observe these Indians that had not been accorded to him.