A trooper rushed up and leaned, yelling, to his captain's ear. "They won't go, sir; they're hamstrung!"
With a command, the captain fairly threw the man toward a point where help was needed and seized upon his first lieutenant. "Fraser, there's a hell-hound loose in this post to-night!"
"I know, Captain. The fire started in a dozen spots."
"It's that damned Indian of yours. I'll have him shot on sight!"
Fraser was leaving. He looked back, his face all horror and smut. "Charley?" he cried. "Never!"
Once more Oliver gave tongue, and directions were sent to the stockade and to the Line. A signal light communicated with the lookouts on the bluffs.
Kippis was already fulfilling his charge. Through a gap in the northward-sweeping prairie-fire—a gap fought out and kept open by a line of men—were coming the women of Clothes-Pin Row, each carrying a child and dragging a second by the hand. Behind them scuttled the papoose-cumbered squaws from the scouts' huts. At their rear trudged the sergeant, also weighted, and jaunty no longer, but leaving red stains where his naked feet touched the hot and smouldering ground.
"To headquarters!" shouted the captain, at the foremost laundress in the rout. Then he turned to his trumpeter. A moment after, the fires and the perishing horses were deserted, and the troopers, weapons in hand, ran out upon the parade-ground, obeying a call to arms.
Oliver led them. As he approached the flagstaff, the voice of a woman hailed him from the gallery of the nearest house. He sprang that way, and was up the steps at a bound.
Mrs. Cummings, who had sought refuge in her own home, met him at the top. "The Colonel's library is stripped!"