“What’s wrong?” demanded the foreman, flying off his blanket.
“Rudabaugh’s gang will jump us in less than half an hour. Get all the men up. I am going to tell the soldiers.”
The loud challenge of a sentinel halted him, but soon he was admitted in the cavalry camp. Griswold was up at once. McMasters put before him a hurried report.
“They’re ahead about four or five miles,” he explained; “camped on the Washita. One of their hunters saw us to-day. He had just got in when I made the edge of their camp. I was close enough to their camp to hear them talking. But I don’t think he knew the soldiers were here. He must just have seen some of our cattle. Of course they know what herd it is. There are about twenty of them. They’re going to try to surprise us. You’ll help us surprise them, won’t you?”
Griswold rubbed his chin.
“Well, I don’t know that the U. S. Army has any special cause to act as a police posse in a family row; but I suppose I’ll have to throw in with you. Fine place for a woman, isn’t it?”
He had no reply to that. But a few moments later Taisie Lockhart heard steps approaching her cart. She put out her head to answer Nabours’ hurried call; saw McMasters and Griswold also standing close. Nabours announced the plan already made by these three.
“There’s danger, Miss Taisie. The Rudabaugh gang is coming. They’ll come right to your cart the first thing, like enough. Hand us out that chest. We’re going to hide it under the beds by the fire. Come on with us. The men are all up now. Crawl into any bed you see and get all the blankets and saddles around you that you can. You’ll be safer there than here. They want what’s in that box.”
An instant later, fastening her jacket, she ran, but turned back. McMasters was not coming.
“But you,” she began—“where are you going?”