Upon a high knoll the girl reined up, horse and rider waiting, motionless as a carved statue, for the pinto, whose easy, graceful running gait had changed to short rabbit-like leaps.
"Wish I had another string o' horses!" gasped the child, as he at length gained the top of the hill. The girl pointed down the dwindling foot-hills to something small and white in the distance.
"See, there are the tents—a mile away. The soldiers—two troops of them—out on a pleasure trip. I will go on—you take your time, and go back with the men."
"I want to go with you," declared the boy, half crying.
"No," said the girl coaxingly. "You must be their guide, and lead them to the ledge of rocks by the sheep-shed. Think how fine it will be to be a real soldier." Then appalled by a new thought: "Oh, but if you should get tired and couldn't lead them there, how would they ever find the place? What shall I do! I can't wait for them—I must go back ahead. If he shouldn't be there! If something should have warned or detained him! What will I do!"
"Oh, shoot it all, I'll take 'em there all right!" exclaimed the boy, in a very big voice. "Don't you worry. I ain't a bit tired, an' I ain't a-goin' to be, neither!"
Hope reached over and clasped the child in her arms, a sob coming with her breath.
"My little man!" she said softly. Then instructing him to follow her, spurred up her horse to a fresh attempt, and so mad was her ride that she scarcely breathed until she dropped to the ground beside a sentinel who commanded her to halt.
How she roused the camp in the middle of the night was a story Larry O'Hara often delighted to relate. It was Larry who really came to the rescue, who shouldered the responsibility of the action, and led the troops when finally equipped to the scene of the disturbance.
And Hope rode back alone—rode so rapidly that her horse stopped, exhausted, at the foot of the big hill where she had planned the rendezvous with Livingston. There she left the noble animal and climbed up toward the summit, sometimes on her hands and knees, so tired had she become. And the moon still shone brightly along the horizon of the heavens. An hour of brilliancy, she thought, then darkness before the dawn. When she had dragged herself up the mountain side, hope and fear alternately filling her heart, and hastening her footsteps, a sudden weakness came over her as she saw on the summit the stalwart figure of Livingston. Then it seemed to her that the night had been a mere dream, or at least ridiculous. How could such a strong, brave-looking man require a girl's assistance? It was preposterous! She seemed to shrink into herself, in a little cuddled heap among the rocks.