“Thompson!” cried Carl.
“Well, I declare; if there ain’t Carl,” said Thompson, so delighted that he could scarcely speak. “Where have you been?”
“I have been in a fight, but I am all here yet,” said Carl, riding forward to shake his men by the hand. “How did those cattle manage to get away from you?”
“You have been in a fight, have you?” said Thompson, so overjoyed to see Carl again that he could hardly let him go. “Well, you haven’t been in any worse one than we have. We’ve killed nine Indians, and have a prisoner up there to show you.”
“A prisoner? Who is it?”
“It is Harding—that is who it is. He came out to the ranch with twenty-five Indians to gather up some stock, and we were too many for him. He stampeded some of the cattle, but we whipped the Indians and drove them away.”
“That is the same thing he proposed to me while I was a prisoner,” said Carl, turning to the captain. “I knew that if I gave him an order on Thompson for the stock he would be killed when he presented it. Well, he helped me to escape once, and you can help him this time.”
“Not by a long shot!” exclaimed the captain. “General Miles has ordered every soldier in his department to arrest that fellow, and he will have to go to the fort with me.”
“That is what I say, captain,” said Thompson. “He tried to rob our safe, too.”
“We will go back to the fort now and report to the colonel,” added the captain. “If he chooses to send us up there to-morrow, why we will get him. What are you going to do with your men, Carl?”