"Well, should the Indians jump us, and crowd too close, I will halt to hold them at bay, and you must ride on—see! Here are the dispatches, and as a bearer of military dispatches, you must push on and obey orders."
"But you speak as though you had a premonition of evil," said Emma Foshay, as Kit Carey placed in her saddle pocket the dispatches.
"You can reach camp, Miss Foshay, and to have you do so I must hold the redskins in check, and come in later."
"And you expect me to desert you, sir?"
"It will not be a desertion, for you obey orders. Ah! it is as I feared," and just then dashed over the top of a distant rise half a hundred mounted redskins.
CHAPTER III.
The young officer had not been mistaken in his premonition of danger. He had read the "signs" aright, and was sure that the band of Indians now coming toward them, were haunting the trails to cut off communication with Colonel Crandall's post, or reinforcements going from there toward the agency.