"There, do you hear that? Your lieutenant's opening the ball out there right now and them Kiowas'll be coming a-tearing this way in a few minutes. String your men out so's to catch them. I'll overtake you."
"But what will you do for a horse?" asked Saunders as he gave command for moving:
"I'll borrow Peck's black horse."
Saunders immediately put his men on the gallop toward the wagon on the prairie.
Taking Bill's hint of a remount, I rushed to the stable and got Prince out, while he was getting his saddle and bridle off his dead horse; and while hurriedly saddling the black horse Bill was giving me a brief account of how they came to be here at our camp instead of at the wagon.
"Found come through to Fort Larned on time, all right," he said, "and wanted to come back with me, but I locked him in my room. It took an everlasting time for Saunders to get his company ready to move. Well, after we started, I concluded that the Kiowas would hear us a-coming and get away, unless we could get around in their rear. So I got the captain to divide his men, leaving twenty, under Lieutenant Wilson, to lay around over about Ash Creek hollow until nigh daylight, and then to move up onto the Injuns around the wagon and start them this way, while with the other thirty men we got around on this side of them. We've been riding like the devil, but it was a long ways to go to get around here, and Lieutenant Wilson was to make the attack on his side at daylight, anyway, and he's a-doing it all right."
By this time we had Prince saddled, and, springing onto him, as he galloped after Saunders's party Bill called back to me:
"Keep a sharp lookout, Peck, till we get back here, for there may be some skulkers laying for you in the timber 'round here."