Then up rose a sudden shout. "There he is!" "There he comes!" "See!" "See!" and fifty hands pointed eagerly northeastward where a little black dot had suddenly popped into view out of some friendly, winding watercourse, four miles still away, at least count, and far to the right and front of Blake's easternmost trooper. Every glass was instantly brought to bear upon the swiftly coming rider, Sandy's shrill young voice ringing out from the upper window. "It isn't one of papa's men. His horse is a gray!" Who then could it be? and what could it mean, this coming of a strange courier from a direction so far to the east of the travelled road? Another moment and up rose another shout. "Look!"--"There they are!" "Sioux for certain!" And from behind a little knob or knoll on the meridian ridge three other black dots had swept into view and were shooting eastward down the gradual slope. Another moment and they were swallowed up behind still another low divide, but in that moment they had seen and been seen by the westernmost of Blake's men, and now, one after another as the signals swept from the left, the seven swerved. Their line of direction had been west of north. Now, riding like mad, they veered to the northeast, and a grand race was on between the hidden three and the would-be rescuers;--all heading for that part of the low-rolling prairie where the lone courier might next be expected to come into view;--friends and foes alike, unconscious of the fact that, following one of those crooked arroyos with its stiff and precipitous banks, he had been turned from his true course full three quarters of a mile, and now, with a longer run, but a clear field ahead, was steering straight for Frayne.