"Captain Gregg's compliments, sir. It's Rudge from the Dry Fork. Sergeant Kelly feared that Kennedy hadn't got through, for most of Lame Wolf's people pulled away from the Fork yesterday morning, coming this way, and the sergeant thought it was to unite with Stabber to surround any small command that might be sent ahead from here. Rudge was ordered to make a wide sweep to the east, so as to get around them, and that's what took him so long. He left not two hours after Kennedy." [Illustration: "THE SOLDIER LEAPED FROM HIS SADDLE."] In spite of his years of frontier service and training in self control, Webb felt, and others saw, that his face was paling. Ray, with only fifty men at his back, was now out of sight--out of reach--of the post, and probably face to face with, if not already surrounded by, the combined forces of the Sioux. Not a second did he hesitate. Among the swarm that had followed him was a young trumpeter of "K" Troop, reckless of the fact that he should be at barracks, packing his kit. As luck would have it, there at his back hung the brazen clarion, held by its yellow braid and cord. "Boots and Saddles, Kerry, Quick!" ordered the major, and as the ringing notes re-echoed from bluff and building wall and came laughing back from the distant crags at the south, the little throng at the bank and the crowd at the point of the bluff had scattered like startled coveys,--the men full run for the barracks and stables, never stopping to "reason why." Nearly half an hour later, gray-haired Captain Dade stood at the point of bluff near the flagstaff, Esther, pale and tearful, by his side, waving adieu and Godspeed to Webb, who had halted in saddle on reaching the opposite bank and was watching his little column through the ford,--three stanch troops, each about sixty strong, reinforced by half a dozen of Ray's men left behind in the forward rush at dawn, but scorning disqualification of any kind now that danger menaced their beloved captain and their comrades of the sorrel troop. In all the regiment no man was loved by the rank and file as was Billy Ray. Brilliant soldiers, gifted officers, sterling men were many of his comrades, but ever since he first joined the ----th on the heels of the civil war, more than any one of its commissioned list, Ray had been identified with every stirring scout and campaign, fight or incident in the regimental history. Truscott, Blake, Hunter and Gregg among the junior captains had all had their tours of detached duty--instructing at West Point, recruiting in the big Eastern cities, serving as aide-de-camp to some general officer, but of Ray it could be said he had hardly been east of the Missouri from the day he joined until his wedding day, and only rarely and briefly since that time. More than any officer had he been prominent in scout after scout--Arizona, Mexico, Texas, the Indian Territory, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, the