It was four o'clock in the morning of the Fourth of July when the thunderbolt struck Fort Ryan. It was not very loud; it damaged no building; but it struck the very souls of men. A thousand thunder claps, a year's tornadoes in an hour, could not have been more staggering; and yet it was only four words of one poor, wheezing Irish hostler at the Colonel's window: "Colonel! Colonel! For the love of God--come--come--come at once--_Blazing Star is gone!_" "_What?_" and the Colonel sprang up. The reveille had sounded, the men were just rising; but one group there was already about the stable talking with an air of intense excitement. The Colonel went without waiting to dress--the officer of the day with him. In terrible silence they hurried to the stable; there was Rover in his box, whinnying softly for his morning oats; but the next--the box of Blazing Star--was empty; and the far end, the outer wall, showed a great new doorway cut. Beyond, out in the growing light, troopers rode to every near-by lookout; but never a sign of horse did they see, or, indeed, expect to see. The case was very clear; the horse was stolen, gone clean away--their hope for the race was gone. These were terrible moments for the hapless grooms and guards. Human nature, in dire defeat, always demands a victim; and the grooms were glad to be locked up in the guard house, where at least they were out of the storm of the Colonel's wrath. As the light grew brighter a careful study laid bare the plan of robbery. The stables formed, in part, the outer wall of the quadrangle. They were roofed with pine boards, covered with tar-paper on cedar corner posts; the walls, however, were of sods piled squarely on each other in a well-known Western style, making a good warm stable. It was a simple matter to take down quickly and silently this outer wall from the outside, beginning at the top, and so make another exit. This had been done in the dead of night. And the track of the racer told the tale like a printed page. A general alarm had gone forth; all the Fort was astir; and the army scouts were by the case forced into unusual prominence. It was Al Rennie spoke first: "Colonel, it's a-going to rain, sure; it's liable to rain heavy. I suggest we take that trail right away and follow before it's all washed out." "The quicker the better," said the Colonel. Riding ahead on the trail like a hound went the old trapper-hunter-scout with a band of troopers following. They had not gone a quarter of a mile before the rain began to spit. But the line of the trail was clear and it was easy for the practised eye to follow. It headed east for half a mile, then, on a hard open stretch of gravel, it turned and went direct for the Crow camp. Rennie could follow at a gallop; they rounded the butte, cleared the cottonwoods, crossed the little willow-edged stream, and reached the Crow camp to find it absolutely deserted!