Loring, it will be remembered, had taken a small detachment from Emory and gone into the hills in search of Burleigh. Loomis, fretting at the fort, was later electrified by a most grudgingly given order to march to the Laramie and render such aid as might be required by the engineer officer of the department. Dean, with only fifteen men all told, had dashed from Frayne straight for the ranch, and, marching all night, had come in sight of the valley just as it was lighted afar to the eastward by the glare of the burning buildings. "We thought it was all over," said he, as he lay there weak and languid, a few days later, for the wound reopened in the rush of the fight, "but we rode on to the Laramie, and there, God be thanked! fell in with Loomis here and "C" Troop, heading for the fire. No words can tell you our joy when we found the ranch still standing and some forty Sioux getting ready for the final dash. That running fight, past the old home, and down the valley where we stirred up Loring's besiegers and sent them whirling too--why, I'd give a fortune, if I had it, to live it over again!" But Loring, after all, had the most thrilling story to tell--of how he wormed a clew to Burleigh's hiding place out of a captured outlaw and beat up the party in a nook of the hills, nabbed the major asleep, but was warned that all the Birdsall "outfit" would rally to the rescue, and so sent a courier to Emory for "C" Troop, and, making wide _detour_ to avoid the gang, ran slap into the Sioux in the act of firing Folsom's ranch. Then he had to take to the rocks in the fight that followed, and had a desperate siege of a few hours, even Burleigh having to handle a gun and fight for his life. "I spotted him for a coward that day we stumbled on Red Cloud's band up by the Big Horn. You remember it, Dean, I thought him a villain when I learned how he was trying to undermine you. Time proved him a thief and a scoundrel, but, peace to his ashes, he died like a gentleman after all, with two Indian bullets through him, and just as rescue came. He had time to make full confession, and it was all pretty much as I suspected. The note Dean picked up at Reno, that so stampeded him, told how a blackmailing scoundrel was on his way to Emory to expose him unless headed off by further huge payments. It was the fellow who called himself Newhall." "The fellow who gave the tip to Birdsall's people?" said old Folsom at this juncture, raising a bandaged head from his daughter's lap. "Who was he, really?" "Burleigh knew all the time and I suspected the moment I heard Miss Folsom's description, and was certain the instant I laid eyes on him. He was a rascally captain cashiered at Yuma the year before, and I was judge advocate of the court." "And Mrs. Fletcher?" asked Pappoose, extending one hand to Jess, while the other smoothed the gray curls on her fathers forehead. "Mrs. Fletcher was his deserted wife, one of- those women who have known better days."