"
Even as he spoke the voice of the sentry at the guard-house rang out the
watch call through the still and sparkling night. It was taken up by
Number Two back of the storehouses, and his "All's well" was still
echoing among the foothills, prolonged and powerful, when Number Three,
down at the quartermaster's corral, began his soldier song; and so,
alert, cheery, reassuring, the sentries sent their deep-voiced assurance
on its unbroken round to the waking guardian at the southwest angle, and
as his final "A-a-a-ll's W-e-ell" went rolling away over bluff and
stream and prairie, Ray lifted a grave and anxious face from the fateful
paper.
"Lame Wolf out? That's bad in itself! He's old Red Cloud's nephew and a
brute at best. Stabber's people there yet?" he suddenly asked, whirling
on his heel and gazing westward.
"Can't make out even with my glasses. All dark as pitch among the
cottonwoods, but Kennedy, who made the ride, says he saw smokes back of
Eagle Butte just before sunset."
"Then you can bet they won't be there at dawn--the warriors at least. Of
course the women, the kids and old men will stay if only for a blind. He
had forty fighting men, and Wolf's got at least two hundred.
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