“Four miles on the trail to Fort Clayton.”

“Glad am I, dear!  What’s the idea of it?”

“Guard of honor for you and Thorndike.”

“Bless—­your—­heart!  I’d rather have it from you than from the Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, you incomparable little soldier!—­and I don’t need to take any oath to that, for you to believe it.”

“I thought you’d like it, BB.”

“Like it?  Well, I should say so!  Now then—­all ready—­sound the advance, and away we go!”

CHAPTER IX—­SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN

“Well, this is the way it happened.  We did the escort duty; then we came back and struck for the plain and put the Rangers through a rousing drill—­oh, for hours!  Then we sent them home under Brigadier-General Fanny Marsh; then the Lieutenant-General and I went off on a gallop over the plains for about three hours, and were lazying along home in the middle of the afternoon, when we met Jimmy Slade, the drummer-boy, and he saluted and asked the Lieutenant-General if she had heard the news, and she said no, and he said: 

“’Buffalo Bill has been ambushed and badly shot this side of Clayton, and Thorndike the scout, too; Bill couldn’t travel, but Thorndike could, and he brought the news, and Sergeant Wilkes and six men of Company B are gone, two hours ago, hotfoot, to get Bill.  And they say—­’

“‘Go!’ she shouts to me—­and I went.”

“Fast?”

“Don’t ask foolish questions.  It was an awful pace.  For four hours nothing happened, and not a word said, except that now and then she said, ’Keep it up, Boy, keep it up, sweetheart; we’ll save him!’ I kept it up.  Well, when the dark shut down, in the rugged hills, that poor little chap had been tearing around in the saddle all day, and I noticed by the slack knee-pressure that she was tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully afraid; but every time I tried to slow down and let her go to sleep, so I could stop, she hurried me up again; and so, sure enough, at last over she went!

“Ah, that was a fix to be in I for she lay there and didn’t stir, and what was I to do?  I couldn’t leave her to fetch help, on account of the wolves.  There was nothing to do but stand by.  It was dreadful.  I was afraid she was killed, poor little thing!  But she wasn’t.  She came to, by-and-by, and said, ‘Kiss me, Soldier,’ and those were blessed words.  I kissed her—­often; I am used to that, and we like it.  But she didn’t get up, and I was worried.  She fondled my nose with her hand, and talked to me, and called me endearing names—­which is her way—­but she caressed with the same hand all the time.  The other arm was broken, you see, but I didn’t know it, and she didn’t mention it.  She didn’t want to distress me, you know.