“Tell them to be on guard all the time, Red Blaze,” said Whitley with strong emphasis. “In war you've got to watch, watch, watch. Always know what the other fellow is doin', if you can.”
“Let's go back to the station,” said Dick. “Maybe we'll have an answer soon.”
They found the young operator hanging over his instrument, his eyes still shining. He had been in that position ever since they left him, and Dick knew that his eagerness to get an answer from Washington kept him there, mind and body waiting for the tick of the key.
Dick, the sergeant, and Red Blaze sat down by the stove again, and rested there quietly for a quarter of an hour. Red Blaze was thinking that it would be another cold ride back over the pass. The sergeant, although he was not sleepy, closed his eyes and saw again the vast rolling plains, the herds of buffalo spreading to the horizon, and the bands of Sioux and Cheyennes galloping down, their great war bonnets making splashes of color against the thin blue sky. Dick was thinking of Pendleton, the peaceful little town in Kentucky that was his home, and of his cousin, Harry Kenton. He did not know now where Harry was, and he did not even know whether he was dead or alive.
Dick sighed a little, and just at that moment the telegraph key began to click.
“The answer is coming!” exclaimed the young operator excitedly and then he bent closer over the key to take it. The three chairs straightened up, and they, too, bent toward the key. The boy wrote rapidly, but the clicking did not go on long. When it ceased he straightened up with his finished message in his hand. His face was flushed and his eyes still shining. He folded the paper and handed it to Dick.
“Congratulations on your success and fine management of your troops. Victory worth much to us. Read dispatch to regiment and continue westward to original destination.
Dick's face glowed, and the sergeant's teeth came together with a little click of satisfaction.
“When I saw that it was to be read to the regiment I thought it no harm to read it to the rest of you,” said Dick, as he refolded the precious dispatch and put it in his safest pocket. “Now, sergeant, I think we ought to be off at full speed.”
“Not a minute to waste,” said Sergeant Whitley.