"Good-by, my dear Lieutenant."

Coronado did post his men, and among them was Texas Smith. Into the ear of
this brute, whom he placed quite apart from the other watchers, he
whispered a few significant words.

"I told ye, to begin with, I didn't want to shute at brass buttons,"
growled Texas. "The army's a big thing. I never wanted to draw a bead on
that man, and I don't want to now more 'n ever. Them army fellers hunt
together. You hit one, an' you've got the rest after ye; an' four to one's
a mighty slim chance."

"Five hundred dollars down," was Coronado's only reply.

After a moment of sullen reflection the desperado said, "Five hundred
dollars! Wal, stranger, I'll take yer bet."

Coronado turned away trembling and walked to another part of the wall. His
emotions were disordered and disagreeable; his heart throbbed, his head
was a little light, and he felt that he was pale; he could not well bear
any more excitement, and he did not want to see the deed done. Rifle in
hand, he was pretending to keep watch through a fissure, when he observed
Clara following the line of the wall with the obvious purpose of finding a
spot whence she could see the plain. It seemed to him that he ought to
stop her, and then it seemed to him that he had better not. With such a
horrible drumming in his ears how could he think clearly and decide
wisely?

Clara disappeared; he did not notice where she went; did not think of
looking. Once he thrust his head through his crevice to watch the course
of Thurstane, but drew it back again on discovering that the brave lad had
not yet reached the Apaches, and after that looked no more. His whole
strength seemed to be absorbed in merely listening and waiting. We must
remember that, although Coronado had almost no conscience, he had nerves.

Let us see what happened on the plain through the anxious eyes of Clara.




CHAPTER XXI.


In the time-eaten wall Clara had found a fissure through which she could
watch the parley between Thurstane and the Apaches. She climbed into it
from a mound of disintegrated adobes, and stood there, pale, tremulous,
and breathless, her whole soul in her eyes.

Thurstane, walking his horse and making signs of amity with his cap, had
by this time reached the low bank of the rivulet, and halted within four
hundred yards of the savages. There had been a stir immediately on his
appearance: first one warrior and then another had mounted his pony; a
score of them were now prancing hither and thither. They had left their
lances stuck in the earth, but they still carried their bows and quivers.

When Clara first caught sight of Thurstane he was beckoning for one of the
Indians to approach. They responded by pointing to the summit of the hill,
as if signifying that they feared to expose themselves to rifle shot from
the ruins. He resumed his march, forded the shallow stream, and pushed on
two hundred yards.

"O Madre de Dios!" groaned Clara, falling into the language of her
childhood. "He is going clear up to them."

She was on the point of shrieking to him, but she saw that he was too far
off to hear her, and she remained silent, just staring and trembling.

Thurstane was now about two hundred yards from the Apaches. Except the
twenty who had first mounted, they were sitting on the ground or standing
by their ponies, every face set towards the solitary white man and every
figure as motionless as a statue. Those on horseback, moving slowly in
circles, were spreading out gradually on either side of the main body, but
not advancing. Presently a warrior in full Mexican costume, easily
recognizable as Manga Colorada himself, rode straight towards Thurstane
for a hundred yards, threw his bow and quiver ten feet from him,
dismounted and lifted both hands. The officer likewise lifted his hands,
to show that he too was without arms, moved forward to within thirty feet
of the Indian, and thence advanced on foot, leading his horse by the
bridle.

Clara perceived that the two men were conversing, and she began to hope
that all might go well, although her heart still beat suffocatingly. The
next moment she was almost paralyzed with horror. She saw Manga Colorada
spring at Thurstane; she saw his dark arms around him, the two interlaced
and reeling; she heard the triumphant yell of the Indian, and the response
of his fellows; she saw the officer's startled horse break loose and
prance away. In the same instant the mounted Apaches, sending forth their
war-whoop and unslinging their bows, charged at full speed toward the
combatants.

Thurstane had but five seconds in which to save his life. Had he been a
man of slight or even moderate physical and moral force, there would not
have been the slightest chance for him. But he was six feet high, broad in
the shoulders, limbed like a gladiator, solidified by hardships and
marches, accustomed to danger, never losing his head in it, and blessed
with lots of pugnacity. He was pinioned; but with one gigantic effort he
loosened the Indian's lean sinewy arms, and in the next breath he laid him
out with a blow worthy of Heenan.

Thurstane was free; now for his horse. The animal was frightened and
capering wildly; but he caught him and flung himself into the saddle
without minding stirrups; then he was riding for life. Before he had got
fairly under headway the foremost Apaches were within fifty paces of him,
yelling like demons and letting fly their arrows. But every weapon is
uncertain on horseback, and especially every missile weapon, the bow as
well as the rifle. Thus, although a score of shafts hissed by the
fugitive, he still kept his seat; and as his powerful beast soon began to
draw ahead of the Indian ponies, escape seemed probable.

He had, however, to run the gauntlet of another and even a greater peril.
In a crevice of the ruined wall which crested the hill crouched a pitiless
assassin and an almost unerring shot, waiting the right moment to send a
bullet through his head. Texas Smith did not like the job; but he had said
"You bet," and had thus pledged his honor to do the murder; and moreover,
he sadly wanted the five hundred dollars. If he could have managed it, he
would have preferred to get the officer and some "Injun" in a line, so as
to bring them down together. But that was hopeless; the fugitive was
increasing his lead; now was the time to fire--now or never.

When Clara beheld Manga Colorada seize Thurstane, she had turned
instinctively and leaped into the enclosure, with a feeling that, if she
did not see the tragedy, it would not be. In the next breath she was wild
to know what was passing, and to be as near to the officer and his perils
as possible. A little further along the wall was a fissure which was lower
and broader than the one she had just quitted. She had noticed it a minute
before, but had not gone to it because a man was there. Towards this man
she now rushed, calling out, "Oh, do save him!"

Her voice and the sound of her footsteps were alike drowned by a rattle of
musketry from other parts of the ruin. She reached the man and stood
behind him; it was Texas Smith, a being from whom she had hitherto shrunk
with instinctive aversion; but now he seemed to her a friend in extremity.
He was aiming; she glanced over his shoulder along the levelled rifle; in
one breath she saw Thurstane and saw that the weapon was pointed at _him_.
With a shriek she sprang forward against the kneeling assassin, and flung
him clean through the crevice upon the earth outside the wall, the rifle
exploding as he fell and sending its ball at random.

Texas Smith was stupefied and even profoundly disturbed. After rolling
over twice, he picked himself up, picked up his gun also, and while
hastily reloading it clambered back into his lair, more than ever
confounded at seeing no one. Clara, her exploit accomplished, had
instantly turned and fled along the course of the wall, not at all with
the idea of escaping from the bushwhacker, but merely to meet Thurstane.
She passed a dozen men, but not one of them saw her, they were all so busy
in popping away at the Apaches. Just as she reached the large gap in the
rampart, her hero cantered through it, erect, unhurt, rosy, handsome,
magnificent. The impassioned gesture of joy with which she welcomed him
was a something, a revelation perhaps, which the youngster saw and
understood afterwards better than he did then. For the present he merely
waved her towards the Casa, and then turned to take a hand in the
fighting.

But the fighting was over. Indeed the Apaches had stopped their pursuit as
soon as they found that the fugitive was beyond arrow shot, and were now
prancing slowly back to their bivouac. After one angry look at them from
the wall, Thurstane leaped down and ran after Clara.

"Oh!" she gasped, out of breath and almost faint. "Oh, how it has
frightened me!"

"And it was all of no use," he answered, passing her arm into his and
supporting her.

"No. Poor Pepita! Poor little Pepita! But oh, what an escape you had!"

"We can only hope that they will adopt her into the tribe," he said in
answer to the first phrase, while he timidly pressed her arm to thank her
for the second.

Coronado now came up, ignorant of Texas Smith's misadventure, and puzzled
at the escape of Thurstane, but as fluent and complimentary as usual.

"My dear Lieutenant! Language is below my feelings. I want to kneel down
and worship you. You ought to have a statue--yes, and an altar. If your
humanity has not been successful, it has been all the same glorious."

"Nonsense," answered Thurstane. "Every one of us has done well in his
turn! It was my tour of duty to-day. Don't praise me. I haven't
accomplished anything."

"Ah, the scoundrels!" declaimed Coronado. "How could they violate a truce!
It is unknown, unheard of. The miserable traitors! I wish you could have
killed Manga Colorada."

From this dialogue he hurried away to find and catechise Texas Smith. The
desperado told his story: "Jest got a bead on him--had him sure pop--never
see a squarer mark--when somebody mounted me--pitched me clean out of my
hole."

"Who?" demanded Coronado, a rim of white showing clear around his black
pupils.

"Dunno. Didn't see nobody. 'Fore I could reload and git in it was gone."

"What the devil did you stop to reload for?"

"Stranger, I _allays_ reload."

Coronado flinched under the word _stranger_ and the stare which
accompanied it.

"It was a woman's yell," continued Texas.

Coronado felt suddenly so weak that he sat down on a mouldering heap of
adobes. He thought of Clara; was it Clara? Jealous and terrified, he for
an instant, only for an instant, wished she were dead.

"See here," he said, when he had restrung his nerves a little. "We must
separate. If there is any trouble, call on me. I'll stand by you."

"I reckon you'd better," muttered Smith, looking at Coronado as if he were
already drawing a bead on him.

Without further talk they parted. The Texan went off to rub down his
horse, mend his accoutrements, squat around the cooking fires, and gamble
with the drivers. Perhaps he was just a bit more fastidious than usual
about having his weapons in perfect order and constantly handy; and
perhaps too he looked over his shoulder a little oftener than common while
at his work or his games; but on the whole he was a masterpiece of strong,
serene, ferocious self-possession. Coronado also, as unquiet at heart as
the devil, was outwardly as calm as Greek art. They were certainly a
couple of almost sublime scoundrels.

It was now nightfall; the day closed with extraordinary abruptness; the
sun went down as though he had been struck dead; it was like the fall of
an ox under the axe of the butcher. One minute he was shining with an
intolerable, feverish fervor, and the next he had vanished behind the
lofty ramparts of the plateau.

It was Sergeant Meyer's tour as officer of the day, and he had prepared
for the night with the thoroughness of an old soldier. The animals were
picketed in the innermost rooms of the Casa Grande, while the spare
baggage was neatly piled along the walls of the central apartment.
Thurstane's squad was quartered in one of the two outer rooms, and
Coronado's squad in the other, each man having his musket loaded and lying
beside him, with the butt at his feet and the muzzle pointing toward the
wall. One sentry was posted on the roof of the building, and one on the
ground twenty yards or so from its salient angle, while further away were
two fires which partially lighted up the great enclosure. The sergeant and
such of his men as were not on post slept or watched in the open air at
the corner of the Casa.

The night passed without attack or alarm. Apache scouts undoubtedly
prowled around the enclosure, and through its more distant shadows, noting
avenues and chances for forlorn hopes. But they were not ready as yet to
do any nocturnal spearing, and if ever Indians wanted a night's rest they
wanted it. The garrison was equally quiet. Texas Smith, too familiar with
ugly situations to lie awake when no good was to be got by it, chose his
corner, curled up in his blanket and slept the sleep of the just.
Overwhelming fatigue soon sent Coronado off in like manner. Clara, too;
she was querying how much she should tell Thurstane; all of a sudden she
was dreaming.

When broad daylight opened her eyes she was still lethargic and did not
know where she was. A stretch; a long wondering stare about her; then she
sprang up, ran to the edge of the roof, and looked over. There was
Thurstane, alive, taking off his hat to her and waving her back from the
brink. It was a second and more splendid sun-rising; and for a moment she
was full of happiness.

At dawn Meyer had turned out his squad, patrolled the enclosure, made sure
that no Indians were in or around it, and posted a single sentry on the
southeastern angle of the ruins, which commanded the whole of the little
plain. He discovered that the Apaches, fearful like all cavalry of a night
attack, had withdrawn to a spot more than a mile distant, and had taken
the precaution of securing their retreat by garrisoning the mouth of the
canon. Having made his dispositions and his reconnoissance, the sergeant
reported to Thurstane.

"Turn out the animals and let them pasture," said the officer, waking up
promptly to the situation, as a soldier learns to do. "How long will the
grass in the enclosure last them?"

"Not three days, Leftenant."

"To-morrow we will begin to pasture them on the slope. How about fishing?"

"I cannot zay, Leftenant."

"Take a look at the Buchanan boat and see if it can be put together. We
may find a chance to use it."

"Yes, Leftenant."

The Buchanan boat, invented by a United States officer whose name it
bears, is a sack of canvas with a frame of light sticks; when put together
it is about twelve feet long by five broad and three deep, and is capable
of sustaining a weight of two tons. Thurstane, thinking that he might have
rivers to cross in his explorations, had brought one of these coracles. At
present it was a bundle, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, and
forming the load of a single mule. Meyer got it out, bent it on to its
frame, and found it in good condition.

"Very good," said Thurstane. "Roll it up again and store it safely. We may
want it to-morrow."

Meantime Clara had thought out her problem. In her indignation at Texas
Smith she had contemplated denouncing him before the whole party, and had
found that she had not the courage. She had wanted to make a confidant of
her relative, and had decided that nothing could be more unwise. Aunt
Maria was good, but she lacked practical sense; even Clara, girl as she
was, could see the one fact as well as the other. Her final and sagacious
resolve was to tell the tale to Thurstane alone.

Mrs. Stanley, still jaded through with her forced march, fell asleep
immediately after breakfast. Clara went to the brink of the roof, caught
the officer's eye, and beckoned him to come to her.

"We must not be seen," she whispered when he was by her side. "Come inside
the tower. There has been something dreadful. I must tell you."

Then she narrated how she had surprised and interrupted Texas Smith in his
attempt at murder; for the time she was all Spanish in feeling, and told
the story with fervor, with passion; and the moment she had ended it she
began to cry. Thurstane was so overwhelmed by her emotion that he no more
thought of the danger which he had escaped than if it had been the buzzing
of a mosquito. He longed to comfort her; he dared to put his hand upon her
waist; rather, we should say, he could not help it. If she noticed it she
had no objection to it, for she did not move; but the strong and innocent
probability is that she really did not notice it.

"Oh, what can it mean?" she sobbed. "Why did he do it? What will you do?"

"Never mind," he said, his voice tender, his blue-black eyes full of love,
his whole face angelic with affection. "Don't be troubled. Don't be
anxious. I will do what is right. I will put him under arrest and try him,
if it seems best. But I don't want you to be troubled. It shall all come
out right. I mean to live till you are safe."

After a time he succeeded in soothing her, and then there came a moment in
which she seemed to perceive that his arm was around her waist, for she
drew a little away from him, coloring splendidly. But he had held her too
long to be able to let her go thus; he took her hands and looked in her
face with the solemnity of a love which pleads for life.

"Will you forgive me?" he murmured. "I must say it. I cannot help it. I
love you with all my soul. I dare not ask you to be my wife. I am not fit
for you. But have pity on me. I couldn't help telling you."

He just saw that she was not angry; yes, he was so shy and humble that he
could not see more; but that little glimpse of kindliness was enough to
lure him forward. On he went, hastily and stammeringly, like a man who has
but a moment in which to speak, only a moment before some everlasting
farewell.

"Oh, Miss Van Diemen! Is there--can there ever be--any hope for me?"

It was one of the questions which arise out of great abysses from men who
in their hopelessness still long for heaven. No prisoner at the bar,
faintly trusting that in the eyes of his judge he might find mercy, could
be more anxious than was Thurstane at that moment. The lover who does not
yet know that he will be loved is a figure of tragedy.




CHAPTER XXII.


Although Thurstane did not perceive it, his question was answered the
instant it was asked. The answer started like lightning from Clara's
heart, trembled through all her veins, flamed in her cheeks, and sparkled
in her eyes.

Such a moment of agitation and happiness she had never before known, and
had never supposed that she could know. It was altogether beyond her
control. She could have stopped her breathing ten times easier than she
could have quelled her terror and her joy. She was no more master of the
power and direction of her feelings, than the river below was master of
its speed and course. One of the mightiest of the instincts which rule the
human race had made her entirely its own. She was not herself; she was
Thurstane; she was love. The love incarnate is itself, and not the person
in whom it is embodied.

There was but one answer possible to Clara. Somehow, either by look or
word, she must say to Thurstane, "Yes." Prudential considerations might
come afterward--might come too late to be of use; no matter. The only
thing now to be done, the only thing which first or last must be done, the
only thing which fate insisted should be done, was to say "Yes."

It was said. Never mind how. Thurstane heard it and understood it. Clara
also heard it, as if it were not she who uttered it, but some overruling
power, or some inward possession, which spoke for her. She heard it and
she acquiesced in it. The matter was settled. Her destiny had been
pronounced. The man to whom her heart belonged had his due.

Clara passed through a minute which was in some respects like a lifetime,
and in some respects like a single second. It was crowded and encumbered
with emotions sufficient for years; it was the scholastic needle-point on
which stood a multitude of angels. It lasted, she could not say how long;
and then of a sudden she could hardly remember it. Hours afterwards she
had not fully disentangled from this minute and yet monstrous labyrinth a
clear recollection of what he had said and what she had answered. Only the
splendid exit of it was clear to her, and that was that she was his
affianced wife.

"But oh, my friend--one thing!" she whispered, when she had a little
regained her self-possession. "I must ask Munoz."

"Your grandfather? Yes."

"But what if he refuses?" she added, looking anxiously in his eyes. She
was beginning to lay her troubles on his shoulders, as if he were already
her husband.

"I will try to please him," replied the young fellow, gazing with almost
equal anxiety at her. It was the beautiful union of the man-soul and
woman-soul, asking courage and consolation the one of the other, and not
only asking but receiving.

"Oh! I think you must please him," said Clara, forgetting how Munoz had
driven out his daughter for marrying an American. "He can't help but like
you."

"God bless you, my darling!" whispered Thurstane, worshipping her for
worshipping him.

After a while Clara thought of Texas Smith, and shuddered out, "But oh,
how many dangers! Oh, my friend, how will you be safe?"

"Leave that to me," he replied, comprehending her at once. "I will take
care of that man."

"Do be prudent."

"I will. For _your_ sake, my dear child, I promise it. Well, now we must
part. I must rouse no suspicions."

"Yes. We must be prudent."

He was about to leave her when a new and terrible thought struck him, and
made him look at her as though they were about to part forever.

"If Munoz leaves you his fortune," he said firmly, "you shall be free."

She stared; after a moment she burst into a little laugh; then she shook
her finger in his face and said, blushing, "Yes, free to be--your wife."

He caught the finger, bent his head over it and kissed it, ready to cry
upon it. It was the only kiss that he had given her; and what a world-wide
event it was to both! Ah, these lovers! They find a universe where others
see only trifles; they are gifted with the second-sight and live amid
miracles.

"Do be careful, oh my dear friend!" was the last whisper of Clara as
Thurstane quitted the tower. Then she passed the day in ascending and
descending between heights of happiness and abysses of anxiety. Her
existence henceforward was a Jacob's ladder, which had its foot on a world
of crime and sorrow, and its top in heavens passing description.

As for Thurstane, he had to think and act, for something must be done with
Texas Smith. He queried whether the fellow might not have seen Clara when
she pushed him out of the crevice, and would not seize the first
opportunity to kill her. Angered by this supposition, he at first resolved
to seize him, charge him with his crime, and turn him loose in the desert
to take his chance among the Apaches. Then it occurred to him that it
might be possible to change this enemy into a partisan. While he was
pondering these matters his eye fell upon the man. His army habit of
authority and of butting straight at the face of danger immediately got
the better of his wish to manage the matter delicately, and made him
forget his promises to be prudent. Beckoning Texas to follow him, he
marched out of the plaza through the nearest gap, faced about upon his foe
with an imperious stare, and said abruptly, "My man, do you want to be
shot?"

Texas Smith had his revolver and long hunting-knife in his waist-belt. He
thought of drawing both at once and going at Thurstane, who was certainly
in no better state for battle, having only revolver and sabre. But the
chance of combat was even; the certainty of being slaughtered after it by
the soldiers was depressing; and, what was more immediately to the point,
he was cowed by that stare of habitual authority.

"Capm--I don't," he said, watching the officer with the eye of a lynx,
for, however unwilling to fight as things were, he meant to defend
himself.

"Because I could have you set up by my sergeant and executed by my
privates," continued Thurstane.

"Capm, I reckon you're sound there," admitted Texas, with a slight flinch
in his manner.

"Now, then, do you want to fight a duel?" broke out the angry youngster,
his pugnacity thoroughly getting the better of his wisdom. "We both have
pistols."

"Capm," said the bravo, and then came to a pause--"Capm, I ain't a
gentleman," he resumed, with the sulky humility of a bulldog who is beaten
by his master. "I own up to it, Capm. I ain't a gentleman."

He was a "poor white" by birth; he remembered still the "high-toned
gentlemen" who used to overawe his childhood; he recognized in Thurstane
that unforgotten air of domination, and he was thoroughly daunted by it.
Moreover, there was his acquired and very rational fear of the army--a
fear which had considerably increased upon him since he had joined this
expedition, for he had noted carefully the disciplined obedience of the
little squad of regulars, and had been much struck with its obvious
potency for offence and defence.

"You won't fight?" said the officer. "Well, then, will you stop hunting
me?"

"Capm, I'll go that much."

"Will you pledge yourself not to harm any one in this party, man or
woman?"

"I'll go that much, too."

"I don't want to get any tales out of you. You can keep your secrets. Damn
your secrets!"

"Capm, you're jest the whitest man I ever see."

"Will you pledge yourself to keep dark about this talk that we've had?"

"You bet!" replied Texas Smith, with an indescribable air of humiliation.
"I'm outbragged. I shan't tell of it."

"I shall give orders to my men. If anything queer happens, you won't live
the day out."

"The keerds is stocked agin me, Capm. I pass. You kin play it alone."

"Now, then, walk back to the Casa, and keep quiet during the rest of this
journey."

The most humbled bushwhacker and cutthroat between the two oceans, Texas
Smith stepped out in front of Thurstane and returned to the cooking-fire,
not quite certain as he marched that he would not get a pistol-ball in the
back of his head, but showing no emotion in his swarthy, sallow, haggard
countenance.

Although Thurstane trusted that danger from that quarter was over, he
nevertheless called Meyer aside and muttered to him, "Sergeant, I have
some confidential orders for you. If murder happens to me, or to any other
person in this party, have that Texan shot immediately."

"I will addend to it, Leftenant," replied Meyer with perfect calmness and
with his mechanical salute.

"You may give Kelly the same instructions, confidentially."

"Yes, Leftenant."

Texas Smith, fifteen or twenty yards away, watched this dialogue with an
interest which even his Indian-like stoicism could hardly conceal. When
the sergeant returned to the cooking-fire, he gave him a glance which was
at once watchful and deprecatory, made place for him to sit down on a junk
of adobe, and offered him a corn-shuck cigarito. Meyer took it, saying,
"Thank you, Schmidt," and the two smoked in apparently amicable silence.

Nevertheless, Texas knew that his doom was sealed if murder should occur
in the expedition; for, as to the protection of Coronado, he did not
believe that that could avail against the uniform; and as to finding
safety in flight, the cards there were evidently "stocked agin him."
Indeed, what had quelled him more than anything else was the fear lest he
should be driven out to take his luck among the Apaches. Suppose that
Thurstane had taken a fancy to swap him for that girl Pepita? What a
bright and cheerful fire there would have been for him before sundown! How
thoroughly the skin would have been peeled off his muscles! What neat
carving at his finger joints and toe joints! Coarse, unimaginative,
hardened, and beastly as Texas Smith was, his flesh crawled a little at
the thought of it. Presently it struck him that he had better do something
to propitiate a man who could send him to encounter such a fate.

"Sergeant," he said in his harsh, hollow croak of a voice.

"Well, Schmidt?"

"Them creeturs oughter browse outside."

"So. You are right, Schmidt."

"If the Capm'll let me have three good men, I'll take 'em out."

Meyer's light-blue eyes, twinkling from under his sandy eyelashes, studied
the face of the outlaw.

"I should zay it was a goot blan, Schmidt," he decided. "I'll mention it
to the leftenant."

Thurstane, on being consulted, gave his consent. Meyer detailed Shubert
and two of the Mexican cattle-drivers to report to Smith for duty. The
Texan mounted his men on horses, separated one-third of the mules from the
others, drove them out of the enclosure, and left them on the green
hillside, while he pushed on a quarter of a mile into the plain and formed
his line of four skirmishers. When a few of the Apaches approached to see
what was going on, he levelled his rifle, knocked over one of the horses,
and sent the rest off capering. After four or five hours he drove in his
mules and took out another set. The Indians could only interrupt his
pastoral labors by making a general charge; and that would expose them to
a fire from the ruin, against which they could not retaliate. They thought
it wise to make no trouble, and all day the foraging went on in peace.

Peace everywhere. Inside the fortress sleeping, cooking, mending of
equipments, and cleaning of arms. Over the plain mustangs filling
themselves with grass and warriors searching for roots. Not a movement
worth heeding was made by the Apaches until the herders drove in their
first relay of mules, when a dozen hungry braves lassoed the horse which
Smith had shot, dragged him away to a safe distance, and proceeded to cut
him up into steaks. On seeing this, the Texan cursed himself to all the
hells that were known to him.

"It's the last time they'll catch me butcherin' for 'em," he growled. "If
I can't hit a man, I won't shute."

One more night in the Casa de Montezuma, with Thurstane for officer of the
guard. His arrangements were like Meyer's: the animals in the rear rooms
of the Casa; Coronado's squad in one of the outer rooms, and Meyer's in
the other; a sentry on the roof, and another in the plaza. The only change
was that, owing to scarcity of fuel, no watch-fires were built. As
Thurstane expected an attack, and as Indian assaults usually take place
just before daybreak, he chose the first half of the night for his tour of
sleep. At one he was awakened by Sweeny, who was sergeant of his squad,
Kelly being with Meyer and Shubert with Coronado.

"Well, Sweeny, anything stirring?" he asked.

"Divil a stir, Liftinant."

"Did nothing happen during your guard?"

"Liftinant," replied Sweeny, searching his memory for an incident which
should prove his watchfulness--"the moon went down."

"I hope you didn't interfere."

"Liftinant, I thought it was none o' my bizniss."

"Send a man to relieve the sentry on the roof, and let him come down
here."

"I done it, Liftinant, before I throubled ye. Where shall we slape? Jist
by the corner here?"

"No. I'll change that. Two just inside of one doorway and two inside the
other. I'll stay at the angle myself."

Three hours passed as quietly as the wool-clad footsteps of the Grecian
Fate. Then, stealing through the profound darkness, came the faintest
rustle imaginable. It was not the noise of feet, but rather that of bodies
slowly dragging through herbage, as if men were crawling or rolling toward
the Casa. Thurstane, not quite sure of his hearing, and unwilling to
disturb the garrison without cause, cocked his revolver and listened
intently.

Suddenly the sentry in the plaza fired, and, rushing in upon him, fell
motionless at his feet, while the air was filled in an instant with the
whistling of arrows, the trampling of running men, and the horrible
quavering of the war-whoop.




CHAPTER XXIII.